Enjoyed speaking to
@tom_hubert
@thecurrency
for this piece - on tax avoidance structures, Ireland’s role, and the need to reckon with the harm they cause in some of the poorest countries in the world.
The scale of what
@GretaThunberg
is achieving is genuinely incredible. This is her, sat alone outside the Swedish Parliament, Aug 2018 - the first school strike. Today she's spearheading a
#ClimateStrike
of millions of people, across 7 continents & 150+ countries. At 16. Legend!
Going way under the radar - last night the Irish Govt allowed a motion to pass in Parliament calling for (among other things) sanctions on Israel, a ban on settlement trade, recognition of Palestinian statehood and to "dismantle the system of apartheid."
“Sorry, but you have gone too far” Musk wrote
“Who made you the judge?” Ye replied
It's weird to watch a guy buy a tech company, take charge, and realise publicly that 'free speech' is actually way harder than shallow adolescent libertarian sloganeering
You: we must tax the rich to reduce inequality and build a fairer, more equitable society!
Me: we must tax the rich to stop them buying €865 asics runners
Leave to where? Into the sea? Through the hole in the giant fence that kept them locked up for 15 years, and on to Sderot? There are over 2 million people in Gaza - this is horrific.
BREAKING: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian civilians in Gaza to “leave now” because the Israeli military is going to “turn all Hamas hiding places into rubble”
Irish FM
@MichealMartinTD
on evacuation order: "That call by Israel should be rescinded and pulled back. I think everybody knows it’s not something that can be achieved.. there’s an obligation to protect civilians in Gaza, to protect children & families."
Yesterday, Israel demolished the homes of 11 Palestinian families - along with solar panels, water containers, farming gear and vital humanitarian structures funded by EU &
@Irish_Aid
. 74 people, incl 41 minors now homeless, in the middle of a pandemic.
@dfatirl
@simoncoveney
21+ degrees out and it's still morning. Burning with jealousy at the thought of a swim. Everyone who lives within 5km of the sea should have to pay in to a national fund to buy ice creams for the rest of us, imo.
More than 100 human beings - with lives, families, favourite songs, opinions, flaws, hopes for the future like any other person - buried in a mass grave without even the dignity of someone there to speak their names. There is nothing, nothing, that can justify this.
#CeasefireNow
Over a hundred unknown Palestinians were buried in a mass grave this morning in Khan Yunis after being brought from the Al Shifa Hospital in
#Gaza
, which is now under direct Israeli military occupation.
A few hours ago Israeli President Herzog argued against the concept of innocent civilians, on the precipice of a major invasion. "It's an entire nation that is responsible", he said. This is the response of EU leaders
@vonderleyen
&
@RobertaMetsola
. I genuinely cannot believe it.
Incredible to hear Irish politicians going in on 'economic migrants' - this from a country that exports more people around the world per capita than the vast majority. Here's us top of the
@OECD
charts. Just different when we do it, is it?
"People who pay for everything and get nothing" is such dire, disingenuous politics. I pay my taxes, and 'get' schools and hospitals, a safety net in case I (or anyone else) ever needs it, and a better society. That's not 'nothing'.
Ireland on suspending EU-Israel trade deal:
“The human rights clauses have not been upheld. At this time of reckoning the the EU cannot fudge this anymore. When we put human rights into agreements we should mean it. They’re not add-ons, they’re integral."
Every year, the State hands around €16m to the Greyhound industry. And every year, it sees about 6000 dogs bred, deemed surplus to requirements for being too slow, so they're just killed & dumped. It's disturbing cruelty, subvented by public money & ministerial practice.
A decision by Minister for Agriculture Barry Cowen to breed a female greyhound eight times producing at least 35 pups has been branded as “incredibly reckless”, given the culture of alleged overbreeding and culling prevalent in the sport.
When conservative TDs constantly frame climate action as a threat to rural Ireland, they should be asked to consider footage like this. Increasingly severe flooding should be a stark reminder that inaction carries a huge cost.
75 years ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled and fled their homes - nearly 6m still live as refugees. Solidarity from Ireland, Dublin’s Liberty Hall lit up in 🇵🇸colours to mark
#Nakba75
.
