You can help create jobs in Ireland and earn a tidy sum doing so

Connect Ireland founder Terry Clune

So you're enjoying your hot dog at the annual 4th of July barbecue organized by your neighborhood when your heart sinks because your annoying neighbor Bob spots you and heads over to talk. Last year he cornered you for 15 of the longest minutes of your life and here he comes again.

Bob's a braggard. He loves to tell you how great his life is; how great his job is; how great the company he works for is. You're barely listening when Bob says something that causes your ears to prick up. You ask him to repeat himself and you hear, "Yeah things are going so well that the rumor is we're going to be looking expand overseas."

There it is. "Expand overseas." You know Bob has told you before what his company does, but you never paid attention. Now you're interested and you casually learn what they do - they produce medical devices - and you get a few other details about the company's size and management structure.

You endure a few more minutes then you make your excuses and walk away from Bob, whip out your phone and save a few notes for later. Why? Because Bob's bragging might well earn you some easy money.
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Connect Ireland is a new Irish government initiative designed to help drive jobs to Ireland. If you are the first to register Bob's company on the Connect Ireland web site you'll be in line to get a payment from Connect Ireland if the company locates some jobs in Ireland.

It really is that easy. Most of the work will be done by the Irish government agencies. They're really only asking you to tip them off. If you hear a rumor about a company expanding or just relocating, let them know. That's your part done. It's their job to actually sell Ireland as a base to Bob's company.

When Bob's company decides to open a small plant in Cork employing 35 people you'll get a nice reward. For your "trouble" the Irish government will pay you €750 for each of those 35 people working in the plant 12 months after opening. That's €26,250 ($33,000) for enduring Bob's bragging for 15 minutes. That's great, but it's not the best part. The best part is they'll send you another €26,250 ($33K) if those 35 jobs still exist a year later. That's a €52,500 ($66K) pay-off for 15 minutes of suffering.

So get started today. Register with Connect Ireland and then keep your ears open this summer. You don't know what you might hear from your annoying neighbor at the barbecue or your son's friend's mother at the local pool or even from that father who never stops yellling at his son at the ball field. People love to talk about their work and it might well pay for you to listen.

{Photo from SligoToday.ie}

The crisis in Europe is thanks to Europe's "betters"

John Bruton, former Prime Minister of Ireland

John Bruton, ex-Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and ex-EU Ambassador to the United States and unwavering EU enthusiast is worried, really worried. Bruton fears that "we could lose, in five months, something it took over 50 years to create."

Bruton is right, but if "we" do lose the 'European dream' it will be because "we" didn't create it; "they" did. The European Union as it exists today is a construct of people like Bruton drawn from all over Europe. People who turned a free trade area into an unaccountable, undemocratic superstate that neither sought nor wanted a mandate from the people of Europe.
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It didn't have to be this way. The EU as it was originally constructed was a loose confederation of democratic states. Then, just as the future for democracy in Europe looked brightest with the fall of the Soviet Union, Europe's elite decided it was time to go for broke and launch the superstate of their dreams.

From there groupthink took over as the various national leaders bureaucratic chieftains in Brussels convinced each other that they were going in the right direction, that all would be well.

A series of agreements between 1992 and 2007 enhanced the power of Brussels at the expense of the national governments, the biggest being the single currency. There was a mad rush to get a new agreement before the previous changes had time to settle. All the while the people of Europe, or rather the peoples of Europe, were dragged along, unconsulted.

Now it's all hitting the fan. The Europhiles are discovering that the disparate peoples of Europe, with their different histories and cultures and distinctive national views on money and economics, have contradictory expectations of what should be done in the current crisis.

The tensions are pulling the EU apart. It's hard to imagine the EU would survive if the euro disintegrated. While we're still a long way from war, it's no longer an impossibility.

It's no wonder Bruton and his like are worried. They did this. It's their fault. There was no need to rush, no need to put at risk the nascent unity of the people of Europe. The cause of European unity and peace and prosperity would have been better served if the political elite had worked on getting the people of Europe to buy into their dream, to unifying them.

