ARE AN GARDA REALLY RIGHT WING OR CAST AS STOCK CHARACTERS IN A STAGE MANAGED DRAMA?

Citizens have two ordinary expectations of their police force: that the law as it stands will be applied and that any use of force will be strictly necessary, moderate, and will not make a situation worse. Many who identify as left do not share these expectations and want An Garda to defy the law and also to use force without consideration of consequences.

This is most in evidence when An Garda turn up to keep the peace while occupiers of a building are removed by security workers acting on a court order. It makes for a very sinister display that the Gardaí feel they must wear masks to protect themselves, their homes and families. It’s in evidence again when Gardaí remove a small inoffensive workplace occupation or picket while on another occasion they’ve declined to confront right wing agitators who are spoiling for a street fight.

Drawing on a tradition of struggle, many leftists want An Garda to take sides and if this means selective application of existing law or conceding a riot, then so be it.

Now, in terms of fomenting revolution, i.e. disorder with the intention of bringing down or taking over the state, this makes perfect sense but the reality is that they’ve neither the slightest chance nor the intention of doing any such thing. They live a safe fantasy by associating with real revolutions in other times and places. Bluntly, they are image polishing and play acting in full confidence that media workers will report on and interview never asking them to discuss revolution.

Now, Lia Ypi of LSE – based on her experiences in Albania – has been discussing revolution in the meaningful sense of the word. She has included the proposition for discussion among her students. She may, however, be up against the probability that those students have a quite different understanding of the word itself, an understanding conditioned by their experience of leftists for whom revolution is a matter of campaigning style, appeals to people-power as a cliché, and a tendency to historical re-enactment, i.e. staging incidents as if they were involved in, say, Cable Street or similar.

Unfortunately ordinary police can fall victim when easily manoeuvred into performing the role of counter-revolutionary as if in a drama. That is to say, An Garda are mired as bad guys for failing to side with “revolutionaries” who have not the slightest interest in causing a real revolution, either in terms of violence or system change.

Because the various meanings of revolution, the intentions of campaigning leftists and the careless use of “fascist/anti-fascist” are never forensically scrutinised by media workers, it becomes commonplace – even acceptable – to portray An Garda as something akin to an occupying force oppressing the people. In Ireland that should be risible but with journalists/interviewers entirely focussed on news episodes or lacking the competence to deal with history and political theories, nonsense spreads among the gullible.

RTE and SHANE ROSS INTERVIEW; ADHERENCE TO NEWS GENRE ALLOWS MANIPULATION

RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, is facing considerable criticism for failing to broadcast a recorded interview with former Minister, Shane Ross, re his recently published biography of Mary Lou McDonald, President of Sinn Féin. Demands that RTE explain the decision fall far short of the questions that need to be asked.

It has to be said at the outset that a requirement to explain an editorial decision is perfectly compatible with independence. Indeed editorial independence makes sense only to the extent that decisions are not casual, haphazard but thoughtful, considered. The content of such deliberation is not a secret but a part of public discourse. It might be added that any changes to the broadcasting acts should provide for a move beyond the confines of compliance to include a citizen right to seek an explanation.

Secondly, on this occasion RTE have given an explanation that they could easily expand upon. They said it was a routine editorial decision; they preferred to broadcast other – perhaps more newsworthy – material, something that happens routinely in building a programme or a schedule.

Thirdly, commercial operators, who are subject to largely the same regulations, broadcast interviews with the author and for this they are receiving favourable comment. When it comes to the meat of the biography, it remains to be seen if they plan to question, probe and discuss.

The appearance or not of an interview matters little. The content of the interviews and the content of the biography itself matters a great deal. Shane Ross’s book contains questions for and references to political and personal decisions taken by the SF Leader – none of them new – that need to pursued. That is to say, the important editorial decisions have yet to be taken. Will media workers at RTE and their more commercial competitors pursue these matters in detail and at every opportunity or will they treat the whole thing as news, yesterday’s story and move on?

If nothing comes of this but a memory of a flash-in-the-pan news story, that outcome would underline the need for legislative reform. In a republic a citizen ought to be entitled to seek an explanation for editorial decisions which create silence on matters of enormous public concern.

News production, normalisation and telling the Marytale in Ireland

Mary Lou McDonald and SF generally, present journalists with, let’s call it, a Marytale. It’s their fantastic creation and journalists dutifully relay it time after time. Why? Because each day it is freshly and casually mentioned and news is always fresh, up to date, breaking – even when it carries deliberate lies.

The Marytale is carefully crafted and has a very definite purpose. While everyone else wants the Provisional IRA gone – consigned to history – SF wants to ensure that they are not left behind, that they become an honoured part of history. They want them accepted as modern, living, breathing examples of Irish heroes, freedom fighters. That requires two things: i) continuity with the past and ii) a proud, relatively clean, heroic, anti-imperialist fight.

The Marytale rests on a couple of far fetched yarns:

i) That the present organisations styling themselves IRA and SF date back at least to the War of Independence.

ii) That crimes against humanity/war crimes don’t happen – or at least don’t happen in Ireland – because dreadful things, even atrocities, happen during all conflicts.

Here’s the reality that journalists routinely choose to ignore:

i) Mary Lou McDonald’s organisation, Provisional Sinn Féin, along with Provisional IRA were founded as avowedly anti-Marxist in 1969. They have an important place in a history of factional struggle as, along with many other splinter groups, they have competed for exclusive use of the titles Oglaigh na hÉireann, IRA and indeed Sinn Féin. Moreover, that fratricidal struggle goes on to this day.

ii) Oglaigh na hÉireann is the official title of the armed forces of today’s Irish state, the Republic of Ireland.

iii) Throughout 20^th century conflict in Ireland, belligerents – including state forces – sometimes resorted to shameful atrocities. The Provisional IRA changed that. Their campaign was waged primarily against civilians, by way of shootings and public bombings. Bluntly, targeting civilians is unambiguously a war crime and they did it over and over again.

The dark purpose of the Marytale

As SF prepare for government the idea is i) to make it possible to commemorate and honour those who ordered, perpetrated, facilitated and supported attacks on civilians during what is euphemistically called, The Troubles; ii) to make it seem that the Provisional IRA and present SF are old organisations, reaching back to the early 20^th century; and iii) to make it seem that attacks on civilians and other atrocities are routine features of armed struggle rather than crimes against humanity to be deplored and prosecuted by transnational courts.