@GretaThunberg
Like, at 16 you'd be doing well to have gotten your first RATM album, maybe started giving out on boards. Greta's off leading a global movement not a bother, brushing off the jeers of the usual suspects, inspiring millions of (primarily young) people to march too. Unreal ✊🌍
I don’t think I can remember a more dispiriting period in my life than the past four weeks. The ruthless violence; relentless loss of life; naked disregard for int law - the pathetic & spineless equivocation in the face of it all. Just hard to comprehend, beyond despair & rage.
Some are unhappy
@PresidentIRL
has spoken out on
#Gaza
. Thankfully he's been doing so for decades. Like this, in 2010 - on collective punishment, protecting civilians, and the need to "out of the tragic blackness of all of this, do something positive & honour international law."
On Friday, at the last minute, Govt quietly changed the
#ClimateBill
and it's v concerning. Text inserted below seems to give Govt power to decide how emissions are counted (incl. exemptions/loopholes) and expert climate council must follow, as opposed to other way round. Why?
This is big - for the first time ever, a UN Human Rights body is going to examine Ireland's role in facilitating tax avoidance. Enabling large MNCs to shift profits across borders siphons revenue from developing countries, undermining children's rights:
With the Dáil elected, we've got 160 TDs but still another 60 seats in our national parliament to fill. I've seen people asking (really, I swear!) how the next Seanad is formed, so here's a thread on how 60 people are gonna be (s)elected as Senators in the next few weeks:
Lots of anger (rightly) directed at Trump's wall, cages, family separation. But this is the EU border, today - hundreds of families & children, left stranded in the snow, sleeping in freezing forests & tents.
#safepassage
So delighted that my brilliant pal and legendary Senator
@frances_black
just got re-elected!! This is us outside the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, 2018 - I've never met anyone with her courage in standing up to injustice. G'wan Frances!
#Seanad2020
This is Leobardo Sierra, an indigenous Wayuu man whose land is under threat from coal mining in Colombia - coal which still feeds Moneypoint power plan: "I ask Irish people to consider their complicity... to stop burning coal that’s wiping out our home."
Update from partners: since November these Palestinian families have tried to rebuild their homes, with EU &
@Irish_Aid
support. But Israeli bulldozers just came right back and destroyed them all over again - 60 people, incl 35 children, homeless. Where is the EU response?
Yesterday, Israel demolished the homes of 11 Palestinian families - along with solar panels, water containers, farming gear and vital humanitarian structures funded by EU &
@Irish_Aid
. 74 people, incl 41 minors now homeless, in the middle of a pandemic.
@dfatirl
@simoncoveney
Saddened to learn that Johnny Ronan, the infamous millionaire property developer who once finished testimony to the Banking Inquiry with a nazi slogan, could behave like this. Never meet your heroes.
This is significant & going a bit under the radar - Dáil looks set to pass motion which, by my reading, would make Ireland first EU MS to formally state that Israeli annexation of the West Bank is not postponed, but happening in practice. Key line:
Tánaiste
@LeoVaradkar
makes a claim here that warrants addressing. Dismissing the Occupied Territories Bill, he suggests bias: "there are other occupied territories in the world, but people have so little to say about them. It's remarkable."
@GaryGannonTD
“I favour universal basic services with an income that allows people to live, rather than simply a UBI that a system prone to exploitation could abuse. UBS and a UBI are not contradictory, provided that priority is given to the former.”
via
@IrishTimes
Oireachtas
#DirectProvision
hearings are remarkable. One company, Bridgestock, is paid about €6m/year to run two centres. About €100m since 2000. But majority shares transferred to a company offshored in the British Virgin Islands, so no public scrutiny of accounts or profits.
It's amazing to see
@masi_asylum
so ascendant. Feels like ARC in the years before the 8th referendum. Against all odds, they've built real awareness & anger at DP. A tipping point will come, sooner rather than later, and Lucky, Bulelani & co will deserve medals when it does.
Glad the guy speaking for Ireland speaks like this.
@MichaelDHiggins
in the European Parliament, 2013: we can't reduce the EU to "an economic space of contestation between the strong and the weak - our citizens yearn for the language of solidarity."
