Manufactured controversy

With Frank Farrell away at an Independent Newspapers sponsored journalism refresher course conducted by that luminary of the profession, Brendan O’Connor, I took a look at two stories which tell us a lot about news priorities.  One story was barely relevant and thus entitled to substantial media coverage, the other a life and death issue and therefore mostly ignored.
Last Tuesday week, the Irish Times’s European Correspondent Jamie Smyth broke a front-page story claiming that the Irish Government had negotiated an opt-out, or more accurately an option to opt out, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights within the new EU Reform Treaty (Referred to hereafter as the EU Constitution for such it remains).
Cue a fairly pointless manufactured controversy for three or four days with Minister Dick Roche going onto the News at One and managing to confuse the listening public about what exactly the Government had signed up to, or opted out of. Trade Union leaders on Morning Ireland sternly warned that without the Charter they might refuse to the support the proposed EU Constitution.
Grim statements were made in the Dáil and letters appeared in the Irish Times. When, following assurances from the Government that they were in fact fully committed to the Charter and had merely reserved the right to comment on the opt-out obtained by the British, the week ended with a relieved Irish Times editorial.
It even accused those who might still be concerned about the issue that they themselves had manufactured of scare-mongering. Fair play Geraldine, it was a twisting of history of Orwellian proportions. The Sunday Tribune went one further crediting the unions with forcing a ‘u-turn’ in government policy.
What was missing from this entire debate, was any understanding that the Charter is itself a fairly useless document. Should the EU Constitution ever come into force, an Irish citizen waking up on the morning after will enjoy no more rights than the day before.
All the ‘fundamental rights’ contained within it are subject to national law. So, in essence, if you have the right to strike in your country, the fact that it is contained in the Charter makes no difference. If you do not have the right to strike, having it in the Charter still makes no difference as it’s applicability is restricted by national law. Something that doesn’t apply to the market liberalisation components of the Treaty.
Of course Bertie & Co can sign up to it. They are conceding nothing by doing so and the Charter can be waved around by a gullible media and a compliant union leadership as proof that the reformed EU Constitution with its right-wing economic policies remaining intact, should be endorsed by the electorate.

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While the media and political establishment debated whether the government had signed up to a rhetorical and politically emasculated series of vague aspirations with the fervour of Jesuits in the Vatican, another, slightly more important story, pretty much passed them by.
Figures revealed by the ESRI and the Combat Poverty Agency showed that 229,000 people at risk of poverty were unable to get a medical card in 2005 because their incomes were just above the eligibility threshold. Of these, 43,000 were living in consistent poverty, lacking the basic everyday necessities such as heat, proper clothing and decent food.
Currently the threshold for a Medical Card is €184 per week but the Government’s own statistics class someone with an income level of €209 per week as being ‘at risk’ of poverty, a difference of €25.
The Irish Times buried this story in its inside pages. RTÉ and TV3 weren’t interested and neither was the Irish Independent.
Honourable exception for the week to the Examiner which editorialised, albeit in a hand-wringing ‘whatever can be done?’ fashion, about how distressing it all was. Though points docked for referring to the Medical Card as a ‘perk’. A perk is your editor paying for lunch or taking care of your phone bill (Take note comrade). Access to medical care, a matter of life or death is not a perk. It is a right.
A Government elected in 2002 promising 200,000 extra medical cards has presided over a reduction in the amount of cards available. From a position in 1983 when 38% of people had a medical card, we are now down to 29%.
The Examiner wonders if the money could be found to increase the eligibility thresholds, making Medical Cards more widely available. Wonder no more. As Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD pointed out some time ago, the money wasted on the PPARs computer system alone would pay for 204,000 new Medical Cards.
 Yet as my colleagues in this column have often pointed out, the Irish media’s pet obsessions of Stamp Duty and gangsterism preclude serious examination of fundamental issues of equality.

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Finally, the Sunday Independent’s Jim Cusack continues to plug the open and honest discussion in this paper about the recent elections. Would that his own paper allowed different views to engage in discussion in its pages.
As always, Jim scatters quotes from unnamed ‘sources’ throughout his piece -  the only type of sources he ever seems to have. As a mark of our gratitude for promoting the sales of An Phoblacht and for the entertainment you have given us over the years, please join us in Ruby Finnegan’s in Ballyfermot at 8pm on Friday night where Dublin’s newest Sinn Féin cumann is being launched. If anything demonstrates that Sinn Féin is falling apart, it’s setting up new cumainn a month after the election.
I’ll put you down for a pair of tickets. I’m sure you can write it off as a perk.