The Campaign is chaired by Former Supreme Court Justice Catherine McGuinness. Its board also contains some influential people, including Fergus Finlay of Barnardos and Olivia O’Leary.

The Campaign raises very important issues and more importantly has suggestions to how they should be solved.

This organisation will most likely play a leading role in any referendum campaign on Children’s Rights.

So head along and find out more about the campaign.

More info

• Website: http://www.campaignforchildren.ie
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CampaignforChildren
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/YesForChildren

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

A lot has been posted about Mitt Romney’s win of the Straw Poll at the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday night. While he beat Rick Santorum by 8 votes, how many of his supporters stuck around to be voted as Delegates to the County Caucus, which in turn selects Delegates to the State Caucus which decides on who will get the support of the Iowa Delegates at the Republican Convention.

It is well known that Ron Paul (who came third) supporters were being told to stick around after the vote so therefore, he may actually do quite well on delegates here, if he manages to win a few a states.

The one good thing to come from the Iowa Caucus was the withdrawal of Michelle Bachmann. This narrows down the field of potential nominees, which is what these early contests are all about.

Remaining in contention now for the Rebublican Nominee are:

• Newt Gingrich
• Jon Huntsman
• Ron Paul
• Rick Perry
• Mitt Romney
• Rick Santorum

New Hampshire Primary is the next Tuesday  and will be interesting as Jon Huntsman completely ignored Iowa so that he could concentrate on New Hampshire. If this is a good idea is hard to tell as New Hampshire only has 12 delegates to commit in comparison to Iowa’s 28 has due to New Hampshire breaking party rules on Primary dates and receiving a 50% reduction in delegates.

For a full list of delegate numbers see thegreenpapers.com

Its still a long road to the Convention in Tampa, Florida in August.

Related articles

• New Hampshire Polls: Will We See An Iowa Bump? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Santorum To Collapse (lewrockwell.com)
• Iowa Caucus Results (pinkbananaworld.com)

For Part 1 see here

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan TD today announced the rest of Budget 2012. The main points are as follows:

• VAT: Raised by 2% to 23%
• 1.4c increase on Petrol
• 1.6c increase on Diesel
• €17.32 increase on Fuel Oil (to rise in May)
• €14.46 increase on Natural Gas (to rise in May)
• No Carbon Tax on solid fuels
• 25c increase on pack of 20 Cigarettes
• Capital Acquisitions Tax: Up from 25% to 30%
• Capital Gains Tax: Up from 25% to 30%
• DIRT: Up from 27% to 30%
• Corporate Tax Rate: To remain at 12.5%

This side of budget seems a bit more balanced in comparison to yesterdays cuts. While the 2% rise in VAT will hit the price of everything (including Alcohol, Cigarettes and fuel) it is the only swinging tax announced.

The Household Charge being introduced ahead of a Property Tax can be paid in instalments, so that should lessen its impact. Also the rising of the threshold on the Universal Social Charge takes the low paid out of the Tax Net which is a good thing.

Some of the cuts yesterday still leave some bitter taste. But only time will tell if the right medicine is being given to Irish economy.

Further Reading:

• Budget 2012 (budget.gov.ie)
• Budget Information (www.revenue.ie)
• Budget 2012 Day 2 Keypoints (RTE.ie)
• Budget Day 2 – The Main Points (theJournal.ie)

Related articles

• Budget 2012: Howlin kicks off two-day cuts and taxes plan (independent.ie)

Image via Wikipedia

Today we got a look at the first part of Budget 2012 . Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin today announced a series of measures that add up to the €2.2bn in cuts.

The main points that I took from today’s announcements:

• Government will reduce the size of the public service to 282,500 by end 2015
• €250 added to the Student Registration Fee
• Student Support funding cut by 14%
• Student Maintenance Grant cut by 3%
• No new post Graduate Maintenance Grants
• Community Employment Scheme: The training and materials grant will reduce from €1,500 to €500 per participant per annum
• Disability Allowance Cut to €0 for those aged 16 and 17
• Disability Allowance for under 25s cut from €188 to €100 if under 21 and €144 if under 24. Now same as jobseekers allowance
• Drugs Payment Scheme increased to €132
• The frequency of the grant for hearing aids will change from 2 years to 4 years.
• Winter Fuel Allowance reduced to 26 weeks from 32

There are plenty of other cuts and changes announced, see the links at the end for them all.

