A new Irish government lost on a North Atlantic drift.

Welcome to the United States of Ireland.

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The year begins with no government at home and the most uncertain landscape imaginable abroad. I like to ease into a new year especially now that I’m starting to run out of them. The Feast day of the Epiphany has just passed so maybe I’ll chance taking Brigid out for a spin on the icy roads and begin typing a few new year words. To see if we might muster up some sudden realizations about the days and year ahead as the windscreen wipers bat away the driving sleet and intermittent falls of sneachta with steady determination. Optimistic that attempts to blur our vision, blind our path and derail our journey will not succeed.

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The 51st State of the United States

The roads are quiet the past couple of nights as I wander along. Sporadically, I stop to stretch the legs, here and there. Nothing complements the luminosity of a star-filled sky quite like the cool chill of an artic breeze. A chill coldly felt, by my upturned neck, gazing towards a patch of the pitch black heavens temporarily freed of clouds and dotted with countless diamonds. And contemplated from a motorway lay-by empty of cars, parallel to a carriageway empty of most of its traffic. I find myself hopeful and mostly content. Satisfied to be an observer of this manufactured world rather than an active participant.

I guess, this is how I’ll approach addressing the political arena in 2025. Observing it rather than allowing aggravation to creep in too much. So, allow me to kick off the year’s writing as I mean to go on and end this paragraph with an observation about what our establishment world and political masters seem to be up to in the newly minted Ireland of fiche fiche cúig. I believe, they continue to lay foundations and build the 51st state of the United States while feeding off what remains of the carcass that is Europe and our access to European markets. One might argue Ireland is the United States’ secret weapon in Europe on a number of varying fronts outside of the obvious economic front at present.

The fall-out from the 2008 recession accelerated our overall capture while the pandemic years have seen our political masters put the pedal to the metal of their electric cars on this strategic goal. A key trend to note is the increasing price we pay. The cost price to maintain our status has risen dramatically and isn’t merely confined to Ireland’s willingness to act as a tax haven for the US multinational sector. It now also includes social change, imported ideological frameworks to live by, imported labour, and gluttonous and insatiable demands on our national electricity grid to name but a few.

Economically speaking, Ireland is both proud European and proud American with a recent flavouring of multi-millionaire Chinese investment running through our veins too. On the foreign affairs front, we are proud Syrians, Palestinians and Ukrainians. On the work visa and asylum front, we are proud Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Afghans, Brazilians and Georgians. Maintaining these multiple personality disorders is exhausting and no easy task so occasionally we sneakily descend into Irishness during holiday season and Bank Holiday weekends. Until the Tuesday morning inevitably arrives and we queue again for blessed access to a pharmacy once more. Where we reload our personality medication for the globalist week ahead.

Fear not, though, the proliferation of unidentified drone technology invading the night skies might well mean we are soon to be proud aliens too.

Trump and the Irish Establishment

Now, despite appearances and public utterances to the contrary, establishment Ireland and Donald Trump will get on just fine together, I believe. Due, in no small part, to our dire and aforementioned addiction to US multi-nationals and the needs of the globalist agenda at work on this land. Agendas perfectly aided and abetted by the 30,000 NGOs registered in Ireland. Curiously, not a single one of them ever seem to chain themselves to a fence outside a US multinational operating here. Curious that isn’t it.

It is worth noting that in 2007, at the height of the Irish Celtic Tiger economy and peak national craziness, corporation tax receipts in Ireland amounted to €6.3 billion euro. This corporation tax-take made up approximately 13.5% of the total Irish Exchequer tax revenue in the same year. By contrast, in 2024, the total corporation tax intake weighed in at €39 billion euro. 6 x times more than 2007. This revenue stream now represents 36% of our overall tax receipts. 3x times more than 2007. So, roughly speaking, and depending on your looking-glass of choice, Ireland is currently between 3 and 6 times more addicted to the crack cocaine of large corporates and the US multi-national sector for cash than we were in the last days of the Celtic Tiger disco, a dance that ended abruptly and involved checking ourselves into rehab while signing away a massive chunk of our national sovereignty to our supposed carers.

Irish government policy towards the incoming Trump administration will be to sell our soul or whatever else is required to keep the 39 billion rolling in each year - so take all hot air virtue-signalling about anything else with a grain or a gram of the white stuff of your preference. In a strange way, Irish government policy towards the new Trump administration will merely be a continuation of our bend-over backwards economic policies at play with the Biden administration. Except now, more grovelling will be needed due to the President-elect’s stated mission of bringing some of these multi-national jobs a bit closer to the White House or failing that Mar-a-Lago.