It didn't happen. Europeans are much happier to defer to their "betters" than are Americans and their "betters" are used to be deferred to. Unfortunately, the "betters" have got it wrong.

They built a massive structure on a foundation of sand and it's falling down. The "betters" are now pursuing the only option open to them - trying to spoof us into believing that they know what they're doing and all will be well. They don't and it won't.

{Picture from SligoToday.ie}

Ireland and the EU Fiscal Treaty - it cannot be 'No' this time

Declan Ganley - bogeyman of Irish politics & a leading
'No' campaigner on EU Fiscal Stability Treaty.  

Europe is in turmoil. Greece is heading for an ugly exit from the Euro, possibly from the European Union itself. The big European powers are at loggerheads as to how to solve Europe's massive problems and in the midst of all this the Irish people will be going to the polls on May 31 to vote on the EU Fiscal Stability Treaty.

The 'Yes' side is desperate for us to approve the Treaty. They're pleading; they're threatening. The Treaty is about "jobs;" it's about "stability." A 'No' will mean Ireland will be denied all access to credit (ie money) and we'll be kicked out of the euro. Basically they're saying that if we don't agree to the terms on the table our European "partners" will leave us battered, bleeding and slumped over in the corner.

The problem for the 'Yes' folks is that we've heard all of their positive gloop about jobs before. Nobody's buying it this time. The Irish people have finally and thoroughly removed the wool from their eyes: we were sold a pig in a poke starting with the Maastricht Treaty when we voted to join a currency we had no business joining. The Europhiles led us into this mess. Nothing positive they say now has any meaning. As for the menacing, negative stuff, well ... more on that in a minute.

The 'No' folks are the usual hodgepodge group of socialists, nationalists and others who are just fed up with the never ceasing centralizing of power in Brussels, outsiders all of them. In the Dáil (parliament) they comprise no more than 20% of the elected representatives, but when it comes to the EU they represent a far greater percentage of the electorate.
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The most "unofficial" leader of the 'No' campaign is businessman Declan Ganley. If anyone in Irish politics can be called a bogeyman, it's Ganley. He's scorned by the left - his allies in these treaty referendums - and he's scorned by the center and pro-EU right.

One reason Ganley is so distrusted and disliked by so many, is that he appeals to a large segment of the population and he never fails to turn up when it's EU referendum time. He never takes the unthinking 'Yes' for an answer.

Ganley is not among the group generally called "Euroskeptics," but rather he's a Euroidealist. Ganley believes in a federal Europe with democratic institutions. Ganley wants the Irish people to reject this treaty because it doesn't solve the serious economic problems we in Ireland and people across Europe face now and it doesn't address the democratic deficit at the heart of the European Union.

Ganley's right, of course, but he's also wrong. It's too late. The EU is doomed and voting 'No' in the hope that this is going to trigger the change Ganley hopes for is just pie-in-the-sky thinking. There is no appetite for a new EU, although it's badly needed. Those who founded the United States had the sense to revisit the Articles of Confederation and draft a new Constitution, but they didn't wait for 25 years to realize the error of their first attempt. The EU has waited too long and the Germans and other creditors have too much to lose fixing it now.

All of which brings me back to the menacing, negative stuff that is bubbling up in Brussels, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe. Ganley says voting 'Yes' is like buying a ticket on the Titanic. He's wrong about that. We're already on the Titanic. The only hope now is that sucking up to those who control the lifeboats will work in our favor when we hit the iceberg. Voting 'No' will not endear us to those people.

In the past when we voted 'No' to EU treaties we were told to go try again, like the Irish people were disobedient children being asked to leave the room and come back to the table in a mannerly fashion. That will almost certainly not be the case this time. This time we can't stop the Treaty, so if we vote 'No' it will only affect us. We may well be taught a serious lesson by those who now control the purse strings here. They may well tell us to leave the table, go to our room and not return.