To me what stands out from this budget is the Disabled. Above I highlighted the cuts to young people with Disabilities, but on top of that there are cuts to the Equality Tribunal, Equality Authority and the Budget for Equality Proofing is completely gone. This is not how we are going to look after people in our society and allow them to live their lives with dignity.

The cuts also focus on students with an increase in Registration fees and grant cuts. We cannot tax our way out of the recession but we do need a knowledge economy we we want to get out the recession so cuts in Education make very little sense.

In these times it is understandable that the Government faces tough choices, and these cuts were probably hard to make. No one is ever 100% happy we a budget, and very few people will be close to that after today’s announcement. But as An Taoiseach warned us in his National Address, these are tough times and tough measures are needed, but they too need to be balanced. The problem with the cuts announced today is that these same people will be hit tomorrow in any announcement of an increase in indirect taxation, especially a VAT rise.

The Minister for Finance will deliver his Budget statement at 3:45pm tomorrow.

Further Reading:

• Budget 2012 (Budget.gov.ie)
• Budget 2012 Welfare Fact Sheet (Welfare.ie)
• Budget 2012 Summary (Citizensinformation.ie)
• Budget 2012 (pt 1): the main points of Brendan Howlin’s announcement (thejournal.ie)

Related articles

• Budget cuts announced in Republic (bbc.co.uk)
• Taoiseach’s ‘State of the Nation’ Address – “Difficult choices are never easy” (irishelection.com)
• Living beyond our means (irishexaminer.com)

Wave Change Participants

Over the 12th and 13th of November I spent time in the Cork School Music on the Wave Change  programme from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland which I blogged about here. Over the two days there were speakers, such as Bill Liao and Myles McCorry of Bike Pure.

We also had workshops on online and offline communication as well as some activities to get us thinking and learning about our skills.

There was also a great opportunity to brain storm our ideas and help each other with our projects. A lot was learned during these sessions!

The weekend was extremely enjoyable and the fact that everyone there was there to take part and learn meant that we all took something from the weekend.

This weekend sees the Dublin weekend happens and in Galway on the 21st and 22nd of January.

He has resigned over the issue of the closure of Columb Barracks in Mullingar which is within his constituency.

He has issued this statement (from Politics.ie

)

It was regret that I tendered my resignation as Minister of State at the Dept of the Environment today.

Over recent weeks and months, I had made my clear unstinting opposition to proposals to close Columb Barracks in Mullingar, so arising from a decision that was made at cabinet today, I had no alternative but to take this course of action.

I fully appreciate that difficult decisions have to be made by the Govt if we are to get out of the economic mess in which we have found ourselves, but I was not prepared to stand over a decision that was not backed up by the facts and figures.

In the context of collective cabinet responsibility, and given my vociferous opposition to this proposal, I could not continue in Govt, and so have tendered my resignation to the Tanaiste, the Taoiseach and the Labour Whip.

I understand and appreciate that significant efforts were made by my Labour colleagues in Govt, who fully understood the depths of my feelings in this regard, to resolve this matter, but to no avail.

While I will no longer hold the Labour whip, I will continue to serve the people of Longford Westmeath as an active and vocal public representative.

While this will not make much of an difference to Government numbers, it may be a wake up call to Labour Ministers that at the end of the day its their constituencies that matter and with €3.8bn worth of cuts to come, it will be a hard time for them at home.

Image via Wikipedia

A group of nine Spanish Bloggers have come together and written a Manifesto on things to improve Europe. There isn’t any political slant to this apart from trying to improve democracy within the European Union and improve the EU itself.  Some other bloggers and tweeters are getting behind this.