Fortunately, though, the number of Irish adults in high society ramming actual cocaine up their nasal passages is also between 3 and 6 times higher today than in those dizzying, sky-fall days of 2008, so I’m sure some of these bright lads and lassies will be re-assuring President Trump that Ireland is already an integral part of the United States and sure he might as well leave those American jobs at home here in the United States of Ireland.

Where is our new government?

But, enough whining about economic matters, let’s move on to chatter about school teachers, professors and the non-arrival of a new government. While one school-teacher - Enoch Burke - packs away his tinsel and christmas tree making ready for a school-term return to Mountjoy prison, another - Micheal Martin - lives in a world where everyday is Christmas day. Two differing year’s await both men and I’m pretty certain only one of the two is actually able to teach.

Now, the not insignificant problem with most discourses involving secondary school-teachers, ones like say Micheal Martin, is they speak, too often, with the cold authority and superiority of people perpetually unchallenged in the workplace. So, to counteract this deviant behaviour and tendency to treat listeners or voters as ordinary level French students, I find it vital, generally speaking, to shake-up interactions early-on in proceedings by introducing a concept. It’s a simple enough device, one revolving around the conversational idea that it might be entirely wise for these learned scholars to be told to go fuck themselves, most of the time, and on most subject lines outside their specialist field. If they have one. Which our Taoiseach-elect does not. This attitude, I find, is helpful to ascertain how people like this react to a boulder flung into their river of inner certainty and aching superiority.

Martin’s general observable demeanour is faintly patronising, condescending, superior, often sniggering and annoying. An air that a career in politics has accentuated rather than brought to heel. A couple of days after the Irish general election on November 29th Martin issued the following statement regarding government formation:

"We could have most of the work done by Christmas but we have to focus on the issues.

"I don't think we will have reached agreement by Christmas. But I’m sure that most people in the country want us to form a Government as quickly as we can."

Quite what Martin and Harris have left to negotiate after 4+ years in government together is quite beyond comprehension. His words above carried a distinct lack of urgency almost to the point of disinterest. Nothing speaks louder to the absolute powerlessness of nationally elected politicans than their indifference and lack of urgency towards forming a new government. The government formation situation is almost akin to a parent telling their children to run upstairs and start doing their homework.

“ Awwwww….do we have to Mam, can’t it wait? “

With salaries secured for five more years, of course government can wait. And lo and behold, here we are on January 7th and still no closer to a new coalition on the immediate horizon. In bygone days, this inertia would’ve triggered public outrage and pressure. Mercifully, though, and as related earlier - a probable 3 to 6 times more Irish adults are on the old cocaine nowadays which helps. In addition, the media assist this lethargical response by producing sexed up and wildly exaggerated accounts from “ party sources “ and “ negotiators” about how downright robust, difficult and tense these government formation meetings and talks are on all involved. Yet, despite its best efforts to cover up, The Sunday Independent, inadvertently dropped a hint and buried lead in its reporting of the fiasco at the weekend.

"However, settling on a policy to tackle climate change may prove a sticking point in talks this week - as neither party has had a senior minister in the department, which has been over seen by former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan since 2020……..“ We don’t have someone in the room who ran the department “ one negotiator said

“ The talks ( this week ) will focus on climate policy, as well as water infrastructure and marine planning. One source said it is the one area where TDs may have to “ take some external advice “ when drawing up policies.

A couple of points to note. If there was one line item the hushed masses of the general electorate got correct and were very, very specific about when tongue wetting the tip of their pencils inside in the ballot box, it was their absolute disdain for the Green Party and its policies. We know this because the Green party were obliterated. Now, I would take this obliteration to mean - and call me old fashioned for thinking this way if you like - that in the eyes of the electorate almost anyone in Ireland would make a better minister for the Environment than Eamon Ryan. The less experience the better. Yet, it would seem Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are having great difficulty letting go of the Greens judging by the leaked quote above. An environmental policy platform of: A little less plastic and lot less spastic would probably satiate the environmental appetites of 95% of the Irish population at the moment. However, the huge outrage in this newspaper snippet should centre around the fact elected TDs are openly admitting unelected external advisers will be drawing up our environmental policy documents.

Now, I should note, zero people in establishment, mainstream Ireland seem flustered or outraged by our government limbo. Our captured state works perfectly fine without a government, after all. Better probably. Especially, for those fine folks living in Ireland and abroad - the people who really run things. A cohort neither Irish nor democratically elected in nature. Shudder the thought.

Professor Luke O’Neill and Climate science.