I love the idea of voting 'No' and toughing it out, but we're in a very weak position right now. If we were actually cut loose by those calling the shots in the EU the hardships we currently face would seem as nothing. Civil disorder or mass emigration are possible in such a scenario.

If this were 1999 when we were riding high I'd be all in favor of telling the EU leaders where to get off. I've only once before supported a 'Yes' in an EU treaty referendum. I won't be voting 'No' this time, however. I'm definitely not in the 'Yes' camp either, but I am in the 'Not No' camp.

{Photo thanks to Independent.ie}

Censored – the Catholic Church's clunky attempt at keeping Fr Brian D'Arcy 'on message'

Fr. Brian D'Arcy, censured by the Vatican
for his newspaper columns.

Popular Irish priest Fr Brian D'Arcy has been censured by the Vatican. Or, as the Irish media tells us, Fr D'Arcy has been muzzled, silenced. One columnist even referred to the Vatican "bullyboys" giving Fr D'Arcy the "mafioso treatment." The Irish media can be a tad emotional at times.

Fr. D'Arcy was censured, apparently, for articles he wrote for the Sunday World newspaper in 2010. Fr. D'Arcy has been a weekly columnist for the paper since 1976. He is also has a regular slot on BBC Ulster radio and a regular contributor on other Irish radio and television stations. The Irish media can rely on Fr. D'Arcy to tweak the hierarchy whenever the opportunity arises and he's generally described as a "liberal priest."

Fr. D'Arcy is more than just a media darling, he is also a member of the National Union of Journalists, as I learned over the weekend. One outraged journalist's tweets seemed to indicate that the Church was not entitled to censure Fr. D'Arcy seeing as he is a member of the union.

I find that last tidbit more than a little odd. Why is a Catholic priest a member of labor union? After all, his primary occupation, the job that puts food on his table, is his position as a priest. He is also a member of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland.
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I know being a priest is not like working for a bank or a software development company or a professional sports team, but nonetheless in a practical sense the Church is an organization with employees and a mission just as banks, software developers and sports teams are. Do they have employees who are members of the National Union of Journalists?

All of those employers have employees who deal with the press. Banks, software developers and sports teams have official spokesmen, who provide the 'voice of the organization,' but they also have employees who offer opinions on what is going on in their business or even the wider world.

For example, you'll often hear a bank employee on the radio talking about the economy or the industry. Some bank employees write regular columns in newspapers. Software development personnel seemed to be asked regularly for their views on education. Members of professional sports teams are all available to the media for comment on their own play, sometimes on the trends in the game and occasionally on issues that have nothing to do with sports. Again, are any of these people members of the NUJ as well? I doubt it.

All these people – the banker, the software developer, the athlete – all write or comment under a censor of some sort. They all know there is a line that their employers won't let them cross.

So while a bank's investment manager might discuss the workings of his industry, he almost certainly will not discuss what his bosses are doing wrong. Same goes for software developers and even star athletes, although the big stars are often given a lot of leeway due to the uniqueness of their talents. Yet even big names can be reined in, sometimes even for saying something about the wider world that interferes with the employer's "message." (See Ozzie Guillen for a recent example.)

Message. That's one of our modern day buzzwords. You gotta stay on 'message.' The bank, the software company, even the professional sports team all want to "stay on message." So does the Catholic Church.

Fr. D'Arcy wasn't staying on message. In fact, he's made a habit of calling into question the management of the organization he works for and even the "product" they're selling, if you can forgive my crudeness. So the Church reprimanded him. They didn't silence him. They told him he can go on writing his column and doing his piece on the BBC, but his media work has to be run past a Church censor; they want to make sure he  stays on message or at least does not go too far off message.

Is this a good idea? Will censuring and censoring Fr D'Arcy work for the Church? I don't know, but I'm skeptical.

