Taoiseach Brian COWEN, Fredrik REINFELDT, President of the European Council, and José Manuel BARROSO, European Commission President and others I am writing to urge you to do all that you can to ensure the crucial EU Council meetings at the end of October deliver clear EU commitments to deal with climate change. These must put the needs of the world’s poorest people – who are being hit first and worst by climate change, but who are least responsible for...
October 24th is a world wide day of action on Climate Change being organised by 350.org. Why are they doing this? Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. They are focusing in on the parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere. So why a day of action? In order to unite the public, media, and our political...
Image via Wikipedia Last night the at the Fine Gael Presidential Dinner, Enda Kenny announced the following: I believe the Seanad should be abolished and the next Fine Gael Government will put this to the people. I have come to the conclusion that a second house of the Oireachtas can no longer be justified. In abolishing Seanad Eireann, I have examined the outcome of similar decisions in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand. Our two-house Oireachtas is...
I wasn’t actually going to blog about that Jan Moir article in the UK Daily Mail (they had more sense not to publish in the Irish version) but a statement released by Jan Moir claims that we are all over reacting and there is a ‘heavily orchestrated internet campaign‘ against her. (Link via @Glinner) It is amazing that someone with views like that are allowed print them. It is crazy and it is offensive. To be honest, I wasn’t...
Last night I attended the GLEN briefing on the Civil Partnership Bill, hosted by the Cork Gay Project and L.inc. It was a very interesting meeting and I certainly learned a lot! We were given a 3 booklets on the Bill and I am currently working my way through them and they are fascinating. The speakers were Eoin Collins, Director of Policy Change at Glen and Dr Fergus Ryan, head of Law at DIT. A few things struck me...
Via GayCork.com GLEN (Gay & Lesbian Equality Network) is coming to Cork. WHAT IS IN THE CIVIL PARTNERSHIP BILL?? Information Event! “Informing The Debate On Legal Recognition” Cork Gay Project & L.inC are hosting an information session on the Civil Partnership Bill. Date: Thursday 15th October Venue: Cork Gay Project, 8 North Mall Time: 7pm Contact: Cork Gay Project on 021-4304884 or L.inC on 021-4808600 THIS IS AN OPEN EVENT TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. www.glen.ie I’m thinking...
As you all know, I am blogging in the thinkaboutit.eu competition on Climate Change, well during the course of wandering through facebook, I came across a link to a BBC article (via Sam Bowman, thank you!) about how Global Temperatures are cooling. Now this kind of goes against alot of what I was told in Copenhagen and from what a lot of books tell us about Climate Change and Global Warming. So I am utterly confused. Do we have...
So the Ceann Comhairle, John O’Donoghue is to resign next week. He has been under huge pressure to resign following the revelations of his use of expenses. But is he only the top of the ice berg? Are other Ministers (current and former) even worse? Or does this waste at the top go all the way down to backbench TD’s and Senators. Who ever takes over as Ceann Comhairle must have the backing from across the house. That means...
I am delighted, I am ecstatic, I am over the moon!!! The result today is unbelievable. At the start of the campaign, I said it could be a 60-40 yes vote if we worked hard. Last week I would have said 55-45 would be the best we could hope for! To see the result today was just amazing. Thank you everyone who voted Yes. Thank you to everyone in all the Yes Groups who campaigned. Thank you to everyone...
Zero Tolerence?
Image via Wikipedia As most of ye are most likely aware there is a debate going on with the Fianna Fail Parliamentry Party on whether or not to lower the blood alcohol level for drink driving from 80mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood to 50mg. These are often reffered to as 0.8 and 0.5 limits Now the way it is at the moment you can basically have one pint or one unit of alcohol and still pass a...
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