Why the Marytale must be resisted

There are two reasons. Firstly, the honour and international standing of the Irish nation demands it. Secondly, as the world enters a period in which war criminality will become a regular issue, Ireland must be an exemplar, not a scandal.

Honour.

When it comes to atrocities, there is nothing exceptional about the Cause of Irish freedom. When it comes to public bombs, there is no moral difference between the Islamic State suicide bomb at the Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena and an IRA public bomb. The ordinary people of their respective nations are shamed by the perpetrators, their facilitators, commanders and supporters.

Issue.

Information technology and ease of identification will make the pursuit of war criminals a constant in the coming years; the Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine and other conflicts will provide a huge caseload. Ireland will contribute to debate on the judicial process. It must not become the case that Ireland hides, never mind celebrates, home grown perpetrators.

The media and the Marytale

SF are expert when it comes to giving media the runaround and success so far means that the Marytale is widely accepted as fact. This means that standing for truth against the Marytale is not easy. The tale is no longer told in detail but is hammered home in glib references and assertions.

In practice what the news journalist/presenter faces are references to SF or IRA then and now, as if they were connected; and/or references to nationalist atrocities in the past as if they were to be expected and as if they were as commonplace as the Provo. attacks on civilians.

Thus it is hard to prevent the lies because in the context of news and current affairs it means saying, “Stop, I can’t let you say that because you know well that it’s untrue” but at the same time the presenter has to prevent a diversion away from the news job at hand and into a history programme.

Gotcha!, arsa SF

Sinn Féin know this but the workers producing news output have no real idea how to deal with it. If they try to stop the lies, they stop news as conventionally understood. If they let the lies pass, they are literally creating fake news.

It is their problem but the citizens who depend on them for public discourse need them to solve it.

THE INFORMATION AGE MAY MAKE UKRAINE A TURNING POINT FOR DEALING WITH WAR CRIMINALS

Coverage of the grisly war in Ukraine has made “war crime” a routine but rarely examined term in news and discussion. The problem with this is that avoidance of clarity and a resort to well-worn evasions can be mobilised to ensure that few or no one will face charges.

From a list of atrocities and of war crimes, the one discussed here is the targeting of civilians, i.e. a particular, unambiguous and far too common offence.

In Ukraine civilian targeting did not begin with ground troops. It began with pilots, missile operators and their commanders who decided to bomb places knowing full well that they were targeting civilians. The civilians shot, shelled and crushed by ground troops came later.

Each command to attack and each decision to comply is a separate war crime because the vile excuse of carrying out orders or working in a supportive role has not been acceptable since Nuremberg.

Moreover, greatly increased information marks a change; it is even easier than heretofore to identify not merely commanders and facilitators but rank and file perpetrators. (Research should uncover the identities of those pilots who slammed rockets into apartment blocks.) The ease highlights an old divide between those who want to hunt down war criminals and those who want to protect them by diverting attention to leaders and heads of state who are more newsworthy.

A distortion of “fairness” is often used to protect lower ranked and preferred offenders; it is said that it’s not fair to charge “our” war criminals unless all war criminals are charged simultaneously. Thus under the guise of dealing with all war crimes, the objective is to prevent favoured combatants being investigated and arraigned.

The opposite should be the case. There must be an insistence that war crimes – particularly the targeting of civilians – involve individual decisions, requiring individual justice, without consideration of wider posturing.

Four hard truths now emerge, truths that reflect the gravity of a crime against common humanity: i) No state can provide a wholly effective amnesty; ii) Charges may take time as evidence may be slow to emerge; iii) Suspects will be hunted for the rest of their lives; iv) Some will die before they can be arraigned.

It needs to be said that moves to shield war criminals of a particular stripe betray support or at least a sneaking regard, i.e. saying that there is a moral hierarchy among war criminals, such that the cause for which the combatants fight can justify the targeting of civilians. An example might be the reaction to equating the bomber at the Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena (2017) and IRA bombers. Angry differentiation was based on the suicide of the main perpetrator and on disdain for Islamic violence. Similar hierarchical thinking might be expected should evidence emerge of atrocities on the Ukrainian side.

Best keep it simple: Any instance of targeting civilians is a war crime for which one or more individuals can be held to varying degrees of responsibility. When it happens, the pilot, the soldier, the commander, the facilitator, the president, each one them might appear in the dock at such time as evidence emerges.

TRUTH MATTERS: IT CERTAINLY DOES AND THE RTE CAMPAIGN NEEDS TO OPEN UP

RTE’s Truth Matters campaign is praiseworthy. It wants to place RTE News as truthful and firmly opposed to misinformation, lies and nonsense. However, its basis is not at all clear. It could be the case that the existing service is being offered as more reliably true than its competitors or it could be the case that the existing service is changing in order to make it more reliably true. Clarification is needed.

At least two areas of concern should be openly confronted.

i) The isolation of news as the vehicle for truth.

ii) The relation between news reporting and truth.

i) RTE is by no means alone in fighting for conventional journalism against its increasingly successful competitors. The clash is characterised as serious, professional journalism versus the chaos and silliness of social media. Unfortunately there is a cover-up at the core of this. The narrative suggests that the likes of conspiracy theories sprang up fully formed with social media. They didn’t. They were propagated by journalism before the arrival of social media; Andrew Wakefield’s scam was created by conventional journalism and media. Indeed, it can be argued that uncritical or even supportive coverage of baseless nonsense groomed a belief in dangerous, anti-democratic guff. (This is expanded upon here: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2021/03/09/from-reiki-to-conspiracy-journalism-and-the-grooming-of-a-threat-to-democracy/ )

It would be far more credible if the campaign admitted RTE’s unwitting role in creating the problem and highlighted the extent of the change now envisaged.

Worse, by isolating truth as a feature of news, RTE implies permission for the rest of their schedule to continue as before, i.e. there is no sign of corporate disapproval never mind a ban on uncritical, supportive treatment of anti-vax, anti-science, “alternative” or psychic nonsense in programmes lighter than news and current affairs. Incidentally, it may be the case that grooming in credulousness was largely carried out in popular light programmes. It is certainly the case that alternative – evidence free – therapies and treatments, and psychic beliefs continue to receive supportive coverage. It is downright odd to commit the news service to truth while encouraging other programmes to undermine that commitment.

ii) It is certainly news and certainly true when the utterances of a prominent figure are accurately reported. When those utterances are nonsense/untrue or in support of nonsense, an impartial report remains true but facilitates the spread of nonsense. This is not to say that that impartiality with its honourable, effective tradition should be abandoned; it is merely to state what journalists know full well, that an impartial report can be incompatible with telling the truth.

