Commissioner Kyprianou’s decision to ban imports of Brazilian beef is long overdue. It also highlights the contradictory stance of the EU up to now.

In recent years, the EU has pursued an uncompromising food safety agenda. This has seen farm overheads soar, as well as the closure of many small abattoirs and the uncompetitive dominance of large processors. This has been reflected in a rise in consumer prices, with a corresponding narrowing of the margin for the average farmer.

In contrast to our safe, traceable and expensive meat, the shop shelves have also offered cheap imports that lack any of the controls that the EU enforces. This actively undermines the safe food agenda, as hard-pressed shoppers are likely to opt for cheap imports.

The ban will help to protect our producers, however, it also means that consumers will have to pay more. Perhaps the EU needs to go a step further and consider some appropriate relaxation of the regulations here. In particular, if small abattoirs were allowed to operate viably, then farmers would have more access routes to the market, and local produce could supply local need at reduced cost.

Of course, Brussels isn’t famed for practical solutions or common sense, but maybe this could be a good start.

Que bono? Who gains? The betting exchanges and bookmaking sites must be hoping the search for an Ireland manager goes on forever. In the absence of any actual announcements, the sports reports have repeatedly led with stories that X has emerged as favourite for the job for no other reason than that the markets have seen money pour into them - think Terry Venables, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and most recently Giovanni Trappatoni

This is a remarkable proposition when you stop and think about it. A bookie announces a move in the price (implying a big bet has gone in); punters pile in after that saviour; newspapers hype it up as an inevitable sign of an imminent appointment; a day or two passes and it turns out there was no story. The bookies then leave it a week or two, and then start again.

So who benefits? The bookies of course!

I think this one speaks for itself!

If you’re like me and have an impeccable musical ear and a taste for fresh talent (although in fairness my love of Duran Duran and Kate Bush shouldn’t be held against me on this), then you should keep your ears peeled for Carly Blackman aka Carly Sings in 2008.

Carly is one of my bestest friends from College, and she will be releasing her debut single next month and her album, The Glove Thief, should be out later in the year. I think her music is a little like a female Damien Rice, full of delicate melodies and interesting lyrics - hope you don’t mind the comparison Carly! She’s coining the term gypsy pop to describe her self-compositions while the press are saying they’re strongly Gallic-inspired, with a hint of jazzy cool.

You can make up your own mind by tuning in to some of her demos on her MySpace and hopefully, that taster will whet your appetite for the studio release.

I see that Brian Lenihan has announced a new group to review government policy on alcohol. This will be FF’s 10th such committee since 1997, so we can probably read something into their ability to take action based on the recommendations. That said, there is definitely a need to do something about Ireland’s current drink culture. Personal responsibility should be at the core, but as this is one of the first casualties of a night on the sauce, it might not be the solution it might otherwise prove.

Personally I like my pint as much as the next man. I enjoy the craic and chat I have with my mates in the pub, and you won’t find me leaving early - in case I miss something interesting. When the old closing times were in force, I happily had a good night and went home when the pub shut. The same thing happens with the extended hours we’ve had for the last few years; but you know, I wouldn’t mind if the old times were back in force. You see the curious thing is that I’m more interested in seeing what the night holds, rather than getting blotto and so when the night finishes for everyone I’m happy it’s also over for me. I think the same would be true of the vast majority of my friends.

So what does that mean from a public policy point of view? Government can take three approaches, lets classify them as entirely deregulate the market; regulate access to alcohol; and regulate supply. The first is obvious, but unlikely to be introduced - and that’s fine by me.

The second means limiting the places where alcohol can be purchased. I think a return to limits on who and where can sell alcohol would be a good thing. Is it really a good idea to sell booze at the likes of filling stations? If we actually had to make an effort to find beer, wine and spirits, we’d probably see a drop off as people wouldn’t bother without the convenience.

And the final one is to do with opening times for licensed premises. The more I think about it - the more I’m in favour of changing the opening hours but I haven’t decided how. The two main variables are pub closing times and nightclub closing times. Personally, I think a more responsible type of drinking happens in bars as people are more visible and the staff can see when someone has had enough, so my main target would be nightclubs. I don’t think I can find a really strong argument that places should be disgorging hordes of drunks onto our streets at 3am. Or more problematic, a group of clubs all spilling their contents into taxi ranks and chippers at the same time. This is a public order nuisance across the country.

Perhaps allowing pubs to stay open a bit later and nightclubs close a bit earlier might allow people to make a decision about what type of night they want, rather than inevitably going somewhere that’s open when the pub shuts and accelerating their level of consumption.

