The political parties in the state barely compete with each other at all on issues that matter to the voters but compete with the utmost intensity on the issues that matter to an elitist group of NGOs and lobby groups.
Much of the coverage of the plan has been demented. But note what’s been absent: Any better idea.
“Justice”, in this Ireland, is not about anything hard and severe like sending people to prison or cracking down on lawlessness.
He’s on course to get a historic kicking.
It is a statement of fact that every time an immigrant commits a crime in Ireland, immigration policy is a factor.
They’re still going to slice open your wallet. They’re just going to give you an injection, first, so you don’t feel it.
Politicians who are demanding a new category of offence on foot of these crimes are not legislating sensibly.
If the war on crime has gotten to this stage, it suggests that the Irish strategy to fight it simply isn’t working.
Are there, in fact, legions of millennials in Ireland just waiting to flock back through the doors of churches at unreasonably early hours on a Sunday morning to have their communion and listen to sermons, just as soon as Pope Francis announces that he will permit the blessing of same sex marriages?
The modern western ruling class has a very narrow range of lifestyles and opinions that it truly considers acceptable, even as it proclaims itself inclusive.
The problem here, he says, is that there was a lack of “transparency from the outset”.
There is no good reason why public servants should not be sackable on the grounds of incompetence, or under-performance.