Put another way and in the context of the RTE Truth Matters initiative, impartiality must now explicitly involve exposition of lies, cover-ups, scams, conspiracy fantasies and nonsense. Some journalists will argue that impartiality is their fundamental, immutable value. They have a point. At its best it prevents the intrusion of personal views into reporting but at its worst it provides a cloak of respectability for sharing bogus information. Bluntly, if Truth Matters is to be taken seriously, RTE needs to spell out what if anything has changed in news reporting.

TIME TO PUT A SERVICE FOR THE ENGAGED CITIZEN INTO THE BROADCASTING ACTS

In Ireland there is a problem at the very core of the legislation and guidelines that govern broadcast coverage of public controversy. Despite their public service objectives, the Irish regulations are not overtly concerned with what citizens require. For that reason reform will have to involve a basic change, overturning the familiar practices of decades.

The difficulty with regulation as it stands now is that it serves those who appear on radio and TV and helps keep producers and journalists out of conflict with these contributors. In brief it could be put like this: if a broadcaster is fair to public figures and institutions, and is balanced in offering a rival perspective, everyone will be content. That “everyone”, however, does not refer to the audience, to citizens.

Now, broadcasters are highly competitive and commercial, and with on-line media ever increasing in importance, they will become more so. Whether state funded or not, they seek to maximise audience numbers. Their tendency merely to be commercial is constrained by a set of legal public service obligations. One of those obligations ensures that public controversy receives coverage, i.e. that news and current affairs feature strongly in their output. In other words, it is long accepted that coverage of public controversy is a public good which broadcasters must supply.

That coverage in turn has to be commercial, and in two senses. Firstly, public controversy is not the most obvious crowd pleaser. Secondly, there is nothing democratic about a small audience and there is a drive – while staying within the regulations – to attract as large an audience as possible.

The question that arises is who are the audience for public controversy. The easy answer is the Demos, all the citizens of the state. The difficulty of course is that many citizens are not interested while others are very interested and demanding. This reflects a traditional dilemma for public service broadcasters. Going back almost a century there is the requirement to achieve a viable content mix of entertainment, information and education. Much later came the realisation that there was a demand for two very different types of news service: one comprehensive for participative or republican citizens and another mainly entertaining but ringing an alarm bell if anything really serious was happening – for passive or liberal citizens who didn’t want to be bothered by politics.

It might be interesting to speculate how it came about that with everyone so aware that there was a dilemma concerning different audiences, the obligations for the treatment of public controversy came to focus so much on the establishment: the public figures and institutions, and the broadcasting/journalism profession. That, however, will have to be work for another day.

There is no feeble, uncontroversial way to put this: It is certainly undemocratic, if not completely ludicrous, to base public service obligations in relation to public discourse on the requirements of spokespersons and broadcasters. However, reform to make those obligations serve citizen requirements will mean deciding – at least within a part of overall output – to serve one audience rather than another.

Lest there be any confusion something needs emphasis at this point. There is not the slightest intention here to replace familiar, entertaining political coverage in news and interview form with a more serious minded approach. No matter how serious and demanding a citizen might be, without exception they like the entertaining approach and want it to continue.

Nothing is radical or odd in having a typical audience member in mind when broadcasting. It is commonplace to talk of addressing younger, older and all manner of different audiences; existing legislation requires service to minorities. Indeed, it would likely be daft even to consider the possibility that a broadcaster or journalist ever creates output with no one in mind. Occasionally it can go further with management providing a detailed profile of a typical member of a targeted audience.

However, when it comes to politics and public controversy, something strange happens: it is very often assumed that there is an undifferentiated audience, a Demos waiting to be addressed. The character, interests, outlook and political-communication requirements of that audience is assumed to be known.

Certainly an audience is being addressed and well-served but it is not the entire people. It is a part, the part that shares the general political outlook of the broadcasters, an outlook more basic than left-right division. Equally certainly the rest of the people have little choice but to make the best of what’s delivered, and because journalism generally can be poor and partisan, broadcast journalism tends to be recognised as relatively good.

Reform of legislation, therefore, will involve two radical breaks with tradition. Firstly, it will move to address the needs of the audience rather than programme participants. Indeed participants in a broadcast programme will be chosen on the basis of how best to serve an audience rather than the present practice of being fair to potential participants. Secondly – and it must be emphasised that this refers not to the entire service but to the delivery of broadcast politics – it will move to serve the needs of a particular type of audience rather than the entire national audience many of whom might express little or no interest in complex politics. The audience to be served in this case will very likely be a minority: those who are participative or republican citizens, those who want to be part of the public sphere, discussing all matters of political controversy and seeking broadcast coverage that will facilitate them, seeking the full range of perspectives, opinions, arguments and data to enable the republican citizen to explore, discuss, contribute and come to meaningful judgement on all matters affecting the republic.

There is nothing strange or new in seeking to serve the thinking, participative citizen; that’s always been the basic idea. What is new is the explicit recognition that all citizens do not share this participative level of interest and that serving any citizens by looking after the concerns of public figures and media staff is, well, frankly daft.

While republican reforms will replace decades-old rules designed to please – perhaps, appease – politicians, activists and journalists, it will not be necessary to have new complaints procedures to aid compliance; existing staff and processes will be fine as long as everyone involved understands the enormity of the change.

There are essentially just two entwined changes. Firstly, legislation needs to recognise the existence of republican citizens and to oblige the broadcaster to serve their specific political communication needs. Secondly, since the republican citizen is an active and conscious participant in the public sphere and wants to come to judgement on political controversies, legislation will oblige the broadcaster to deliver the necessary range and quality of data and – crucially – arguments.

1. Recognition that two distinct types of political journalism will need management

There are opposing pitfalls which have to be recognised. While no one wants an end to entertaining news and speculation about political celebrities and events, this admits a risk of trivialisation. A sensible approach would be to acknowledge the difficulty and place a formal onus on the broadcaster to deal with it. The stark reality is that there is a difference between the journalism which deals with political news, speculation, personalities and gossip and that which deals with political values, ideologies, theory and outcomes for citizens. The broadcaster can be made explicitly responsible for maintaining and managing the distinction in the interests of citizens.

