Some good friends for hard road ahead
OVER the past 10 days Ireland put on a happy face. The frown frozen in place disappeared as we welcomed two of the most esteemed visitors ever to visit our shores.
Queen Elizabeth and President Obama reminded us that we have powerful and enduring friends with shared interests. To their credit, both left in their wake a feeling of optimism. We should not look upon the last few transformative days as a rare respite from the significant challenges we face, but as a reminder of our strengths.
President McAleese's total assurance played a significant part in ensuring that Ireland showcased so well to the world in its hosting of our distinguished guests. The President made bridge building the mantra for her terms of office. The past few days represent a spectacular vindication of her vision.
The markets seem determined to ensure that the mood of hope that gripped the country is temporary. There is, as Taoiseach Enda Kenny reminded us yesterday, a more grounded and infinitely more effective way to meeting the challenges we face. Mr Kenny spoke of our resources as a people, a sense of Irishness and character, that has prevailed and inspired through other testing times.
We have accepted austerity as an inevitability, and even the IMF has been respectful of our efforts. The markets remain unimpressed. They see the debt burden as part of a contagion that impacts the EU as a whole. They point to wobbles in Greece, Spain, Italy and to our woes with disdain. And the omens are not good. Yesterday Greek bonds had a yield of just over 17pc, the highest since the eurozone crisis began.
Ratings agency Fitch said any adjustment to the terms of borrowings by the Greek state would be treated as a default. Moody's has echoed this view. It argues that a Greek default would have negative implications for Portuguese and Irish ratings.
But nobody is mentioning burning bond holders any more, the talk instead is of "reprofiling" or even of "a light dusting".
Moodys says the longer the current state of uncertainty affecting Greece persists, the greater the temptation to undertake some form of debt restructuring.
That may well be the case -- ultimately the debt issue must be confronted en bloc. In the interim we must do all in our power to protect and create jobs.
That is why initiatives like the "Springboard" re-engagement with employment mooted by the Higher Education Authority and highlighted in today's paper are to be welcomed. It is reassuring to have such firm allies but ultimately we must help ourselves.
Making a twit of the law
IN one corner you had a celebrated footballer and his intimate relations with a TV star, in the other the courts, media, the Houses of Parliament, and thousands of internet users. It was always going to be an unequal contest, but exactly who wins in the tawdry super-injunction saga between Ryan Giggs and the rest of the world is hard to tell.
There has been a growing unease at a system that allows the wealthy to retreat behind writs while the less well-off are thrown to the wolves because they cannot afford judicial armour.
Might is seldom always right, but when 35,000 internet users saw fit to unmask the Manchester United hero as the married lover of Imogen Thomas all the courts could do was fume.
Mr Giggs had gone to considerable expense to protect his privacy, seemingly to no avail. As things stand, traditional media are at an enormous disadvantage; at a more personal level so too are the rights of the individual. It would appear that technology has changed at too fast a pace for our learned friends.
The gagging orders had been reduced to absurdity because they appeared unable to restrain tens of thousands of "tweeters". This case will have far-reaching significance. Traditionally, newspapers have been obedient. However, their position is being undermined because the information is so readily available on the internet.
Last week, Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England, expressed surprise that "someone who has a true claim for protection" should be "at the mercy of modern technology".
Whether dealing with" twits" or "tweets" all are supposed to be equal before the law, we may not have heard the end of this.
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