#IrelandsVoiceMatters
#Aras18
Contrast in the US right now is remarkable. Waves of heartbreaking civil rights protests breaking out, on the same weekend a billionaire's private space company finally blasts into orbit. Incredible discrepancy, 50 years after Gil Scott-Heron wrote "Whitey on the Moon"
Spotted in Dublin this morning - powerful new mural of Berta Cáceres, murdered Honduran human rights activist & environmentalist. Her daughter
@BerthaZuniga1
is in Dublin today, speaking about her work and launching
@Trocaire
's Lenten campaign
Thanks
@rtenews
for letting me give an alternative view on today's
#AppleTax
ruling, which is far from a vindication of Ireland's role in enabling tax avoidance. Some of the loopholes & structures used by Apple have closed, but others soon replaced them.
@ChristianAidIrl
“It looks like they hate immigrants. Well I am an immigrant, and I did what I could to try and save that little girl.”
Good man Caio Benicio - we’re lucky you’re a Dubliner. Obrigado 🇧🇷🇮🇪
Spoke to the
@guardian
for this story. For decades Irish tax policy has been designed precisely to facilitate this kind of avoidance - the loopholes & structures used change over time, but the fundamentals stay the same. Not sustainable, by any stretch.
A nice footnote to a pretty seismic election: since 2016, Renua have received €259k in state funding every year. Their support looks to have collapsed here, so Lucinda Creighton's awful frankenstein's monster is probably toast. Good riddance.
#GE2020
I find this focus on a niche of "extremist" Israeli settlers concerning. There are now over 700k illegal settlers on occupied Palestinian land - this problem is not niche. And the extremists are not contained to the violent fringes of Israeli politics - they are in Government.
Ireland is willing to unilaterally impose travel bans on extremist Israeli settlers who are "terrorising" Palestinians in the West Bank efforts fail to persuade the EU as a whole to adopt sanctions today, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said
Sen
@Frances_Black
spent the last *seven hours* straight in the Seanad Chamber standing up to drinks industry lobbyists, now belting it out at a charity fundraiser for kids in direct provision. Legend. 👍
Earnest tweet alert: left my headphones on the bus, realised hours later, chanced calling into the depot. Thanks so much to the lovely
@dublinbusnews
driver who helped me locate the exact bus (plus mini tour), hunt around & find em! V v sound 💫🚌
Some personal stuff: after 3 brilliant years, I finished up on the
@frances_black
@SeanadCEG
team this month. Legends who I miss already. Starting a new role with
@ChristianAidIrl
, working on climate, tax & econ justice. Other content (dogs, giving out) to continue as normal🙂
This is a shocking & regressive decision. It will acutely hurt millions of Palestinians who rely on aid & orgs like
@UNRWA
who support them, at exactly the worst moment. It will do nothing - nothing - to advance peace. IRL & EU MS must strongly oppose it
@dfatirl
@MichealMartinTD
The EU has halted development aid payments to the Palestinians and is placing €691m of support "under review" after the Hamas assault on Israel | Follow developments live here
The sheer determination in that kid’s eyes when he said he was gonna DJ main stage at a festival - followed by a very earnest declaration that he loves his brother - go ON my son
#LateLateToyShow
It's really welcome that Ireland is now regularly & vocally pushing trade & economic measures in response to Gaza.
@LeoVaradkar
: "EU-Israel relations are founded on [a trade] agreement, which has a human rights clause. A lot of us believe that Israel may be in breach of that.”
A group of EU member states may jointly recognise Palestinian statehood as part of an initiative to further a Middle East peace process, Leo Varadkar says - but only after the end of the current war against Hamas.
@VirginMediaNews
Having watched some of the awful, evasive responses from UK politicians in recent days, I’m glad the Irish Govt is being clear: “There is a difference between self-defence and retaliation. Targeting civilians is a war crime… illegal in international law.”
The language from Israeli Govt regarding its ongoing & planned atrocities in Gaza is deeply disturbing. There can be no equivocation; where civilians are targeted & killed it is a war crime.
What happened in Israel last w’end was horrific but it cannot justify war crimes
At the Oireachtas Climate Committee, Kevin Anderson rightly pointing out that the Global North stole the Global South's people, stole their resources and are now stealing their carbon budget.
Climate Change is just a continuation of Colonialism.