2. The broadcaster will be obliged to deliver a service to the engaged/participative/republican citizen. This will mean a) an obligation to deliver arguments and to be responsible for their quality; and b) an obligation to have the selection of programme contributors determined by how best to deliver those arguments.

It is important to be clear on the enormity of the change required. The overwhelming majority of journalists see their role as merely reporting and assume little responsibility for the informative quality of what is reported. To burden the broadcaster (and by implication the staff employed) with responsibility for public discourse is a radical departure. This can be said despite the existing obligation to public discourse and journalists’ claims to public service because up to now it has been accepted that news delivery is sufficient.

Explicit Guidelines

* Coverage must address all political controversies and there can be no question of editorial picking and choosing other than that motivated by a commitment to the citizen seeking the fullest engagement. For fear a controversy might be overlooked, citizen initiative/suggestion will be sought and in the event of disputes, the matter can be considered as a Broadcasting Complaint.

* Appearances on politics programmes will be determined by contribution to a debate rather than any affiliation.

* Developed viewpoints which challenge a prevailing orthodoxy will be treated as especially useful.

* Complexity beyond the traditional notion of balance will be assumed and the fullest range of viewpoints will be sought and presented.

* Verifiable truth will be an overriding consideration.

* Interests will be explored, uncovered and made clear. That is to say, it will be assumed that different proposals will have better outcomes for some rather than others and it will be accepted that such information is vital for the citizen. In other words, when a policy or policy suggestion becomes a matter for discussion, the likely winners and losers will have to be made plain.

When discussion involves incomes or incomes policy, a contributor’s income if known will be stated; if not known, that will be stated.

* It would never be satisfactory in a democracy that those charged with nourishing the public sphere would dismiss an enquiry by recourse to simple “editorial judgement”. Excluding the vexatious or frivolous, all requests to explain an editorial decision or policy will be answered fully. Any dispute arising may be referred to the complaints procedure.

* Suggestions (accompanied by data) that a pattern of editorial decisions amount to an effective editorial policy will be similarly treated.

* A very short list of morally repugnant viewpoints will be developed, the purpose being to state that they will never be normalised. On all occasions where a programme contributor holds such a view or is a member of a group/party holding such a view, Broadcasters will be required to make that clear. For example, without a broadcaster’s clarifying comment, a racist will not be permitted to present themselves as normal by contributing to a discussion on, say, health.

* Broadcasters will not allow reliance on authority (e.g. religion) but will demand argument.

* Broadcasters will not permit contributors merely to “call-on” government to take action. In money matters this will demand clarity on priorities and funding either by a corresponding level of cuts to named spending or of new revenues.

* Broadcasters will ensure that mathematical, scientific, economic and other claims are competent.

* Broadcasters will ensure that alternative/complementary therapies are rigorously questioned and that they are not granted equivalence with science or medicine.

* With such a long tradition of politics being regarded predominantly as news and speculation about the activities of politicians, the change to more demanding – perhaps, theoretical – politics will have to be effected without undermining the traditional and frankly entertaining approach. There should, therefore, be two distinct editors: a politics editor charged with taking care of the republican citizen and a political affairs editor looking after news about politicians (leadership challenges, speculation about elections and the like) for a more general audience. (An early draft of this piece referred to the latter post as a “political gossip editor”!) It hardly needs to be said that the broadcaster will be required to indicate which service a programme or programme segment is offering and mixing the two, while inevitable in practice, will not be encouraged.

Something blunt needs to be said before closing.

This change is likely to be shocking for journalists/presenters who have built a career on a kind of anti-establishment. Everyone approves the interviewer who is seen to ask difficult questions but too often this has been a service to those who want to be outraged, who are antagonistic to politics itself, who are poorly informed, who prefer gossip, catch phrases, familiar story frames and an absence of complexity, maths or science. In future an anti-establishment service will have to mean insistence on higher standards of contribution.

WHO IS LEFT TO DEFEND THE GAINS OF THE LEFT?

If the UK Conservative Party and others like them are successful in destroying the real democratic and welfare gains of the past century, it is likely because opponents – both liberal and socialist – seem to lack the wit or the nerve to challenge. It’s as blunt as this: no one is pro-establishment.

The genius of what is happening lies in occupying the term “anti-establishment”. The stupidity lies with opponents who can’t see what is happening or are either so in thrall to their traditions or fear the contumely of their comrades that they fall back on safe familiarity.

When Dominic Cummings announced that he was recruiting outsiders, wreckers, to smash the traditions and expertise of the UK civil service, “pro-business” liberals lined up to offer mindless support. They had to; to do otherwise might seem like changing sides. After everything they had said about inefficiency and lack of enterprise, they couldn’t manage now to say anything remotely supportive of the established civil service. Many of them know that the Cummings wrecker, devoted exclusively to science and maths, is a parody of real science graduates, and yet they felt acquiescence to nonsense was the best course. Being seen as anti-establishment was more attractive than revealing the truth.

Because both Dominic Cummings and Steve Bannon, Trump’s onetime advisor, have explicitly said that they are plundering socialist tradition, the tacit support of socialists is more sad and culpable. Instead of hurrying to the defence of parliament and the whole range of hard-won institutions on which future reforms depend, the majority of socialists want to do the opposite. They want to remain true to their revolutionary tradition and they want to avoid the criticism of fellow socialists. They want to do as they’ve done before: to mobilise the people against parliament, the judiciary, the civil service, i.e. the establishment. They therefore argue for getting among the people, agitating, setting up counter structures: being anti-establishment.

The progressive position now and certainly the socialist position should be to defend the establishment so as to resist the right wing project to roll back the state and destroy so many gains on which decent living depends.

The Presidential Election 2018; the power to decide the questions

It is interesting and revealing that journalists are complaining about how poor the debate was during the Presidential election campaign. With some exceptions, they speak as if journalism had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The televised debates illustrate the fissure between journalism and those citizens who rely on media to deliver meaningful public debate. The questions put to the candidates on TV were deliberate, the result of thoughtful, editorial selection. If the debate was trivial, failing to deliver for participative citizens, that was determined by the questions. It could have been otherwise but that would have involved different editorial judgement and decisions.

The questions chosen reflected the campaign, referring to the news stories that had dominated. This is in keeping with the most prominent view of what journalism is about. It is a part of being dispassionate, neutral: “We don’t make the news; we simply report it.”

