The new local election boundaries for Kildare were announced on Tuesday. The map bears a pretty striking resemblance to my submission, which is nice.

The highlights are the amalgamation of Leixlip and Celbridge, with the liberated seat wending its way down to Athy, along with some knock-on redrawing of boundaries.

The net result for those of us interested in South Kildare is that the Kildare LEA retains its six seats, and gains some territory from Clane (the DEDs of Lullymore, Kilmeague North and Kilmeague South), and loses some to Athy (Ballybrackan, Harristown, Nurney, and part of Kilcullen). Athy also gains a number of new areas from Naas (Ballymore Eustace, Gilltown and Kilcullen).

One interesting potential outcome is that Athgarvan could move into the Naas area due to the direction that those parts of Droichead Nua (Rural) east of the M7 will find themselves in the Naas district.

Politically, the redraw raises some interesting outcomes. In the Allenwood area, strong pressure was put on for the Kilmeague North DED to remain in Clane. That outcome would have suited Cllr Darragh Fitzpatrick of FF, as this is an area his father, Michael Fitzpatrick TD, represented for a long time. However it now moves south.

Cllr Billy Hillis’s area moves into the new 4-seat Athy area, leaving Billy well placed to take one of the four seats in the new LEA. That opens an FG seat in Naas for Cllr Darren Scully, who should get in if he attracts even a fraction of his general election vote.

The movement of Nurney into Athy also increases the chances of a Labour gain, but probably for an Athy-based candidate. This means that the last two spots in Athy could come down to a battle between the three sitting councillors: Dalton and Miley (FF), and Hendy (FG).

The changes to the Kildare area also throw up some interesting possibilities. With Cllr Francie Browne moving into the Athy area, Labour will not have an incumbent going into the 2009 vote. FG will also be going with a new slate of candidates, while FF will probably come back to the electorate with their three sitting reps - although there are no guarantees that they will return the same three next year.

The contest will also be an interesting foretaste for the next generals with FG looking for new standard bearers, and a potential successor to Jack Wall emerging from the mix.

For another perspective on this, check out James Lawless’s views.

Former Green MEP Patricia McKenna took a Supreme Court action in 1995 arguing that it was illegal for the State to push one side or the other in a referendum. The outcome was the independent Referendum Commission and a 50-50 split on coverage of both sides in a given campaign.

This sounds entirely reasonable, fair and equitable. However, the recent Lisbon campaign shows it has limitations, especially when dealing with matters of significant complexity.

Thanks to this equal distribution, the entirety of the political establishment (I think SF still like to think of themselves as anti-establishment) lined up on one-side, while groups representing a tiny share of the general populace got equal billing on the ‘No’ side. These nay-sayers were given equal access to the airwaves, and they used their platform to spread distortions, mistruths and scare tactics.

The result was that the far left, the Catholic right and a small, but very well run, Libertas campaign were given credibility by being placed as equals to parties representing 96% of the Dáil.

These groups used their platform to fire missiles at the ‘Yes’ campaign about abortion, taxes, hard drugs, militarisation and micro-chipping babies. The fact that the missiles were generally fictitious didn’t stop them having an explosive effect. The ‘Yes’ camp found themselves trying to argue against things that were clearly protected by the Treaty, or that were never there in the first place.

In the equal opportunities debate, these constant denials turned the electorate off, and the cynics out there thought “Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

Equality actually ended up cheating the public. There was no opportunity for reasoned debate. Instead, the most radical groups forced focus onto the fringes, and the ‘Yes’ side followed them out there. The result was lots of heat, but very little light - and the triumph of hyperbole over sober reflection.

In our democracy, the people are sovereign and our voice in referendums is supreme. We also have a right to be wrong. However, right or wrong, yes or no, we are also entitled to be armed with the facts before deciding.  That’s fair, isn’t it?

I wrote a piece a few days ago about the ‘No’ dynamic in the Lisbon campaign. If, as looks likely from the tallies, an emphatic ‘No’ has been returned, the political establishment have some serious questions to answer.

The content of the Treaty couldn’t really have been better for Ireland. During its genesis, Irish people were at times President of the European Council, President of the European Parliament, Vice-President of the Constitutional Convention and Secretary General of the Commission.

With all of that firepower at our disposal, is it credible that a better deal could be found without them? I’d hazard a ‘No’. If the EU concedes anything significant to get the Irish on board, surely the bigger countries would feel entitled to re-open the whole process - and that would grind this whole 7 or 8 year process to a halt.