#ClimateJustice
Sen
@Frances_Black
invited to address the
@UN
yesterday. Uses her platform to pay tribute to Mary Manning & the Dunnes Workers, who stood against apartheid South Africa in the 80s. "Those women followed their conscience & helped change history, they are an inspiration". Legend 👍
Some richly deserved kudos for
@aliceeire
in Miriam Lord's end-of-term awards. Hours & hours of typically forensic work on the
#ClimateBill
, poring over the boring (but crucial) details - always turning up, always working. Legend. 👏
A lot of people saying we need to
#repealthe27th
given these awful stories - we don't. The 2004 citizenship referendum restricted birthright citizenship but allowed TDs to set the law. The rules could be changed very quickly if the Dáil wanted to.
Two Irish-born children lose appeals over asylum and protection process - this is horrific but is, unfortunatly, what we voted for in the citizenship referendum m in 2004, we need to
#repealthe27th
Wow - UN Human Rights Rapporteur has written urging next Irish Govt to pass
@frances_black
's Occupied Territories Bill, given Israeli promise to annex the West Bank. Says it's time to "demonstrate the leadership that the world has been sorely lacking."
Frustrating to compare the anger/coverage of an Irish author’s support for a peaceful boycott, with the fact that this week alone Israeli Govt has:
1. Effectively criminalised six leading Palestinian human rights orgs
2. Announced another 1300 illegal settlements on occupied land
Really cool street design photo from Amsterdam - 600 parked cars moved to new underground parking, under a canal. Same street with cars (sept) and then without (april). Via
@dublincycling
@schlijper
🚲🌿
Spot on
@saoirse_mchugh
: 'When people say, ‘I'm not political', I understand that because I felt that before, but every single thing we interact with is governed by politics. What’s that saying? ‘You might not be into politics but politics is into you.’
Really interesting - Irish equality law bars discrimination on nine grounds, but
@_IHREC
@PaulFMcKeon
have long called for socioeconomic status to be added as a tenth. Class still a huge, unaddressed barrier. Seems
@rodericogorman
open to including it
Good example of the Jekyll & Hyde nature of Irish corporate tax: 120 new jobs in Swords, income tax from the employees, and a slice (maybe) of the CIT. But in return we're helping the company run a tax avoidance structure like this - never mind 12.5%, get the bill down to 5%.
Great to see all the attention around the investment by
@riotgames
in Swords today. It's also worth remembering it's using
#doublemalt
intercompany debt to shift profits from here to Malta where it's taxed at 5%, as I detailed here:
People who consider themselves on the political centre: please, I beg you, stop using the word "ideology" as something that only informs the decisions of *other* people. Every point on an imagined left-right scale - including the centre - is ideological. You're not the referee.
“I recognised what I saw: horrific humiliation at checkpoints, sprinklers & aqua parks in settlements while Palestinians collect water in canisters to shower, ripped up olive trees, demolition of homes, separate roads for Israeli settlers & Palestinians.”
As the death toll and tragedy in
#Gaza
continue to rise, this poem has just been read aloud in the Irish Parliament by Senator
@frances_black
. 'Running Orders' by Palestinian American poet
@LKTuffaha
:
Important given Irish
#CETA
debate - a German energy giant is suing the Dutch Government over a failed coal investment, as the country tries to shift to renewables. Cases like this have a real chilling effect on ambitious climate action (via
@CANEurope
)
Fixing the constitution is good, isn't it? Well at least we've got another six (!) public votes in the next year! 😐
Oct 2018
1. Blasphemy
2. Woman's life in the home
3. Directly-elected Mayors
June 2019
4. Divorce
5. Emigrant voting rights
6. Voting at 16
It’s should be repeated again & again: the costs of *inaction* on climate change are infinitely bigger than anything we might spend now. Marshall every available resource, treat it like an emergency, and recognise that we are paying for this regardless - the only Q is when & how.
"Everything is destroyed"
Midleton restaurant owner Lynda Corigliano tells Prime Time of the devastation caused by flooding following Storm Babet.
@rtenews
|
#rtept
Besides the fact that this just isn't true, it's remarkable how the framing is rarely that *climate change* is what might actually come along and destroy rural Ireland.
"If the Green Party thinks that they’re going to come along and destroy rural Ireland and that I’m going to stand idly by, that won’t happen," Michael Ring on Midwest Radio.
"I come from the tenements of Charlemont Street. Who would've ever thought that I was going to walk in the gates of this place?"