Let’s consider the “question” or the questionable proposition that occupied most time: That the President is variously a millionaire, a money-grabbing man who chooses to stay in fabulous hotels and travel by government jet, that he is a landlord whose property had been upgraded at state expense, that thousands were spent by the state on having his dogs groomed, that he is utterly out of touch with reality and can’t see how his extravagance appears, that he is not to be believed in attempting to address these charges etc. etc.

Clearly this was not worth the time devoted to it. At best it was hyperbolised gossip and at worst a smear, spreading accusations of corruption against a person who in a fifty year career in public service had not heretofore attracted a hint of scandal. More importantly, yes, it was incredible but it was news. It was “true” because someone really had made the allegations. Seeing a very popular President struggle to fend off allegations might make for “good” television and if it damaged his reputation and “opened up the race”, that would be a show-biz bonus. Indeed, someone with a perverse grasp of the concept could see it as a bonus for democracy.

It might be argued from principle that everything including the accusations had to be allowed rather than censored. However, the final RTE TV debate did not operate to that principle; in an effete show of outrage, the presenter/moderator came down heavily on the explicit use of the word “liar”. In effect the situation was that anything goes as long as it’s done politely. As Joan Freeman might have phrased her frequently repeated lie, “With all due respect, a hUachtarán, you – like the three dragons – are a millionaire.” She could do this because like the others she was confident that the presenter would side with news over truth.

The dominance of news is an old problem for mass political communication and this is not the place to explore it. Suffice it to say, that not everyone wants to engage thoughtfully with politics and serving those who do will very likely reduce audience numbers.

However, it would be a waste to let this occasion of unusually widespread dissatisfaction slip by without discussion of what is actually required of political journalism and broadcast politics in particular. At the very least the editors who decided on the questions owe the citizens an explanation as to whom they thought they were serving and what service was being offered.

Reality Must Intrude on Myth-Making

 

The conflict between those who would normalise Sinn Fein and those who would not so much as socialise with a member of Sinn Fein is deep-seated. It turns on the question of something a great deal more basic than debate.

SF want to commemorate and celebrate the campaign waged by the provisional IRA. They see that as respecting their own dead, placing their narrative alongside others in telling the story of the troubles, and ensuring that the PIRA is seen as part of the longer tradition of violent Irish nationalism.

They do not accept that the PIRA’s campaign was exceptional. They want to liken it to earlier conflicts, specifically the insurrection of 1916 and the War of Independence.

When confronted by the thought that there are worse things in wars than the horrors of battle, that war crimes are a reality, they tend to have two responses. Firstly, they emphasise the old cliché that terrible things happen in war. Indeed they often condemn all wars. In other words, they deny the concept of a war crime and the need to consider it separately. Secondly, if they accept that war crimes exist, they argue that every party to every war is equally guilty.

The dispute here turns on i) what constitutes a war crime and ii) the extent to which war crimes featured in the conduct of a particular war.

Clearly the conduct of any war is a matter of selecting targets. Very few would quibble with the proposition that when civilians are selected as targets, an unambiguous war crime is committed. Even fewer would quibble with the suggestion that all wars have featured war crimes, the intentional targeting of civilians.

Nations like to commemorate, honour their war dead, their heroes. This is usually possible because the conduct of wars is ambiguous or the incidence of war crimes is sufficiently infrequent as to permit relatively civilised myth-making and public ceremony. That is to say, the war crimes – the targeting of civilians – can be condemned or quietly and shamefully hidden away so that the overall conduct of the war can be remembered as heroic or at least necessary. Thus Poppy Day can be celebrated while carpet bombing cities isn’t mentioned, the US knows that there can never be a Mai Lai Massacre Day and the Irish State knows that while there can be a commemoration of The War of Independence or the Civil War, that must not include detonating a bomb to which IRA prisoners had been chained.

It is stark and true that we all know about the horrors of war, the breakdown of civilised conventions, the cover it gives to do evil, the collaboration – cowardly if seeking advantage and understandable if seeking to survive. We know too about the heroes who would have no part in attacking civilians. Bluntly, we know damn well the difference between a war crime and a battle.

Because it was a campaign of war crimes punctuated by military engagements, the campaign of the Provisional IRA cannot be allowed these established, shamefaced distinctions and hair-splitting. For the most part, theirs was a campaign of assassinated civilians, “prisoners” tortured and their bodies dumped or secretly buried, “proxy bombs” in which a civilian was attached to a bomb and made to deliver it while his family was held hostage, and perhaps the most shameful and dishonest of them all: the public bombings.

They were shameful because they reduced civilians to mere messages (“The only thing the Brits understand!”) They were were also dishonest in their depravity. Think about what they did – time and again. They placed a bomb in a public place. Then by way of a warning, they gave their victims a “sporting chance” of escape. Subsequently, they expressed go-by-the-wall regret over the casualties (Irish and British) and said that it wouldn’t have happened if the authorities had acted more promptly on their warning or if the British were not occupying Ireland.

Thus the PIRA campaign of war crimes was a nasty episode in Irish history. Best forgotten completely? No! Let it serve as a warning that some Irish people can sink to the obscenities witnessed in so many countries. For that reason it must become part of our history, evidence that the Irish are capable of evil deeds. However, it most certainly should not become a part of us as one narrative among many. It cannot be commemorated with any suggestion of pride, let alone celebrated.

It might have been possible to put it to the backs of our minds and move on (We are constantly reminded that young people don’t remember the sordid PIRA targeting.) but Sinn Fein won’t allow that. They want it made normal that in today’s Ireland we tolerate the celebration of war crimes – worse, a campaign of war crimes.

In this they are usually facilitated by Irish journalism which hides behind conventional approaches to news and impartiality. Today SF speakers are passively granted a hearing. They state their views on public controversies of all kind as if they were an honoured part of our republic. This spineless and now established media approach is analogous to the effete silence faced by someone who habitually spouts vile nonsense. That is to say, otherwise decent people too often opt for a quiet life rather than confront a neighbour, friend or family member. In so doing they fail a basic test. A citizen of a republic has a responsibility to tell a blackguard that they ought to be ashamed of themselves and to do it day after day.

Questioning ritual comment in news reports and the strange selection of SF to comment on a gun attack

On June 5^th there was a mysterious gun attack on Bray Boxing Club. The journalist covering it for RTE included in his report the views of local TD, John Brady. This inclusion prompts two questions.