So why did this optimum deal fail? There are two reasons. The first is that the entire reform process wasn’t sold adequately to the Irish people. The need for changes in the internal workings of the Union wasn’t expressed in a way that people could connect with. Our political system depends on the local access that we have to our elected representatives. Irish people like and trust this system, and most like and trust their local politicians.

Europe can’t possibly follow this model. As a result, talk of reform and how it is to be implemented is well outside the political orbit and interests of your average Irish voter. By not articulating why reform was necessary, the Government made it next to impossible to sell people on the mechanics of reform.

The second reason that the ‘No’ vote has been successful is the campaign itself. One of Bertie Ahern’s strengths was his ability to time elections to perfection. One of the most powerful tools available to stable governments is that they get to chose when they fight their battles. Bertie’s 2002 and 2007 re-elections proved this. This allows the incumbents to prepare the ground and get their resources in place so that they can hit the ground running.

Hitting the ground strolling, or even avoiding the dull thud of actually just hitting the ground would have been an improvement on the Government’s handling of the campaign. The Greens couldn’t take a position; the PDs only put a few token posters up in the last week; but the real failure was Fianna Fáils.

Bertie’s Tribunal appearance and his long goodbye meant that the FF campaign was very late getting underway. In the meantime, the ‘No’ groups were out setting the parameters of the debate - taxes, militarisation, loss of power and so on. This left the ‘Yes’ side defending often outlandish claims rather than promoting the positives. As a result, momentum was always moving away.

Once they were underway Brian Cowen said he hadn’t read the document, Mary Coughlan was confused on some the key points and all the time their credibility ebbed away.

One last observation - I read a comment lately that Ireland understood its place in a 15 country western Europe EU. We knew our neighbours well, we understood their values, and perhaps most importantly they were richer than us, so we had nothing to fear. The entry of the eastern accession states has upset this balance. In a very short period, our streets have filled with Poles and Lithuanians. Our manufacturing and jobs have moved in the opposite direction. People don’t feel comfortable with this, but haven’t found a way to speak out. The fact that this change was ushered in without any real debate has, I think, resonated with the electorate as they looked at Lisbon.

So are we now a nation of Euro-sceptics? I don’t think a ‘No’ says this at all. However, the ‘No’ message is a confused one. I would say that the biggest single common thread on the ‘No’ side is that people feared what they didn’t understand - and opted to keep the status quo.

If ‘No’ emerges, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

Last Saturday, we officially opened the new William ‘Squires’ Gannon Stand at St Brigid’s Park, Kildare Town. As Cathaoirleach of Round Towers GFC, it was great to see so many different parts of the club pulling together to ensure a great day.

It goes to show that the GAA really is an amazing organisation, that remains at the heart of Irish life. We had the young, the old, the players, the supporters, the men and the women of the club giving their free time to paint, clean, cook, steward and generally help out.

The blazing sunshine was great too!

A friend of mine who has moved to London emailed me earlier in the week to ask for an explanation of the Lisbon Treaty. Given that Thursday is D-Day, I thought it might be worth sending on what I sent her. Even though I’m supporting the ‘Yes’ camp, I think it’s pretty impartial.

What is the Treaty About?

The Lisbon Treaty is a set of amendments to the agreements that govern the operation and objectives of the EU. These amendments are required so that a Union of 27 members can work effectively. At the moment, a lot of the work of EU is governed by rules set in 1957 when there were only 6 member states.

The Treaty changes the way that members of the European Commission are selected. Under the Nice Treaty, the Commission must be reduced. Lisbon explains how this is to be achieved: a commission whose membership is equivalent to 2/3 the number of countries (27 countries means a Commission of 18), with strict rotation between the countries to fill the positions. In other words, every country can nominate a commissioner for 10 in every 15 years - each Commission has a term of 5 years.

It allows for a full-time President of the European Council, who will be selected by the member state governments for a 2.5 year term which can be renewed once. The motivation for this is that the current rotating presidency makes it hard to achieve things (every country only has 6 months), and it also has continuity problems. This President won’t have any of the normal trappings of power or executive authority. They will be responsible for chairing meetings of the EU leaders and implementing their agenda.

There’s also provision for a kind of EU Foreign Minister who will drive the agreed foreign policy of the Union.

It sets a maximum size for the European Parliament of 750 members, with no country having more than 96 MEPs or less than 6. For Ireland, this means 1 MEP for every 300,000 people - in Germany it’s 1 for every 800,000.

It removes a requirement for unanimity between member states on a number of areas that previously required it. The areas of foreign policy, defence, tax and trade will still require unanimous votes - so we retain a veto.

The Treaty has some provisions regarding defence in the Union. It promotes the harmonisation of military hardware - which improves inter-operability and reduce procurement costs. It doesn’t commit us to a military alliance as we already have opt-outs and constitutional protections.

