Anyway things were looking OK when the delegation got a meeting with the Bahrain Minister for Health. However today’s Irish Times report on their return home refers obliquely to “the breaking up by pro-government medics of a press briefing they attended in Bahrain.”

The Bahrain News Agency website has today an equally oblique reference to the event –

Bahrain Journalists Association (BJA) strongly condemned the verbal and physical attack on doctors by journalist Rim Khalifa.

This attack is in breach of the precepts of journalism, it stressed in a statement today adding that a letter of complaint by President of Bahrain Medical Society (BMS) Dr. Nabil Al Ansari, in which he claimed that he was verbally assaulted by Rim Khalifa during a press conference held by the Irish delegation at Ramada Palace Hotel, was considered seriously.

The journalist has also attacked verbally and physically Dr. Hind Fayez and Dr. Hanen Harith.

This immoral behaviour can never be accepted under any pretext and does contravene ethical and democratic journalism which respects all opinions, BJA asserted.

A little digging around determines that Rim (Reem) Khalifa is the wife of an opposition leader and she apparently had led the resistance when the government loyalists showed up (with cameras) to disrupt the news conference.

[picture: Averil Power meets the pro-government visitors to the news conference; photo REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed]

Although the Irish delegation of course had little control over what government goons might get up to during their visit, hasn’t it now created a 2nd round effect not just for the imprisoned doctors but also for Ms Khalifa? Maybe the best solution is for the Irish government to take on the cause more formally, but the semi-official approach was open to risk from the start.

UPDATE 17 JULY: There is now an extensive statement from the Bahrain Medical Society which ups the temperature in the accusations made against the Irish delegation and Reem Khalifa. The fact that the delegation was travelling without the formal backing of the Irish government or RSCI is seen as an issue:

The association cast doubts about the true agenda of the Irish delegation which expressed its intention to investigate incidents in Bahrain and come out with recommendations – although their visit did not exceed 48 hours.

The association defended its right to meet the Irish delegation and expose its own narrative of incidents in Bahrain, pointing out that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Medical University of Bahrain had distanced itself from the visit.

The Bahrain Medical Society slammed the haughty attitude of the Irish delegation, whose members announced openly their firm intention to step up the pressure on Bahrain until detained doctors are released – Thus flouting basic diplomatic, legal and human norms. The association released details of journalist Reem Khalifa’s aggression on several Bahraini doctors, accusing them of being traitors and mercenaries. She went even further describing them as being “spinsters looking for men” and “cheap women” – all that happened I presence of Bahrain TV camera. The journalist hysterically assaulted Dr Hend Al-Fayez and aggressed Dr Nabeel Al-Ansari verbally. Her husband, former Al-Wasat editor-in-chief Dr Mansour Al-Jamri, did not ince his words used racist nd sectarian words in addressing doctors telling them, particularly: “I belong to this country. We are staying here. You will leave!”.

2nd UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Ateekster, I’m adding a Twitter hashtag for the visit. It might be best to wait for the delegation’s report before returning to the issue.

FINAL UPDATE: Irish Medical Times article about the visit and response from the Bahraini Minister for Social Development, who they met.

According to the notice, the decision to set up a school was taken at a meeting in Dublin late last month. The meeting was attended by members of the education committee of the Saudi Shura Council, an unelected body whose members advise the Kingdom’s government, and Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Ireland, Abdulaziz Aldriss.

“It was decided in the meeting to establish a Saudi school to teach the children of Saudi citizens and students residing in Ireland,” the website says.

The Saudi embassy insists the plans are at a very early stage, and a spokesperson yesterday declined to give further details. In a statement, the Department of Education said the Saudi government had not been in contact with the department regarding the matter.

Speculation has mounted within Ireland’s 40,000-strong Muslim community over how big the school might be, and whether it will cater for non-Saudi Muslims.

