But I'm pretty bloody disappointed in our Tánaiste/Minister for Foreign Affairs. He's been supine on matters do with our financial responsibilities to repay EU/IMF bailout loans and bondholder investors, when his party went into government about how they would be the ones controlling the purse strings of the Irish economy, not Germany! Though he is making political hay out of the affair at the moment: when life hands you lemons (his party is sinking like a stone in public approval polls and are expected to do badly at the next election because they're seen as simply rubberstamping the decisions of the majority party as the price of power), make lemonade (use the affair to not-so-subtly point fingers at your colleagues in government as though you yourself are not the deputy prime minister and have nothing to do with how the country is run!)
I don't want to sound like I'm picking on these two guys n particular primarily for being atheists, which is not the point I'm making. It's that they are just part of the present government (and indeed the majority 'chattering class' opinion-formers in Irish society and media) that are so loud about how they are making The Great Leap Forward on social progression.
They don't seem to have examined the entrenched attitudes to minorities and the racism that is blatantly on display here. In fact, the majority government partner (and the minority partner goes along with them) is quite happy to appeal to middle-class prejudices when it comes to vote-winning. Cuts to services in our austerity budgets, which are basically for the purpose of repaying the EU/IMF money we got to bail out the banks which exploded during the crisis and to repay the investors who bought Government bonds as a speculation, are being touted as necessary to get the country going again.
As always, the two biggest spending ministries, Health and Social Welfare, are the ones that have to make the biggest reductions. The present Minister for Health is a disaster, but the Minister for Social Protection (who belongs to the minority party led by our Minister for Foreign Affairs) has had to swallow a cut in the monies available, as well as parrot the government line that they're only getting rid of "welfare scroungers" and fraudsters - that is, the lazy, cheating, worthless poor who won't take up jobs because it's cushier to be on welfare (it's not) and the immigrants running scams (like, oh guess who: the Roma!)
Hitting the Catholic Church in Ireland nowadays is not a politically risky manoeuvre; you may lose some votes, but you'll make up for it in approval from everyone who doesn't want to be regarded as a knuckle-dragging redneck.
Facing up to racism as evinced in anonymous phone calls about Gypsies stealing white kids, which resulted from the tabloid papers and TV shows jumping eagerly on the bandwagon of the Greek case, is a different matter.
This is why I'm not naming any names
I don't want to sound like I'm picking on these two guys n particular primarily for being atheists, which is not the point I'm making. It's that they are just part of the present government (and indeed the majority 'chattering class' opinion-formers in Irish society and media) that are so loud about how they are making The Great Leap Forward on social progression.
They don't seem to have examined the entrenched attitudes to minorities and the racism that is blatantly on display here. In fact, the majority government partner (and the minority partner goes along with them) is quite happy to appeal to middle-class prejudices when it comes to vote-winning. Cuts to services in our austerity budgets, which are basically for the purpose of repaying the EU/IMF money we got to bail out the banks which exploded during the crisis and to repay the investors who bought Government bonds as a speculation, are being touted as necessary to get the country going again.
As always, the two biggest spending ministries, Health and Social Welfare, are the ones that have to make the biggest reductions. The present Minister for Health is a disaster, but the Minister for Social Protection (who belongs to the minority party led by our Minister for Foreign Affairs) has had to swallow a cut in the monies available, as well as parrot the government line that they're only getting rid of "welfare scroungers" and fraudsters - that is, the lazy, cheating, worthless poor who won't take up jobs because it's cushier to be on welfare (it's not) and the immigrants running scams (like, oh guess who: the Roma!)
Hitting the Catholic Church in Ireland nowadays is not a politically risky manoeuvre; you may lose some votes, but you'll make up for it in approval from everyone who doesn't want to be regarded as a knuckle-dragging redneck.
Facing up to racism as evinced in anonymous phone calls about Gypsies stealing white kids, which resulted from the tabloid papers and TV shows jumping eagerly on the bandwagon of the Greek case, is a different matter.