Fr. D'Arcy is not my cup of tea, but he doesn't shock me. Ever. In fact, I hardly listen to him when I hear him on the radio because he's always saying the same thing. He never surprises. I doubt anyone in Ireland is ever surprised by Fr. D'Arcy. Therefore, it seems to me censuring Fr. D'Arcy will accomplish little other than providing  succor to those who love bashing the Church – and they've had lots of that lately. I can see no real up-side to this.

On the other hand, in this internet age, it's possible Fr. D'Arcy's newspaper columns and radio work could well be sowing confusion in far-flung places. For all I know Fr. D'Arcy straying off message is wreaking havoc with the Church's work in the Philippines or Uruguay or even El Paso for that matter. That seems unlikely to me, but I don't know.

I'm not charged with running a 2000-year-old organization with a billion members, millions of employees and global reach. Keeping such a vast organization on message is a mighty task. Censuring Fr. D'Arcy might be the right option, but it just feels ham-fisted.

{Photo thanks to the BBC.}

Irish homeowners are not "revolting" - they're treating their incompetent government with contempt

Ireland's Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan,
who bungled the Household Charge.

It seems just about anywhere the new Irish household charge appears in the foreign press the words "boycott" or "revolt" are used to describe the fact that so many people did not pay the fee by Saturday night's deadline. Yesterday's New York Times quoted an Irish parliamentarian who refers to the "mass boycott." The Financial Times says the Irish government is facing a "revolt" over the new tax. {You might even see such words around here.}

Words like "boycott" and "revolt" suit those political campaigners who have been leading the charge calling on the people not to pay, but what's going on is nothing like a boycott or a revolt. It's more a case that hundreds of thousands of Irish people have weighed up the pluses and minuses of paying and come to the conclusion that not-paying is not such a bad idea. Why? Because the government blew this one in a big way. The charge was designed and implemented badly. Very badly. 100% ineptly.

The charge itself – €100 ($133) for the year payable by the owner of each house and apartment in the state – is more annoying than crushing. There was even an option to pay the tax on a quarterly installment basis.

Considering the hefty sums people pay in income tax and VAT (sales tax of 23%) €100 is no where near the most onerous levy Irish people pay. Heck it's even less than €160 ($213) annual license fee for having a television in the home, a fee that most Irish people pay without grumbling.

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Before this new charge was introduced for the 2012 tax year there was no tax on homeowners at all. {No property tax, although there is a fairly steep stamp duty payable on the purchase of a home.}

So it is a new tax, but did the Irish people really revolt against the government's austerity program when they decided not to pay this new tax? Is it really the case that after four years of accepting the punishing cut backs and tax hikes that this €100 charge was the straw that broke the camels' back? No. No, what really happened is that many Irish homeowners thought they might get away without paying this one.

From the start it was clear that government was flying by the seat of its pants on the household charge. They had no database of who owned what property. Sure they knew who lived where, but they didn't know who were the renters and who were the owners.

When this point was put to members of the government they went into full tyranny mode. The Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan oversaw the planning and implementation of the Household Charge and he, in particular, became the face of this hectoring, bullying government.

The government declared that they were going to get the information they needed by strong-arming the electricity and natural gas companies into revealing what they knew. The state-owned banks too would be forced to comply.

That tactic didn't work, but it was revealing: the government was going to struggle making people pay. The government's lack of information as to who owed and who didn't meant no bill or invoice could be sent to those who had to pay. The more this question was raised the more aggressive the government became. The public didn't so much fear as smell fear.

It wasn't just the lack of invoice, however. The tax came with a list of exemption criteria, but the criteria were unclear. If the vox pops on the radio are an indication many people who aren't exempt seemed to believe they are. It was all as clear as mud.

The government carried on brow-beating long past the point when it was obvious that it wasn't working. As the clock ticked down towards the March 31 deadline the government then took to threatening homeowners with cuts to local services. That too failed, possibly because it was too late, possibly because the waste in the mostly unaccountable local government spending is obvious to all or possibly because many people just didn't want to pay the €100.