Lovely interview with
@frances_black
, an unstoppable force in Leinster House & one of the nicest people you'll ever meet
After weeks of asking, Govt have confirmed to
@GaryGannonTD
that Ireland is back purchasing coal from the infamous Cerrejón mine in Colombia. Really concerning given serious human rights & env impacts - will be on
@drivetimerte
at 6.20 to talk it through.
With a €400m potential shortfall this is a relatively small amount, but hugely important politically.
@UNRWA
is a vital humanitarian lifeline for millions of people in Gaza - can't be overstated how disastrous its collapse would be. Crucial that Ireland is vocally pushing back.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has announced €20m in support for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and urged countries that have suspended funding to resume and expand support to the agency
Fight over cashless AIB reminding me of this
@dreamgunandsons
classic.
"Select your fingerprint from the drop-down menu. Remember this fingerprint as you will not be given another. Attach your AIB neural visor to visit your own personal banking dungeon."
WHO's Covid lead,
@DrMikeRyan
, six days ago:
Giving boosters to the healthy is like giving two life jackets to people on the Titanic - "you can argue that two is better than one, but you need to recognise that there’s someone in a developing country who has no life jacket."
This is significant. Third shots will be crucial to keep virus supressed and get us safely through winter: Israel’s Covid rate hits three-month low as booster shots take effect via
@IrishTimes
2019:
@JanetPHorner
co-opted onto Dublin City Council
2020: coordinated lipstick attacks on cars increase dramatically
2021-22: roving gangs of cyclists seize the North Circular Road, parts of the M50
2023: Cars are banned as Govt succumbs to the inexorable rise of the bicycle
A baffling position
@MichealMartinTD
- the Fianna Fáil election manifesto, handed to voters just a few months ago, included an explicit commitment to progress the Bill (page 146 👇). You introduced it to the Dáil. With annexation looming, why the inconsistency?
We desperately need to move past framing climate action as something the Greens (7%) must extract from bigger, reluctant parties (43%). GP policy merits strong criticism- esp distributional impacts. But focus has to be on *Govt* responsibility, not intra coalition horse trading.
I spoke to
@NaomiOhReally
@IrishTimesWorld
about these demolitions - a shameful, cruel act that's left 35 Palestinian children homeless. Where's the accountability, beyond copy paste statements of concern? Are we to just rebuild & wait for the next time?
Watching
@SenLynnRuane
&
@aliceeire
flying the
@SeanadCEG
flag for the last time this term. Scrutinising worker protections, raising concerns over institutional settings like DP, calling for int solidarity. Two sounders who never stop working, hope TCD & NUI voters return them.
Marc MacSharry interrupts FF PP meeting to clarify he condemns the KKK and everything they stand for and unreservedly withdraws his suggestion Ireland would source a vaccine from them.
Always been inspired by Michael D's insistence on a social floor. This from 2015 is great: we need "a re-peopled concept of economics, treating essential social goods like housing, health & food differently from other commodities in the market.”
#MichaelDforPresident
#Aras18
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant:
"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly."
Both
@LeoVaradkar
&
@joefingalgreen
very clear that denial of food, water, electricity amounts to collective punishment & that targeting civilians is a crime. This may seem basic - but vocal commitment to IHL principles crucially important as many EU/UK leaders ignore/deny them.
Taoiseach says Israeli actions in Gaza 'not acceptable'
Speaking to
@MiriamOCal
, Mr Varadkar said "Israel is under threat. They do have a right to defend themselves, but they don't have the right to breach international humanitarian law."
READ:
#rtept
Having not read the Bill, nor paid attention to anything else, critics similarly ask "well why don't you ban goods from Russian-occupied Crimea?" It makes no difference how often I point out that *we have already done this*, seven years ago. March 2014:
This suggestion of selective application of the rules to Israeli human rights abuses is not new, but is it fair? First off, read the Bill itself. It was drafted specifically to be applicable to any occupation, anywhere in the world. Relevant section:
Thanks
@GaryGannonTD
for pressing the issue, and giving a more succinct answer to the Tánaiste's deflection. What about other occupations? - "don't trade with them either". Precisely. Listen to him
@LeoVaradkar
and enact the
#OccupiedTerritoriesBill