The Treaty also contains a Charter of Fundamental Rights, most of which we already support as a signatory of the European Declaration of Human Rights.

The treaty does not:

• bring in abortion, euthanasia, hard drugs or prostitution (even though some here claim it will)
• force us to give up our low corporation tax
• allow Turkey into the EU
• allow further amendments to be made without referendum
• commit us to a European Army
• privatise health or education
• micro-chip babies

There’s a more light-hearted review of the Treaty take a look here.

Today’s poll results make for grim reading for supporters of the Lisbon Treaty, and for the Taoiseach. There is a definite feeling on the ground that the referendum is in mortal peril, and with only days to go, some serious questions need to be asked.

Those voting ‘No’, seem to break into two camps: those who ideologically oppose the substance of the Treaty (an assertive ‘No’ if you will); and those who feel in the dark and are confused by the proposition (a passive ‘No’).

The assertivista ideologues cover a pretty broad range: from those who believe it will bring in abortion, drugs and prostitution, while leaving out God and surrendering the legacy of Pearse and Tone; to unreconstructed socialists and free-wheeling neo-con capitalists. They can’t all be right, but they are preying on the fact that in an era when the mainstream political establishment have squandered their credibility, a large section of society will gladly accept anything that reinforces their mistrust of political institutions.

The passive ‘No’ is a more worrying long term problem. This Treaty is no more complex than any of the previous Euro-referendums, but people are now complaining that they don’t understand it and must vote ‘No’.

This fear of complexity didn’t arise in the past, because there was always some selling point for Ireland, and people focused on that rather than the fine detail.

Lisbon doesn’t have this headline selling point. It is an administrative treaty, whose main focus is on the inner workings of a body that is remote from the Irish people. Its complexity is not sinister, but we must take that on trust. In an era where our most successful party has traded on a dumbed down political discourse, such trust seems to be evaporating, and the level of passive negativity is surely a sign that the people are starting to question rather than blindly accept the party line.

Whatever result emerges after Thursday, the nature of this campaign should be a wake-up to all parties.

I am at a loss to understand Brian Cowen’s criticism of the Fine Gael and Labour ‘Yes’ campaigns.

Fionnan Sheahan rightly notes that his own belated Fianna Fail campaign leaves a lot to be desired, and lot more still to do (Irish Independent, May 27).

Mr Cowen began the Fianna Fail campaign by threatening his own troops with excommunication if they didn’t tow the line, and now he has turned his fire on the opposition

Given that the Treaty is about the closer integration of an organisation whose founding purpose was peaceful co-existence, the Taoiseach’s divisive Euro-vision is a disappointment.

In recent years, we’ve had a number of strong debaters leading Irish political parties - Pat Rabbitte, Michael McDowell, Michael Noonan, etc. In the Dáil chamber, these deputies have delivered clever lines and withering put downs without a blink. Their supporters cheer them on; their party colleagues whoop from the benches. But winning the argument hasn’t done their parties’ electoral fortunes any good whatsoever.

Yesterday, Brian Cowen had his first face-to-face with Enda Kenny since becoming leader-designate of Fianna Fáil. Their last major set piece encounter left FF supporters gagging for more as Cowen delivered a now famous retort to Kenny that he was ‘neither qualified nor able’ of judging the activities at the Tribunal (Cowen is obviously an eminent legal expert thanks to the his brief period as a solicitor before his election at 24). He’ll wipe the floor with poor Enda - came the FF chorus. Fine Gael might as well just give up as Biffo will crush them in the Dáil.

If yesterday’s contest is anything to go by, FF may be seriously misguided. Enda brought up the harrowing issue of 77 year old Alzheimer’s patient who sat on a trolley in the Mater’s A&E for 67 hours after suffering a heart attack. The woman’s plight was raised through the media by her daughter resulting in her finally getting a bed. After 48 hours, she begged to die rather than continue in Third World purgatory.

Cowen went into technocrat mode, replying:

It is very important to point out that there are many improvements taking place in the health service. Obviously there are issues but if the Leader of the Opposition’s tactic is to come in and talk about a particular case where there is a difficulty and suggest that the sorting out of that difficulty alone is to sort the health service is a rather simplistic and facile approach and analysis.

Clearly what we are trying to do is to bring reforms into the health service that will deal with many of the perennial problems we are facing.

Word like ‘facile’ are cold, and to a casual listener sound like the opinions of a disconnected bureaucrat; one who is unmoved by the fact that an elderly mother only received essential treatment when her daughter begged for it through the airwaves, a woman who considered death better than days left in her own faeces in an over-crowded accident and emergency unit.