The government made such a mess that 800,000* Irish homeowners thought they'd take their chances on the possible fine for late payment. This only served to highlight another serious design flaw in the Household Charge: the penalty for not paying on time is too small.

Those who fail to pay within the first 6 months will owe €116 ($154). The penalties rise a bit after that, but if you leave it for a year you owe only €142 ($189). A €42 ($55) penalty is just too small to cause anyone worry, especially if you believe that this government is incapable of figuring out who really owes and who doesn't. (Compare that penalty to the €60-90 that's owed by those who fail to put €2 into a parking meter.)

To me this is the essence of what's going on here – hundreds of thousands of people have treated the new Household Charge as not much more than a parking meter. They figure there's a good chance they'll get away without being caught and if they are caught the price they'll pay is too small to worry about.

This isn't so much a revolt against imposed austerity as a statement by the people on the capabilities of the government to actually enforce the law. For generations Irish people have skirted the law when the opportunity has arisen and this is more of the same. They've looked the government in the eye and said, "I'll pay - when you make me." It's up to the government to prove them wrong.

* Even the figure of 800,000 who didn't pay is open to question as the government doesn't really have an accurate figure for how many households there are in the country. Simply incredible.

** Just for the record: I paid. My wife says I'm too American.

{Photo thanks to Independent.ie.}

Galway's shameful proposal to honor Che Guevara

The most famous image of Che Guevara -
by Irishman Jim Fitzpatrick.

Galway City Council wants to erect a statue to Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara. Che, who was born in 1928, had Irish roots going back to the early 18th century. Che's distant ancestor Patrick Lynch was from Galway, which is the City Council's justification for wanting to erect a statue to a man who spent one night in Ireland, accidentally, thanks to fog at Shannon Airport. He never set foot in Galway.

Che's father did once try to explain his son's revolutionary ways saying the "blood of the Irish rebels" flowed in his veins. That is a load of hooey, as I'm sure Che's father knew, but that doesn't stop those Irish people who admire him from latching on to him as one of their own. Che's one night in Ireland was spent in Kilkee, Co. Clare, where last fall the townsfolk honored the memory of that one night with a 3-day festival. Galway obviously feels cheated that its 300-year-old link to Che is not getting the proper recognition, hence the statue proposal.

According to the Galway Advertiser the idea for the Galway statue came from a member of the City Council, Labour's Billy Cameron, who is "an ardent admirer of the revolutionary." Cameron is hardly alone. Che shirts and posters have been de rigueur for the hippest, coolest protesters and revolutionary-wannabees for decades. However, you're supposed to grow out of that phase. Cameron clearly has not.

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The proposed statue has not made much news in Ireland, but one man, businessman and sometime political campaigner Declan Ganley, has been on a mission to scupper this plan for the past week. Ganley (@declanganley) is a Galway man himself and worries that such a statue would damage Galway's reputation, especially in America, hurting the chances of investment and putting Americans off visiting the city.

That seems a bit of a stretch to me. I doubt too many tourists would know much of Che beyond recognizing his face and, well, business is business.

However, yesterday, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen issued a press release asking Galway City Council to reject the proposal to erect the Che Statue. "The romanticizing image that this monument would portray would serve to diminish the brutality that was committed by Che and the painful suffering endured by many Cuban-American families and his other victims far and wide."

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a Cuban-American and Cuban-Americans know far more about Che than the average American and, I daresay, than the average Irish revolutionary wannabee. And they don't like him, not one bit. Whereas the average American may not take much interest in whether Galway honors Che Guevara, people from South Florida and other Cuban enclaves may take a keen interest.