Firstly, what is the purpose of broadcasting the views of a member of parliament in news reports of this kind? They seldom add significant information and they never offer a unique perspective. On some occasions similar comments are sought from a local priest. If local comment is a feature of journalism, any number of bystanders or neighbours is available. It would seem that the choice has nothing whatsoever to do with the news report or recognising local interest or effect and a great deal to do with pointing out who is recognised as important – even a leader – in a community.

When a priest is selected, atheists and non-catholics might find it anything from extremely odd, through partisan, and all the way to downright antagonistic. When a TD (MP in other countries) is selected, it might be argued that democracy is advanced, that a person elected by citizens and frequently referred to as a public representative, should be recognised as their spokesperson. It might also be argued that encouraging representation of this kind is intensely anti-democratic, that citizens in a republic do not vote to elect community leaders and certainly not to appoint those who will provide soothing – almost ceremonial – utterances for news reports of murder.

The second question is the selection of the particular politician for inclusion. Perhaps selection is not the best term. Perhaps some public representatives with an eye to publicity and re-election chase around in the knowledge that journalists consider a politician’s comment to be a standard component of their news product. This of course would constitute manipulation of journalism.

Whatever the reason, a Sinn Féin TD appeared in the RTE report of a savage gun crime. Five TDs are elected for Wicklow and eight councillors for the Bray area. Two are members of Sinn Féin. Now, there there may be editorial policy that selecting SF speakers somehow serves the peace process, that having them talk on all manner of occasions stitches them into constitutionalism. That just might be worth addressing but the immediate reaction on this occasion must be: This was a gun attack. There’s a citizen dead and two wounded. Bringing in a SF rep to comment is downright perverse. It mocks the nation.

The notion that media can serve the republic, its constitution and peace by having SF speak on all manner of issues is utterly wrong. It does precisely the opposite. It serves to normalise them and their values. It says that these are ordinary public representatives with views that are within the limits of democracy. That’s not the case. In our republic the normalisation – constitutionalisation, if you like – of ceremonies and celebrations of war crimes (bombing etc. of civilians) and those who hold those odious views has to be resisted.* Journalism generally evades responsibility by talking in terms of mere reportage, coverage, impartiality and news.** Perhaps the only resistance now will come from ordinary citizens – maybe just a handful – who are prepared to say to a member of SF, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself”. ***

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* This was manifest when SF’s relatively late opposition to the 8^th Amendment (The constitutional ban on legislation to permit abortion) was hidden, while RTE presented their president as a leader of the move to repeal:

https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/the-media-preference-for-mary-lou-mcdonald-during-the-referendum-campaign-showed-partiality-in-coverage-of-a-different-and-fraught-public-controversy/ 

** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/journalism-and-the-struggle-to-decide-what-is-normal-the-case-of-sfs-desire-to-celebrate-the-prov-ira/

*** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-division-between-supporters-of-sf-and-other-irish-people-is-and-ought-to-be-fundamental/

The extraordinary can so easily become the ordinary: Irish journalism, normalisation and SF’s desire to celebrate the Prov. IRA

Recently on Facebook Mark Hennessy, News Editor at the Irish Times, became cross with me. I had criticised a journalist I admire for failing over decades of interviews to ask Jerry Adams about the decision of the IRA to target civilians. Mark felt that it was unreasonable to expect journalists to go on about the troubles in every article concerning SF. It’s not the first time this has been said to me and it’s time I addressed it.

Among all of the policies, views, topics etc. that SF addresses today one is utterly unique. They want to commemorate and celebrate the campaign of the Prov. IRA. Some of their members may prefer that this looking back stopped but they are aware that a part of their support base requires it, that forgetting it might split their movement or might even prompt a group to violence. Some others may see the campaign as honourable and worthy of celebration.

There is a simple reason why a desire to celebrate the IRA is loathsome. Like all combatants, the IRA thought about it and selected their targets. At some stage they decided that civilians were to be their targets. Over decades they persisted with this as public bombing – among other civilian killing – followed public bombing until it characterised their campaign. SF point out that civilians regrettably die in all conflicts. This is true. It is equally true that the intentional targeting of civilians is regarded as an unambiguous war crime. SF today want to celebrate this campaign.

There are of course Irish citizens who think that civilian targeting was acceptable in the Irish context or that it is a staple of asymmetric warfare and they are fine with its celebration. There are other Irish citizens who will view the celebration of a campaign of war crimes as relatively unimportant and will support SF because of other policies or issues. In order for SF support to grow, however, a large number of Irish citizens will have to come to accept that such celebration is normal or harmlessly eccentric.

We are talking about normalisation and this is where all citizens – but journalists especially – have to think long and hard. To begin with, we have to decide if we want the celebration of war crimes to be accepted as a normal or indeed as a merely eccentric feature of Irish life. If we do not, then we have to resist its being normalised.

There are two ways in which something is made normal. It happens firstly when it receives little or no adverse comment. In Ireland most citizens have been drawn into using a sanitised lexicon in which targeting civilians is hidden; we talk of war, troubles, unrest etc. – anything to avoid calling a spade a spade. Secondly, it happens by way of acceptance: a person or organisation is tolerated to the extent that they can take part in all of the nation’s conversations as if all of their viewpoints were within the bounds of acceptability. When the speaker is presented as normal, it is implied that their parcel of views is normal. Bluntly, normalisation proceeds every time a SF speaker offers a view, or they are reported or discussed and no one refers to their celebration of war crimes.

A journalist will respond by saying that news and current affairs cannot be disrupted and possibly made boring by constantly harping back to an old issue. Generally speaking this is a sound point. However, the subject here is extraordinary and could of course be treated as an editorial exception, having nothing whatsoever to do with day to day journalism. It is, moreover, for SF not an extraneous but a defining issue and it is not old, it is current.

There is a small number of extreme views which a civilised society cannot normalise and which therefore fall neither within the confines of media practice nor the routines of polite company.* No journalist or any citizen should let pass an opportunity to strike against exceptional barbarity. Obversely anyone holding an exceptionally barbaric view should expect it to be raised in most if not all situations.

Normalisation is an ordinary and familiar part of everyday life but it has a dark side and its outcome always involves struggle. It has delivered many of the features of progressive, tolerant society. It is the process through which previously excluded minorities together with perspectives, beliefs and practices, once thought to be vile, become unremarkable and accepted. None of this happens without resistance and opposition, and the media provide the arena in which each tussle is played to a stable conclusion.