The Manifesto is in English below, but the Manifesto is translated into other languages on the website for the campaign.

Some good ideas in this, especially single European Seat and of course an elected Commission President. Lend your support to this campaign by signing up here

Also follow the campaign on Twitter and Facebook!

Moreurope Statement on Scribd

Image via Wikipedia

Tonight at midnight Mary McAleese finishes her Presidency after 14 years as President of the Republic of Ireland. While I do not remember much of her election or the campaign preceding it, I do have a memory of much of her years as President as I was 11 when she was elected and have grown a lot since!

I have lots of memories of President McAleese, from her national address the  day after the September 11th attacks to the visit of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II this year. But I have a personal memory of President McAleese which I will always treasure.

During my time a s a Scout Leader, President McAleese paid a visit to the Family Resource Centre in Togher. It was an emotional and exciting day for the centre as the woman who was in charge had grown up in the same area as President McAleese and was overjoyed at the visit. President McAleese spoke will and with conviction and she received a massive applause.

My great memory though is when she was leaving I was given command of the Guard of Honour being given by the 37th Togher, my unit and the local Guides Group. After giving the commands the President thanked me. She was so genuine and it is a moment I always treasure.

President McAleese has served this country well and she can look back on the last 14 years  with much pride. I wish her and her family all the best in the future.

Image by Fantake via Flickr

On Morning Ireland this morning Fianna Fail TD Dara Callaery suggested that the Government had a series of referendums planned for next year. The question is what will these be on?

Two we know of. They are the long awaited Children’s Rights Referendum and of course a referendum to abolish Seanad Eireann. But what else can we expect?

I asked for suggestions on Facebook and Twitter. There was some interesting answers.

Most people wanted a Children’s Rights Referendum but some other ideas also.

A referendum on Abortion was suggested. This could be two ways, one to allow it, or two to bring Ireland into line with ECHR ruling in ABC V Ireland and the X Case.

Another suggestion was to reform the Presidency. Reduce the age limit and the term of office.

Also suggested was removing all mentions of God from the Constitution.

A look again at Oireachtas Investigative Powers was also suggested.

So what do you want a referendum on?

Related articles

• Oireachtas Powers Referendum deserved to be defeated (irishelection.com)
• Blame game (irishexaminer.com)
• The Forgotten Referendums? (stephenspillane.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s vote at UNESCO’s General Conference on full membership for Palestine gives an idea of how a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote could go if the membership bid gets that far. More worrying for me is the complete split among European Union member states showing the failure of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

The application for membership was accepted by 107 Yes votes to 14 No votes with 52 Abstentions. The EU was split as follows;

Countries voting YES:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Cyprus
• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Ireland
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Slovenia
• Spain

Countries voting NO:

• Czech Republic
• Germany
• Lithuania
• Netherlands
• Sweden

Countries who Abstained:

• Bulgaria
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Hungary
• Italy
• Latvia
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• United Kingdom

So that meant the EU split 11 Yes, 5 No and 11 Abstentions. Some Common policy there?

The question of Palestinian membership of the United Nations is going to be a long protracted one as long as the United States is threatening the use of the Veto on the UN Security Council. This is holding up a vote in the UNGA on Palestine’s membership. But at least now the Palestinians have an idea of the amount of support they have within the UN System.

Of course the fallout of this vote will not show in the EU’s CFSP and will be ignored. But the big fallout will either be the US withholding funding from UNESCO or withdrawing from the organisation completely.

For now though the idea of a Common Foreign Policy is a long way off, and today’s vote proves that.

Addendum

The applicant Countires to the EU voted as follows:

• Croatia: ABSTAINED
• FYR Macedonia: ABSTAINED
• Turkey: YES
• Iceland: YES

The potential Candidate Countries voted as follows:

• Albania: ABSTAINED
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: ABSTAINED
• Kosovo: Not a member
• Montenegro: ABSTAINED
• Serbia: YES

To see a full list of how countries voted check out the post on

The Human Province

Related articles

• Unesco grants Palestine full membership (guardian.co.uk)