April 14 2006 / Insulting The Proclamation
As Fianna Fáil tries to head Sinn Féin and their nationalist rhetoric off at the pass before the next General Election in the hope of retaining some votes, it's almost impossible to avoid hearing and seeing the Government trying to stir up the electorate in order to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
It could be supposed that there is a chance that Fianna Fáil are acting out of a sincere wish to look back on 90 years of history, but given that Bertie Ahern announced at the last Fianna Fáil Árd Fhéis that the Government would be staging a military parade down O'Connell Street, it would seem unlikely.
At any rate, it can be argued that the James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse and the other signatories of the Proclamation would not be best pleased with Fianna Fáíl, given their failure to live up to it.
"We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland", the Proclamation reads, "and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible." It goes on to state that the "long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people."
This piece of the Proclamation has been tramped over by Fianna Fáíl in the last 20 years. From 1975 until 1987, there was a tax rate of 50% for oil and gas companies, an automatic 50% stake belonging to the Irish state in any commercial oil well or gas reserve, and royalties of 6% to 7%.
This was the case until 1987. After lobbying by the companies, Fianna Fáíl Minister for Justice and Minister for Communications, Ray Burke, got rid of the 50% state stake and removed royalties. In 1992, after further lobbying, Progressive Democrat Bobby Molloy, while Minister for Energy reduced the tax rate to 25%. At the same time, tax write offs of 100% were introduced, allowing oil and gas companies to subtract their costs from their tax bill.
In 1996 the license for the Corrib Gas field was granted to Enterprise Energy Ireland, a subsidiary of Enterprise Oil, which held major fundraising events for Fianna Fail at the Galway Races in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. The consortium also includes Statoil and Marathon Oil. The Enterprise license was bought out by Shell in 2002, around the same time yet another Fianna Fáil Minister, Frank Fahey, the then Minister for the Marine & Natural Resources, granted them innumerable licenses before the planning procedures were completed. As if that were not enough, he also gave them 400 plus acres of Coilte land, land that was owned by the state.
For a party that claims to cherish the Rising, Fianna Fáil have not been in keeping with its ideals, as laid down in the Proclamation. The arrogance of the Government in commemorating the Rising is beyond breathtaking.
"In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty", the Proclamation says. It continues to say that those who were involved in carrying out the Rising were doing so on the basis of acting on that fundamental right...we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State."
I have written previously on this weblog about certain types of aircraft making use of Shannon Airport. Shannon Airport has a history of use by foreign militaries. A large part of its business is military stopovers, currently almost all American; however the airport was also frequently used by the Soviet military until the 1990's. There were some official restrictions, such as no weaponry being allowed and uniformed foreign soldiers remaining out of public areas. However they were rarely enforced, and uniformed U.S. soldiers are seen daily in the public areas of the airport. Shannon saw military transports throughout the Cold War and during both Gulf Wars. Recently the airport has been the subject of protests, direct actions and High Court actions over such usage.
In April 2003 the High Court ruled in Horgan v Ireland that for Ireland to be a Neutral Power under international law, it must prevent "belligerents from making use of neutral territories and neutral resources for their military purposes". The Fianna Fáil led Government however, expressly invited the United States to use Irish airports and airspace for its "long campaign against terrorism", waiving all previous restrictions regarding foreign military aircraft. The provisions of Bunreacht na hÉireann (Constitution of Ireland) which affirm Ireland's commitment to the rule of international law were stated by the government as being only "aspirational".
In April 2005, financial figures released show that the transport of US troops made an income of €18m for Shannon Airport. In May 2005, the Minister for Transport, (still another Fianna Fáil member of the Government) Martin Cullen, revealed that the state pays the €10m annual cost to air-traffic control due to US military aircraft in Irish airspace. During 2005, over 330,000 US troops stopped over at Shannon en route to or from Afghanistan or Iraq, leading to concern in Ireland about this apparent breach of its policy of neutrality.
Not only is the Fianna Fáil government completely and utterly trampling over the Proclamation by allowing our sovereignty to be abused, it is selling it! I wonder how those executed or killed during the Rising by the foreign power they struggled to liberate themselves from would feel about Ireland actually selling the liberty their comrades eventually won? I'm sure that Patrick Pearse, whose portrait hangs on the wall of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, would be pleased.
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