Galway City Councillor - Billy Cameron,whose idea
it was to erect a statue ofChe Guevara

The Cuban government has pledged to help pay for the statue so I guess Galway's Councillors can rest easy knowing Fidel's on their side. Whether the Cuban people admire Che as much as Councillor Cameron and the rest is impossible to say because, as Representative Mario Diaz-Balart put it: "Galway is a city where people have the right to vote, the right to worship freely, the right to speak freely, and access a free press -- all of which 'Che' Guevara and his murderous associate, dictator Fidel Castro, ruthlessly suppressed."

There's no way that Councillor Cameron or anyone who shares his views will take that seriously. They know better than those Cuban-Americans just like they knew better than to listen to all those exiles from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc.

There's a part of me that half hopes the statue goes up and is defaced and damaged by Cubans who live here in exile. There are some. Or, better yet, I'd like to think that when Cubans do finally shake off the shackles of Castro's rule some of them will find their way to Ireland and pull the statue down and curse those who put it up. It's a dream.

The proposal is hideous, but I'm not surprised by it. It suits the mind-set of a small segment of the Irish people. I'd love to know what Ireland's President, a Galway man too, thinks of the idea. I suppose I should just consider it fortunate that no one ever found any Irish link to Lenin or Stalin or Mao. Honoring one mass-murderer is enough.

{Photo of Cameron from Labour.ie}

I'm a disappointment to Ireland's NFL fans

Eli Manning & Tom Brady - known
to many  Irish sports fans.

There's so much hype here, in Ireland, that I'm beginning to believe I'm the only man in Ireland who doesn't care who wins the Super Bowl. Everyone seems to be talking about it. Okay, not everyone and undoubtedly the Ireland vs Wales rugby game Sunday afternoon is a bigger deal here, but I can't get over the interest in the NFL these days, especially among men under 35 or so.

There's loads of talk about the Super Bowl on the radio, in the newspapers even among men chatting in the pub. Of course I find myself included in loads of Super Bowl conversations. People only have to hear my accent and they engage me in a Super Bowl discussion. Unfortunately, I don't really know enough about football today to hold up my end of the bargain unless we take a diversion back to Super Bowls of the 70s.
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So this Sunday when I tune in it's more out of curiosity than as a real fan. And I'll probably only watch the first half, but no more than that. I can't stay up late enough for the whole Super Bowl.

You have to remember, by the time they finally kick off in Indianapolis it will be 11:18pm here. That's a big part of what amazes me about the interest here. The game is on so late and, of course, it's endless. Yet so many people will watch it to the end. {I wonder how much bigger the audience in Europe might be - extra $$ - if the NFL moved the kick-off up by 90 minutes.}

I can't say exactly when I lost my keenness for pro football, but my interest had waned significantly before I had moved to Ireland in '91. When I was in school I watched 6 hours of football every Sunday. I rooted like crazy for my team to win and suffered when they lost. Somewhere, somehow that left me.

None of this would be an issue if it weren't for the fact that every Irish NFL fan I meet seems disappointed that I can't match their knowledge and excitement and provide them with the conversation they crave. Sure I know who Tom Brady & Eli Manning are, but after that I don't know much about any of the others playing on Sunday.

Back in 1986 when I came here as a student, there was a weekly NFL highlight show on TV. It was weirdly, wildly popular, but those who watched didn't really get to know the game. These days Irish fans can watch two or three full games a week - and many do - and they follow internet message boards and take part in fantasy football leagues and so on. They really know the game and I disappoint them when they get talking to me.

Over the years I've gotten used to the fact that there are Irish people who know more about American politics than I do - and I feel like I'm keen follower. Yet, somehow I feel like I'm letting others and myself down by not being able to discuss football with them.

If only the Irish were as interested in baseball. That I could talk about knowledgeably and enthusiastically for hours, days even. Baseball doesn't appeal, unfortunately. Football has gripped the Irish sports fan. I don't know which of the two teams is the favorite with Irish fans, but I'll be giving half a cheer for the Giants simply because they're the NY team.

+++
It's not the Super Bowl, but tonight's college basketball game from the Bronx featuring the Iona Gaels and the Manhattan Jaspers has me excited. If I'm going to stay up late for anything it will be this game - a full-throated Go Jaspers from me.