If Cowen wants to go down the cold, clinical route, then the Taoiseach-in-waiting might have a point that there is a policy equivalent of the maxim that tough cases make for bad law. However, the truth is that there were nearly 8,000 patients on trolleys in February.

This is not an isolated case, it’s uniqueness is the bravery and determination of the family to use all available means to see their sick mother treated. If a case is extraordinary then he would have a point, but it isn’t.

His reply is an insult to the thousands of families affected, and if he keeps up this style of debate, Fianna Fáil may have to significantly revise their predictions of Cowen-v-Kenny.

I was genuinely saddened to hear about the death of former President, Commissioner, Minister and TD, Dr Patrick Hillery. President Hillery was the first major political figure I actually got to see in the flesh, when he officially opened a new season at Glenveagh National Park. It was the mid-80s and we had gone on a day trip from Letterkenny, and so from a young age he was someone I was aware of.

However, in the years since then I’ve learned a lot more about this normally gentle-spoken country doctor who went on to stabilise our highest office and represent this nation to the world. As Minister for Education he established oral exams in Irish, he set up the system of Regional Technical Colleges and he set in train the process that lead to free second level education. Seán Lemass asked him to take over as Taoiseach on his retirement, but Hillery declined and went on to serve as Minister for External Affairs during the tense days of the early Troubles; he also negotiated our entry to the EEC.

As Ireland’s first EEC Commissioner, he saw to it that equal pay legislation was brought in to Ireland, and so hastened the social liberation of Irish women.

As President, he stabilised an office that had been severely undermined by the untimely death of President Childers followed by the resignation of President O’Dalaigh. Indeed his finest hour, was probably his steadfast defence of this republic during the collapse of the first Fitzgerald Government in 1982, and the attempted interfence of Charles Haughey.

Historical ‘counter-factuals’ or ‘what-ifs’ can throw up some interesting ideas. What if Paddy Hillery had accepted Lemass’s offer of the Taoiseach’s chair? Would the chain of events leading to the Arms Trial have happened? I think not, and Hillery’s famous Ard Fheis line that the Arms Trial rebels could have Boland but they couldn’t have Fianna Fáil bears this out.

Similarly, recently opened papers from the British Government of the time show that London respected Hillery’s abilities and intelligence; and perhaps as Taoiseach he could have intervened more constructively in the earliest stages of the North’s descent into murderous sectarianism.

Another point made in recent days, is that by his very presence Hillery added an air of respectability and public service to the body politic. His generation were not embroiled in financial mis-dealings on the scale of the Haughey-era. Indeed, I think it would have been anathema to the likes of Hillery. Had he lead Fianna Fáil he might have seen of Charles Haughey, and we might have been spared many of the fruits of corruption.

He was a true patriot, a man who used his talents to serve his nation without seeking personal gain, and an example to us all.

Resquiat in pacem - ar dheis lámh Dé go raibh a anam uasal dhiograsach dhílis

Ciaran Cannon is the new leader of the Progressive Democrats - you might have heard of them. They promised a radical break from Civil War politics, and a bright new agenda for Ireland. Since their initial peak in 1987, the party has declined consistently ever since, and with the elevation of Senator Cannon, it’s hard to see that fall stopping. Indeed, as a west of Ireland politician whose fellow Galway TD has flirted with Fianna Fáil, it’s hard to see how the PDs could genuinely believe he is their saviour. If pragmatic idealism was the hallmark of the party founders, then the only objective conclusion to draw from their current state is that it’s time they concluded.

As for Cannon himself - he comes across well in the media. He’s a competent speaker and will be a new face for his party. However, his rise would be considered meteoric if it wasn’t for the lack of major interest in his new position. He was first elected as a councillor in 2004, and this mandate is his only electoral success. He polled around 3,300 votes in last year’s general election, which was a little under 6%. His new position as leader of a national party, must therefore be unprecedented.

Over at P.ie, a poster FakeViking described Cannon’s close victory as “the lesser of two nobodies”. It reminded me of the West Wing speech that Will and Toby brainstormed on the elevation of ‘Bingo’ Bob Russell to the Vice Presidency - a rise they saw as the triumph of mediocrity. Here’s what they said - see if you can change some names for the same result…..

In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell — Bingo Bob, himself — as your new Vice President. This lapdog of the mining interests is as dull as he is unremarkable; as lackluster as he is soporific; this reversion to the mean; this rebuke to the exemplary; gives hope to the millions unfavored by the exceptional.

Bob Russell: not the worst, not the best, just what we’re stuck with.

Too true.