At the same time - an overall pulling back of closing times would be good too. So maybe an overall rolling back of closing times, while also allowing pubs to compete as an alternative to clubs, rather than one being the precursor to the other would be the best balance.

The news that most public sector workers are not going to receive a benchmarking award (Irish Independent, January 10) should come as no surprise to those of us in the private sector.

In an increasingly volatile economic climate, it would be hard to view civil and public servants as being at a disadvantage relative to other workers — especially as their generous pensions are now included in calculations.

Of course, we’ll have the unions threatening all kinds of actions over their lack of a pay bump.

But we also know that benchmarking is only part of the pay-rise mechanism available to their members, and that they will still get pay increases under Towards 2016; their poor-mouth hand-wringing should be viewed in that context.

Perhaps this could instead be a golden opportunity for public sector unions to rise to the challenge of a post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

The days of getting pay rises for the sake of it are gone, as money becomes scarce and belts are tightened.

So rather than grumbling that they missed out under benchmarking, perhaps they should instead aim to outdo the private sector in terms of productivity, work practices and flexibility.

Then at least they could justify additional increases, but in a way that would deliver value rather than unconditional rewards.

Benchmarking productivity rather than pay would seem like a far better aspiration, but of course the chances of that are as likely as a January heatwave.

This came up on politics.ie earlier in the day. Minister Gormley has announced the terms of reference for the upcoming review of local electoral boundaries. The key points are that they are to report by June 20; three seaters are to be avoided except where affording four seats would create an unweidly district; LEAs should as far as possible match Dáil boundaries; and finally the group should assume no overall change in the number of councillors in a particular authority but that they should achieve an internal variance of -+10% across that individual authority (so the fact that Kildare is well out of line with the national average won’t be considered as a reason for us to gain in our overall number of councillors).

Interestingly while it mentions that existing LEAs should be maintained in some form where possible, the terms don’t refer to ensuring that the boundaries and areas reflect the national spatial strategy. This could result in identified development hubs (e.g. Kildare Town and Monasterevin) being split between LEAs - hardly a good idea when it comes to development plans.

I’ve included the full statement as posted below, but on first glance one would have to think that South Kildare could be in for a lot of chopping with the Athy LEA potentially gaining a fourth seat from somewhere and probably some population too; that part of the Clane LEA not in Kildare North moves south; some movement around Ballymore\Kilcullen into a Kildare South LEA.

I plan to take a closer look at the population figures to see how the variance would work out, but Kildare’s average number of people per councillor is 1 to 7,453 so that means that each area should have between 6,700 and 8,200 people per councillor (that’s based on the 2006 census figures - the same ones the review will rely on).

Also - a brief look at the quotas from 2004 might give some idea about where imbalances might lie:

Athy(3) 2,024
Celbridge(3) 1,821
Leixlip(4) 2,043
Clane(4) 2,128
Naas(5) 2,374
Kildare(6) 2,241
Average(25) 2,105

A transfer from Naas to Clane and Kildare, from Clane to Celbridge and Kildare, from Kildare to Athy might be an option for them and in essence it might allow a seat to move north to south, while also dealing with the two three seat districts.

I’ll have a more thorough examination tomorrow.

Boundary Commission Terms of Reference

A review of electoral areas is needed due to population changes since the last review in 1998. The Committees* reports will be considered as the basis for a revision of the local electoral areas for use at the local elections to be held in 2009.

The terms of reference of both Committees are attached and the Minister has appointed the following persons to the Committees:

Dublin and Cities Committee
Niall Callan, former Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Chairperson)
Kevin Dowling, Former Executive Manager, Dublin City Council
Adrian Kavanagh, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth
Willie Soffe, Former Fingal County Manager
Teresa White, Assistant County Manager, Cork

This Committee will report on the areas of Dublin City, Cork City,Galway City, Limerick City, Waterford City, and Dun-Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin County Councils.

Committee for Rest of the Country (*Electoral Area Boundary Committee*)
Niall Callan, former Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Chairperson)
Ann McGuinness, Former Westmeath County Manager
Deirdre Garvey, Chief Executive Officer, The Wheel
Donal O’Donoghue, Former Galway County Manager
John McCormack, Director of Services Kilkenny County Council

This Committee will report on the electoral areas in counties outside of Dublin, and on the borough councils of Drogheda and Sligo and the town councils of Bray and Dundalk all of which are currently divided into local electoral areas.