UPDATE: Jaspers lost. These things happen. Plenty of basketball still to be played this month.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier and Ian Bailey - Irish crime demands Irish justice

Sophie Toscan du Plantier

In December 1996 Sophie Toscan du Plantier was found murdered outside her County Cork holiday home, but thus far no one has been brought before an Irish court in connection with this crime. Although the gardaí (police) have a  'prime suspect' - Ian Bailey - so far they have been unable to produce enough evidence for the public prosecutor to charge him.

Now, however, there's a good chance he will be brought before a court only it won't be an Irish court but a French one. France has requested Bailey's extradition in order to prosecute him there. Next month Ireland's Supreme Court will hear Bailey's appeal against his extradition. If he loses he will stand trial in France for a murder committed in Ireland.

My detestation for the murderer, whether it's Bailey or someone else, and my sympathy for Toscan du Plantier's family does not change the fact that this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

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Toscan du Plantier's family have been tireless in their pursuit of justice for their wife/daughter/mother these past 15 years. During all this time they have also been graceful, but understandably their patience has been severely tested. They're very easy to root for in their campaign for justice.

Bailey has twice been arrested and questioned by the gardaí about Toscan du Plantier's murder, but he has never been charged. Last year he was arrested for a third time when the French extradition request was received.

At the time of the murder Bailey, originally from Manchester in England, was living in near Toscan du Plantier's holiday home and making a living as a freelance journalist. It wasn't long after the murder that a neighbor made a statement to the gardaí, which she later retracted, that she had seen Bailey in the area around Toscan du Plantier's house on the night of the murder.

I don't know any of the people associated with this case. I don't know the town or whether the locals believe Bailey is the killer or not. I don't even know anyone from that area.

I don't understand why there isn't more upset in Ireland at the prospect of Bailey's extradition to France. Maybe it's a reflection of the public's sympathy with Toscan du Plantier's family. Maybe it's because Bailey isn't all that likable? Maybe it's because he's English? (I don't believe that one.}

I don't know why, but there's no uproar about this.

What I do know is Toscan du Plantier's French citizenship is irrelevant. France's belief that it can investigate crimes against its citizens that happen outside France should also be irrelevant. There is no suggestion that Toscan du Plantier was targeted because she was French. There is not even a hint of any international consipracy behind the crime. This is not France's call.

If I were found murdered outside my home I would not expect the American government to involve itself in the search for justice unless I was killed by al Qaeda or killed as part of some international criminal conspiracy or killed just for being American. Even at that, I wouldn't expect any trial to take place outside Ireland, unless my murder was part of some conspiracy born in America.

Legally (but not culturally) France and Ireland are more tightly connected through the EU than are Ireland and the United States, but that doesn't alter the fact that France has no role in this case. If a Californian woman was killed in New Jersey and the chief suspect was from Connecticut, he would not be extradited to California to stand trial.

As the years pass the chances of any Irish court hearing a case connected with Toscan du Plantier's murder grow more and more remote. Toscan du Plantier's family is frustrated. They want someone brought before a court, tried and convicted. I'm sure they're frustrated with the way our legal system works and they could easily be of the opinion that the gardaí are not very good at policing.

And they might be right. This case does seem to be an indictment of Ireland's policing and judicial systems. If it is, then we have to fix those problems and not paper over them by exporting our most high-profile failures. How many other victims are not getting the justice they deserve and will never get because they're not French?

There is no justification for extraditing Bailey to France to face French justice. Toscan du Plantier's murder was an Irish crime. It demands Irish justice.

{Photograph from Cork-Guide.ie}

Michael O'Leary and Ryanair are great for passengers and for Ireland

O'Leary - always outrageous, always in the headlines.