Last weekend, the Sunday Independent dedicated about 3/4’s of one page to our government lost in formation, along with a flashy headline on the front page. For comparison purposes I should underline that the same newspaper afforded 3/4’s of one page to the latest ramblings of Ireland’s leading celebrity biochemistry professor, Luke O’Neill. His last column is completely bizarre, grounded in non-science and leans into the latest flights of global scaremongering fancy. Central to the piece is a little climate fear porn and the obligatory salivating over prospects of a shiny new pandemic which we’ll dive into in a minutes. But first another little observation. Professor Luke O’Neill seems addicted to public attention. He’s constantly available to speak on anything and pushing himself forward onto a number of different Irish media platforms, not to mention the voluminous output on his own social media over the last number of years. Indeed, he opinionates so often that his own statements frequently trip him up.

Exhibit A.

On November 21st 2021, Professor O’Neill had the following to say on his twitter account about the Omicron variant of Covid-19 with a passing reference to vaccine boosters:

“ The emergence of Omicron is concerning but incredibly a new vaccine can be made in around 90 days should one be needed (boosters likely to offer protection). Antivirals will also work. If it’s more transmissible antigen testing becomes even more important “

On September 30th 2021 during an interview with Anton Savage on Newstalk, O’Neill relayed the following information on vaccine boosters. Very loudly championing early results from the Israeli booster roll-out:

“ The peoples immune systems have been upgraded and the antibodies they’re getting, which is really interesting will fight any variant.. There’s a massive range of antibodies in their bodies because the boost is so powerful and that’s a great result because it means you won’t need to get boosters in the future. It so strong this response, they’re predicting now you’ll be alright for two to three years “

Notice any problems between the two opinions?

In the space of six weeks, he moved from a position of promoting a concept that Covid booster recipients would benefit from up to three years immunity, and in addition opined this immunity would protect them from future variants of Covid to an altogether different, contradictory assessment. In just two months he was promoting faster vaccine production times and the idea that new vaccines can be made in 90 days. Begging a rather inconvenient question.

Why would a country need a 90 day vaccine turnaround when you just told them they already had three year immunity from all future variants of Covid by virtue of getting boosted. Meanwhile back in the real world, the very next variant - Omicron - blew asunder all considered scientific opinions on vaccine efficacy and boosters. His September promissory note of two and three year booster efficacy fighting all and any new variants was suddenly downgraded in November to a foot-note reading “ boosters likely to offer protection “.

I bring this up to make a point. The above snapshots are O’Neill bringing his scientific expertise to bear on one of his supposed specialist topics. I’d rather advise people not get too hot and bothered on his non-specialist subjects like climate. Professor O’Neill has never once, to my knowledge, been held accountable for his words and output during the pandemic. I’m quite sure a great many Irish people decided to get both vaccinated and boosted based on his considered public opinions. Unfortunately, not all of them are still around. Now, quite why The Sunday Independent continue platforming him is beyond my comprehension. Certain classes of people in establishment Ireland seem to fail upwards and quite spectacularly so.

His column last Sunday speculates on some global calamities that might terrorise the earth ala the pandemic of 2020. A shutdown of the Atlantic gulfstream is one of the catastrophes discussed. He proceeds to offer an analysis of oceanography and the gulfstream that a transition year student would be too embarrassed to hand in as homework.

“ Some scientists, say it is very difficult to predict when this might happen, however “

No shit, Sherlock. I would assume most of these undefined scientists pulled from his magic hat of scientists at his disposal, believe it is bat-shit crazy to make any predictions at all. And even sillier to expend too much energy worrying about it. But, this exciting build up play leads the professor to the opportunity to make his final pontificating, unscientific, virtue-signalling dash for glory.

“ Although, climate change is overall a slow process, this could all happen quite quickly and we must try to slow down global warming to mitigate against it “

So, climate change is essentially like dancing the foxtrot. Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow. Or possibly climate issues are something else entirely. Now, whisper this next bit and look over each shoulder, perhaps climate problems are caused by the historic and current outputs raining down from jet-streams onto the gulfstream and everywhere else too. Regardless, we all must slow it down. For an indefinite length of time and by all means possible. Now, it’s loopy talk like this that got the Green Party dropped kicked into another dimension.

Perhaps, the sensible way forward to fast-track the formation of a new Irish government is for the genii running Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil negotiations to reach out to Professor O’Neill. Sure, why not make him the next minister for the Environment, he’d do Eamon Ryan proud I’m sure. It might be the only a sure fired way to get rid of him in the medium-term.

Happy New Year!

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