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Dublin and Cities Electoral Area Boundary Committee

1. To review and to make recommendations, subject to paragraph 2, on the division of the cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford and the counties of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin into local electoral areas and the number of members of the councils to be assigned to each such area, with a view to ensuring a
reasonable relationship between the 2006 population and representation within each local authority. For this purpose, the Committee is to assume no change in the total membership of each local authority and to endeavour, as far as practicable, to achieve variance from individual average local authority representation within the range of + or - 10%.

2. In carrying out its review, the Committee shall have as an objective the drawing up of electoral areas which (alone or in combination) would, as far as practicable, have an urban or neighbourhood focal point (or points).

3. In recommending changes to local electoral areas, the Committee should, subject to paragraph 2, take due account first of the desirability of preserving natural communities or the hinterlands of population centres, and secondly of the desirability, where it may be possible to do so, of aligning local electoral area boundaries with Dáil constituency boundaries.

4. The number of councillors representing an area as determined above should not be less than 4 or more than 7, provided that in very exceptional circumstances 3 seat local electoral areas may be recommended where otherwise the geographic size of the area would be disproportionately large.

5. Subject to the above, the Committee shall endeavour to maintain continuity in relation to the arrangement of local electoral areas.

6. The Committee shall submit its report as soon as possible and, in any event, not later than 20 June 2008.

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Electoral Area Boundary Committee (local authorities other than in Dublin and the cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford)

1. To review and to make recommendations, subject to paragraph 2, on the division of each county (other than Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin), the boroughs of Drogheda and Sligo, and the towns of Bray and Dundalk into local electoral areas and the number of members of the councils to be assigned to each such area, with a view to ensuring a reasonable relationship between the 2006 population and representation within each local authority. For this purpose, the Committee is to assume no change in the total membership of each local authority and to endeavour, as far as practicable, to achieve variance from individual average local authority representation within the range of + or - 10%.

2. In carrying out its review, the Committee shall have as an objective the drawing up of electoral areas which (alone or in combination) would, as far as practicable, have an urban or neighbourhood focal point (or points).

3. In recommending changes to local electoral areas, the Committee should, subject to paragraph 2, take due account first of the desirability of preserving natural communities or the hinterlands of population centres, and secondly of the desirability, where it may be possible to do so, of aligning local electoral area boundaries with Dáil constituency boundaries.

4. The number of councillors representing an area as determined above should not be less than 4 or more than 7, provided that in very exceptional circumstances 3 seat local electoral areas may be recommended where otherwise the geographic size of the area would be disproportionately large.

5. Subject to the above, the Committee shall endeavour to maintain continuity in relation to the arrangement of local electoral areas.

6. The Committee shall submit its report as soon as possible and, in any event, not later than 20 June 2008.

Whatever you may think about Frank Connolly’s travel habits, you have to admire his forensic determination when it comes to his research, and his Elliott Ness-like ability to spot a potential weakness. His article in the Irish Mail on Sunday last weekend regarding Bertie’s tax compliance may be the start of some real headaches for the Taoiseach.

Forget about never ending tribunal enquiries into moneys from 15 years ago, Connolly’s angle brings things far more up to date by highlighting a clear divergence in opinion between the Revenue Commissioners and Mr Ahern on his tax declarations after the 2002 election

All elected representatives must fully account for their incomes, assets and tax status to the Standards in Public Office Commission. Failure to do so, or worse still, making false declarations is a serious issue. Indeed obtaining a false tax clearance certificate can lead to a custodial sentence and a criminal record - just ask former FF TD Michael Collins.

If the position as stated by the Revenue in their correspondence is shown to be accurate, then Mr Ahern did not discuss his loans\gifts with the ‘tax authorities’ as he claimed in the Dobson interview (and no amount of parsing that statement to mean authorities on tax rather than the Revenue is acceptable - his statement had a clear intent). This means he potentially made a false declaration after the 2002 election, and it will be very interesting to see what he files at the end of this month as part of his latest submission. Anything less than a complete account could really leave him in serious trouble.

It will also be interesting to see how FF handle this. One backbencher on the radio yesterday brought the tribunals into the equation. This is a complete red-herring. Bertie’s compliance with standards legislation is not within the remit of the Mahon Tribunal and any attempt to it to the equation is a deliberate effort at distraction. It also has the added benefit of tuning the public out as it is clear that a considerable amount of tribunal fatigue is setting in.

This is a matter for the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Revenue Commissioners and potentially the Gardaí should there be a case to answer. I think the opposition have grasped this, and it seems Fine Gael are to lodge a formal complaint with the SIPO over the 2002 returns. It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out.