Killian Forde (SF) Talks Globalisation with Irishelection.com

Read yesterday’s introduction to Killian Forde

Frank:

Killian Forde, you’ve been on Dublin City Council since 2004. You put in twenty hours weekly as a public representative for the Donaghmede area where you live with your Kosovar wife Teuta, whom you met while working in the Balkans with the UN, and your son Enis. You work full-time with a Travellers organization and you’re also doing an M. Phil on Traveller schooling. Killian, thank you for making the time to meet with IrishElection.com and debate some topical issues.

Firstly, you wanted me to clarify for our readers that you only got 17.2% of the first preferences votes in Donaghmede in 2004, and not 18.5% as I wrote yesterday. I’m blaming the error on my Windows calculator. It was still a record-breaking performance for a first-time candidate in Irish local elections, and my congratulations to you and to Sinn Féin.

Killian, last December the Irish Congress of Trade Unions mobilised a mass demonstration supporting the minority of workers in Irish Ferries who didn’t want to accept the company’s redundancy offer. You know from your family background that a seafarer’s way of life can be hard on workers and their families. Could you tell me your thoughts on how the Irish economy and society, and the quality of peoples’ lives’, have changed since the mid-1990s when the IRA cessation began?

Killian:

‘Frank, thanks. Interestingly the shipping industry proved to have been the socio-economic predictor for a globalised economy. Initially when I was at school I was keen to go to sea but one of the people advising me against it was my own dad, who despite spending a lifetime on ships, saw the writing on the wall; the power of the shipping unions had been broken, containerisation had reduced the size of crews, creating intense competition among maritime workers, and private shipping company’s were registering their ships under “flags of convenience” in the likes of Liberia and Panama to avoid paying taxes and adhering to labor and safety laws. Due to these changes and the active recruitment by shipping agents of crews in the likes of the Cape Verde, Poland and Turkey, conditions deteriorated to the point where a career at sea is no longer an option in most European countries.’
‘Yet despite the evidence of what occurs when companies are encouraged to ‘relocate’ on paper to jurisdictions with weak or non existent labor and safety regulations, the EU commissioners still approved the Bolkenstein (Services) Directive which, as a core competent on opening up services in the EU, included the by now infamous Country Of Origin principle. This principle, which would have decimated some of our own home industries similar to what happened to the Irish shipping industry was only passed in a watered down version, (and) this was seen as a defeat to the EU-liberals in Brussels. What was most heartening from their defeat was the coming together of the broad left in Europe to prevent the passing of the initial draft in the parliament. ‘

‘That demonstrated two things; one was the retreat by the right-wing MEPs in Ireland (and other countries) such as Simon Coveney and Eoin Ryan, on the issue when confronted in Brussels and back in Dublin by concerned constituents, and secondly the potential power of the left in Europe to mobilise, strategise and campaign on ‘dull’ and turgid European legislation.’
‘Unfortunately since the early 90’s the global left, with the exception of South America, has been fractured, ideologically drifting, defensive and struggling to articulate a credible alternative. This recent partial victory by the European left I hope indicates the start of a refocused and cooperative approach that will roll back the neo-liberal project of the past decades.’

‘Together with secularisation, over the past decade the biggest change in Ireland has been the phenomenal rise in our GDP and macro-economic growth. The reasons why this happened are both collective and complementary but what essentially this island experienced was that it had its own industrial revolution, renaissance and reformation crammed into a short two decades. However the pace of change has meant that the economy has become rootless, dependent on foreign labor and cheap credit to sustain its growth. What the long-term sociological effects on this change will be is unclear.’

There’ll be more from this debate with Killian Forde and Frank Neary later in the week. Check it.