Normalisation, however, is not necessarily progressive. It has a dark side because by that same process – again, with media playing a central role – a decent society can be so poisoned that large numbers of citizens accept or turn a blind eye to depraved actions and expressions.

The outcomes – progressive or poisonous – are decided by struggle. The danger of course is that a struggle might be smothered because media/journalism as an institution fails to create and stage a public controversy for the citizens they serve. That danger is increased when those seeking normalisation are adept at using the values, codes, practices, conventions and obligations of journalism to prevent a public controversy.

This is now where we are with SF and Irish journalism. SF wants to expand support while holding the view that their celebration of the IRA’s campaign of war crimes is normal, routine, something that is to be accepted and most certainly not to be a matter of continuing public controversy, brought up every time they appear in news or utter a comment.

It’s impossible to know how many but some journalists at least may take the view that such celebration is neither normal, routine nor accepted but that the journalist’s role is to report the news and comment on current affairs as defined by elite “news-makers”. When it comes to extraordinary depravity, that level of passivity falls far short of professional performance in support of the republic and its citizens.

Let it be said clearly that for as long as SF persist in celebrating war crimes a journalist covering them in any way who decides to avoid raising this horror, is facilitating its normalisation.

Many citizens remain steadfast ** and for them it is unthinkable firstly that Ireland could ever accept the commemoration and celebration of war crimes becoming ordinary – becoming part of what we are – and secondly that those who would do such a thing could be allowed among us without being told repeatedly that they should be ashamed of themselves, and that they are a disgrace to the nation.

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* https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/day-to-day-conversation-and-the-struggle-for-decency/

** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-division-between-supporters-of-sf-and-other-irish-people-is-and-ought-to-be-fundamental/

We are activists. We don’t do theory. That’s why we always lose.

 

“Politics, deliberation, and public action dissolve under the relentless pressure for leveraging one’s self into a position of greater human capital and competitive advantage. The state remodels itself as a firm, the university as a factory, and the self as an object with a price tag.” *

The Left in Ireland is comprised of local examples of world movements and doctrines. It loves issues and campaigns. Tackling broad theory – never mind creating a plausible alternative – is not regarded as essential. That’s a fundamental error.

You see, there’s always been your man at the bar, the drunk who has the answers, the bar-stool approach to politics. You know how it goes: everyone is selfish, politicians are all crooks and/or stupid, public servants and experts are all incompetent, thoughtful citizens are sheeple and we need a revolution to put ordinary people in charge – people power!

However, something has changed because this kind of stupidity is no longer deplored. It is tolerated beyond the drunk at the bar. It has been brought out into the open, patronised and promoted. Moreover, it is the preferred weapon of the rich and powerful who see in it the possibility of undoing a century of state welfare systems and controls on markets. Unfortunately, they are aided by too many gullible leftists who bizarrely seem to think that angry stupidity could possibly be a working class trait.**

An impoverished and downright nasty understanding of what it means to be human and consequently of human rationality is now dominant and it is rarely – if ever – questioned. Because docile acceptance has political consequences, journalism bears a heavy responsibility. Journalism generally reflects dominant viewpoints, failing to question thoroughly the driving assumptions and theory behind them. Moreover, conventional news is fed by “anti-establishment” activists providing a flow of protest and outrage over discrete issues.

The term neo-liberalism can be both useful and superficial; it is scattered around – particularly by leftists – and it works fairly well to trigger emotions over an “issue”. However, any attempt to discuss it or – heaven forbid – compare it to plain liberalism prompts groans, wilful ignorance and the patronising claim that ordinary people won’t understand or are not interested. This is precisely how the left becomes conservative – campaigning, protesting, pressurising on issues while refusing to demand – no, cause – public discourse on what makes them issues.

The reason that Liberal thought survived left criticism for so long was that it delivered security, health, education, welfare and decent jobs; it reached an accommodation with capitalism and that accommodation became the establishment.*** Liberals – now often referred to as Classic Liberals – emphasised human dignity, mutual respect and fair procedures. They tended to insist that in making a decision, possible harm should be considered and avoided. They weren’t prioritising pay-offs; they were considering wider outcomes, consequences. This is what neo-liberalism seeks to destroy. It’s not just posing as anti-establishment; it really is.

Neo-liberalism then is utterly different. It looks at life as a competition, a constant struggle for scarce resources and dominance. It is built not only on a dismal view of human nature and rationality but but also on non-cooperative Game Theory. It is worth emphasising that Game Theory was developed not for ordinary citizen relationships but for working out nuclear strategies during the Cold War. The idea is that everyone is an adversary and decision-making is based on narrow, self-interested, “rational” choice.**** This approach was imported first into business and finance, and then into wider aspects of life and society. It favours competitive market solutions to all questions, undermines solidarity, fellow-feeling, goodwill, the state, welfare provisions, expertise, human decency and values – especially the values of classic liberalism – all in a drive towards radical privatisation, reducing citizens to contractors and/or customers who conduct relationships on the basis of quid pro quo. (Remember that gobshite on the bar stool.)

In Ireland today it is certainly true that many – more likely, most – citizens believe that self determination is expressed merely in consumer choice. They have been bludgeoned into this belief by a refusal of journalism and activists to contradict the dominant view. Choice has come to mean consumer choice and the citizen has been reduced to a customer of service providers. Public service – once a well understood, honourable and decent way of life – is now a matter of reacting to customers. Government departments, county councils, state bodies and industries, having abandoned citizenship, now operate to customer charters and the like, and prefer to deal with clients.

In many instances the left has gone along with all this. Their cooperation has perhaps three causes. Firstly, they may for populist reasons be unwilling to challenge orthodoxy when expressed by “ordinary workers”. Secondly, they may not see the significance of the contrast between customer and citizen. Thirdly, they may see customer relations as an improvement on some of the high-handed carry on that brought public service into disrepute. Incidentally, for whatever reasons Dublin South County Council when dominated by a strong group of Labour councillors, declined even to discuss a move from customer to citizen relationships.

When a theory becomes dominant – even orthodox – there are outcomes across the globe and Ireland is a case in point. Irish acceptance of bar-stool guff dressed up as Neo-liberalism leads necessarily to privatisation, market-based solutions to all problems and the reduction of the citizen to a mere customer living in an endless chaos of markets.