Ryanair. If you live in America and you know the name Ryanair it's probably because (a) you know the airline is legendary for its abysmal customer service and/or (b) you know of Ryanair's Chief Executive, Michael O'Leary, who adores playing the clown, saying the most outrageous things – especially when there are members of the media around.

The media and people in general in Ireland, in England and pretty much anywhere Ryanair flies love to moan about Ryanair. The 'customer service stinks,' the 'hidden charges are unfair,' the flights 'take you to airports way out in the sticks' (Dublin Airport is unusually central) and, of course, 'O'Leary is an arrogant windbag.'

You know something? It's all true. You know something else? I don't care. I love Ryanair. Okay, 'love' is the wrong word, but generally speaking I am quite a contented customer. In fact, I'm so contented that I've often wondered if O'Leary would deliberately sabotage my travel plans if he knew because O'Leary gives the impression that contented customers are the last thing he wants.
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Yet, I have flown on Ryanair many times and despite the poor customer service, despite the lack of comfort, despite the constant selling by the cabin crew and despite the fact you have to line up like a kid waiting for the school bus in order to board the plane I keep coming back for more. Why? Because the cost of flights for the whole family is the lowest in Europe and from what I can tell, lower than any airline offers in America.

Ryanair airplanes.
No seat pockets means no safety cards -
painted on back of seat instead.
{Photo thanks to Wikipedia.}

Over the past five years we have been to England, Scotland, Belgium, France and Germany on Ryanair. We've been to most of those places more than once. The most we ever paid for flights was €150 ($200) - for five tickets. Most of our trips cost just under €100 ($135). Again, that's five tickets. A few years back I was able to get 4 round trip tickets to London for €0.08 (that is 10¢, one dime).

We have been able take the children places and show them things I never thought would be possible thanks to Ryanair.

Sure it can be annoying. You have to be willing to go when they want you to go. You have to use the 'right' card to buy your tickets. You have to pack lightly and tightly. You have to be willing to endure discomfort for 60-90 minutes. You have to play by Ryanair's rules. We're able to manage all that, which is why we fly Ryanair.

We're not alone either. Ryanair is one of the world's most popular airlines, despite being almost universally loathed. 74m passengers will fly on Ryanair this year. I don't know how many of those are contented passengers, but O'Leary doesn't care if they're contented so long as they keep coming back.

As for O'Leary, his clownish behavior and outrageousness is so transparently a marketing ploy that I'm amazed the media hasn't started ignoring him. Ryanair doesn't use advertising to publicize the fact it's the lowest cost airline in Europe. It uses press releases or O'Leary's mouth to get that job done.

Whenever there's a lull in the news O'Leary pops up with an announcement that Ryanair will get rid of co-pilots or charge passengers to use the bathroom or allow to passengers to watch pornography on board or whatever. He says something shocking. The media loves it and reports it breathlessly. All of this has the effect of reinforcing one message: Ryanair is cheap.

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All of which keeps Ryanair's shareholders sweet and O'Leary does care about those people. You can tell O'Leary cares about Ryanair's shareholders because when he's on CNBC the clownishness is replaced by seriousness as he discusses passenger load figures, revenues, aircraft purchases, etc.

Shareholders, in turn, may not love O'Leary, but they're probably contented too. Despite difficult trading conditions for European airlines, Ryanair is growing bigger and more profitable.

Ads on the planes -
another revenue stream for Ryanair
{Photo from Ken Fielding}

At some point O'Leary will step down. At the moment he's the closest thing Ireland has to Steve Jobs. Although he's more like the 'anti-Jobs.' Everyone knows O'Leary, identifies him closely with the business he runs, but generally he's despised as is the company he heads.

The Irish media loves to lambaste O'Leary and Ryanair, but both have been great for this country. Where other businessmen have headed for tax exile, O'Leary has remained in Ireland.

Ryanair can take a lot of the credit for the competitive air fares and the boom in tourist numbers Ireland has experienced over the past 20 years. Soon Ryanair will be the biggest company on the Irish stock exchange. It is already the best Irish company.