The anti-intellectual eye-rolling at the mere mention of “neo-liberal” functions not only to stifle counter theory but to prevent critique and thus cement the doctrine. Unable or unwilling to challenge at a theoretical level, the left is reduced to skirmishing over, say, particular privatisations, guaranteeing that it will win occasionally, lose frequently and not even slow the march. Perhaps the best hope the Irish left has is that critique and counter theory at an international level will win out and leftward change will seep into Ireland. That would be passive, shamefully passive.

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* https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/uses-and-abuses-neoliberalism-debate

** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/working-class-has-meaning-it-should-not-be-twisted-misappropriated-or-trivialised/

*** Technology has had a crucial effect on work, employment and capitalism. https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/full-employment-in-this-century-will-be-different-as-work-befitting-educated-skilled-workers-grows-scarce/

**** If this is of interest, see: S.M. Amadae, Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and Neo-liberal Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Anyone who thinks that acceptance of neo-liberal, bar-stool beliefs was accidental or that it can be combated by way of activism, should consider reading, Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: the deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America (Scribe UK, 2017)

NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM: FRAMING AND CENSORSHIP

Complaints that news coverage of terrorist attacks generally fails to give much idea of context – i.e. the longer history, the grievances, the circumstances that led to the bloodshed – are by and large justified and the complaints ensure that that particular context is at least mentioned. There is, however, another context which tends to be utterly ignored. Terrorist attacks exist not only in the context of their particular struggle but also in the context of terrorism itself – i.e. its history, the many organisations, their methods, successes and failures.

In order to appreciate concerns about the neglect of context, it is necessary to mention “framing”. News is a product created by media workers and all news stories are told within a frame chosen by those workers. They might decide to relate an event as good news or as bad news. An easy example would be the reporting of increased numbers of air travellers; this could be framed as good news for the tourist industry or it could be framed as bad news for the environment. News staff decide how it will be told, framed. Looking to the audience, the citizen who wants full information in order to form a considered viewpoint wants all frames, while the citizen with little interest in public affairs would like it kept simple.

Another choice when it comes to frames is whether to relate events as isolated episodes or as events in a much larger theme. In the early 1990s Shanto Iyengar argued that for the most part news stories are presented as unconnected events – episodes – rather than as incidents best understood in a longer process or theme. This, he argues, depoliticises them – prevents their being the subject of effective political controversy.* News reduces great controversies to a series of anecdotes, e.g. the likes of inequality might be reduced to isolated stories about poverty.

So too with the reporting of terrorism, the complaint is that it is reduced to stories of carnage ripped out of their political context, or – as Iyengar would put it – episodic framing is preferred to thematic framing. The citizen with little interest in politics is served at the expense of the thoughtful, participative citizen.

Journalists, presenters, researchers, editors, producers etc. are of course well aware of the choices to be made and sometimes decide to place events in context often in a longer special report or even a current affairs programme. Almost inevitably, the choice is to place the attack or series of attacks in the context of the struggle from which they emerged. While this is an enormous service to the thoughtful citizen – one which may have commercial consequences as less interested citizens tune out – something is still missing: that other neglected context of terrorist attacks.

When media staff decide to place current attacks in context, they usually opt again for a degree of isolation that limits political discussion. That is to say, a terrorist attack or campaign is seldom considered in the context of decades of similar attacks and campaigns mounted by different groups in different countries. Recent Jihadi attacks are treated as new and unprecedented when the reality is that they are part of a recurring and developing tradition stretching back decades into the twentieth century.

This is not the place to develop a history of terrorism. Suffice it to say that adequate consideration of the latest terrorist attack or campaign of attacks depends as much on understanding their commonality with earlier attacks and campaigns as it does on understanding their particular context. Putting it more plainly but provocatively, the context to Jihadi attacks on Western civilians includes the IRA and others.

This is where it gets controversial and where something akin to censorship appears. There are people – almost certainly the majority of people – who would regard such attacks on civilians as crimes against humanity and who would want perpetrators, commanders and facilitators hunted and brought before the courts. There are also people who are selective, who think that targeting civilians is sometimes justified. Now should anyone but especially a producer of media present jihadi atrocities in the context of earlier struggles, those selective citizens will go ape. They will demand a degree of censorship; they will demand that coverage of terrorist attacks never be framed in a context which includes the killings of which they approve. It would take brave journalism to defy them.

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* During the 1980s Shanto Iyengar analysed US coverage of socio-political issues – poverty, unemployment, crime – and found that news was biased towards events rather than their context. He labelled the difference “episodic framing” as opposed to “thematic framing”. The former reduced complex issues to anecdotes and hindered public understanding of controversial issues. (Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible?: How Television Frames Political Issues, University Of Chicago Press, 1994)

Dying of thirst in an Irish hospital while “frontline staff” look on

Paul Acton died in Tallaght hospital in 2005 as a result of pneumonia, sepsis and crucially organ failure brought on by dehydration. His widow is to receive 320k in compensation. The hospital admits negligence.*

My purpose in writing is twofold. Firstly, I was shocked at the level of cruelty deliberately visited upon this man. He was diagnosed as dehydrated and in need of fluids. He was ordered ”nil by mouth” because of his other illness. He therefore needed intravenous liquid urgently and yet he was left to suffer for hours unto death. His son in law said in a radio interview that he died waiting for a doctor to become available to insert a cannula to deliver the fluid. The man was begging for fluids for hours before he died. (Jesus wept, he was dying of thirst!) These days it is routine to praise “frontline staff” working in under-staffed and under-funded hospitals but there is something fundamentally wrong with medical staff who, aware of the situation, do not act. People of this calibre should not be in the public service.

Secondly, I happen to have some personal experience to bring to this. I was in hospital a couple of years ago while an infection was treated with an intravenous antibiotic. One evening my cannula became blocked and needed to be replaced. I was informed that only a doctor could perform this insertion. I waited and waited and waited. A nurse became concerned and said that if a doctor did not appear within the next twenty minutes, she would break the rules and do it. A young doctor appeared shortly after that. Incidentally, he was not at all good at the operaation and succeeded on the fifth painful attempt.

This is a simple operation whose performance is improved by lots of practice. There is no need for the demarcation which restricts the work to doctors. At least two of my nurses were certified to do the work but were not allowed to do it.

In my case I was merely very late receiving medication but in the case reported in Tallaght a patient was allowed to die in agony. Clearly this carry-on is far too dangerous to be allowed continue.

* http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/woman-awarded-320-000-after-husband-dies-in-hospital-1.1451729