According to the embassy, less than 15 Saudi families live and work in Ireland, and more than 400 Saudi nationals study here, though the latter number is expected to rise in coming years following the Saudi ministry for education’s recognition of more Irish third-level institutions.

Ali Selim, a theologian based at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin, welcomed the plans. Asked about speculation within the Muslim community that the school may incorporate secondary education, he said that if this proved correct it would “achieve a long cherished Muslim ambition” in Ireland.

The same “Islamic Cultural Centre” that is the permanent headquarters of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) whose President, Yusuf Qaradawi (known as the “Sheikh of Death) has reportedly called for suicide operations against military and civilian targets in Iraq and Israel, praised child-martyrs, and has instructed that homosexuals should be burned or stoned to keep Islamic society “clean of perverted elements”. Qaradawi also headed the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS) (again based in Ireland) and was a founding member of the Muslim Brotherhood. In that context we should be wary of an education-system endorsed by Clonskeagh.

Returning to the question of a Saudi school in Ireland:

The plans were welcomed by the parents of Shekinah Egan, the teenage girl whose request to wear the hijab at her school in Gorey, Co Wexford, last year prompted the principal to call for official guidelines to be issued on the wearing of the hijab in State schools. Ms Egan’s father, Liam, who lived with his family for several years in Saudi Arabia, praised what he described as the Kingdom’s “strong commitment” to education both domestically and overseas.“An Islamic secondary school is vital and should be a priority for the community,” he said.

The news will raise concern on a number of fronts. Following 911, the Saudi government came under pressure from the Bush administration to remove alleged incitement to hatred against Jews and Christians from school textbooks. A 2004 Saudi royal study group found that the kingdom’s religious studies curriculum “encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the ‘other.’ ” Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts. The former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, lauded the supposed moderation of the revised textbooks/ But as the Washington Post reported in 2006, Saudi textbooks continue to villify non-Muslims – even referring to Christians and Jews as “apes” and “swine”. The quotes below are derived from a 74-page review of the supposedly sanitised Saudi curriculum distributed by the Saudi Embassy in Washington:

FIRST GRADE

” Every religion other than Islam is false.”

“Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________.”

FOURTH GRADE

“True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly.”

FIFTH GRADE

“Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives.”

“It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam.”

“A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion.”

SIXTH GRADE

“Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God’s power.”

EIGHTH GRADE

“As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.”

“God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God’s book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did.”
“They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them].”
“Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God.”
“Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels.”

NINTH GRADE
“The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills.”
“It is part of God’s wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment].”

“Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him.”

TENTH GRADE
The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a “free Muslim male.” Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim’s heirs for murder or injury:
“Blood money for a free infidel. [Its quantity] is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is ‘of the book’ or not ‘of the book’ (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).
“Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel.”

ELEVENTH GRADE
“The greeting ‘Peace be upon you’ is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others.”
“If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims.”
“Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect.”

TWELFTH GRADE
“Jihad in the path of God — which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it — is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God.”

We must ask – as a society – if we are prepared to allow the promotion of hatred of non-Muslims (referred to as Dhimmis in Sharia law), women and homosexuals into our education system ? We cannot have two-standards – one for Catholicism’s role in our education-system and another for that of Islam. If – as Fintan O’Toole claims in the Irish Times – “agents of foreign state should not control our schools” – then that equally ought to apply with respect to the Kingdom’s attempts to export its borderline interpretation of Islam into our Repubic. Taking account of the horrors of the Ryan and Murphy reports exposing decades of rampant abuse of Irish children at the hands of the Catholic Church, as well as the rampant incitement to hatred promoted in the Saudi education-system, it is difficult for an objective person to come to any other conclusion than that it is time for the dangerous-liason between religion and education to come to an end. In the context of an increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-faith Ireland, the continued segregation of children on the basis of religion – which increasingly constitutes a de-facto segregation on the basis of nationality – must come to an end. The taxpayer and the State have no stake in perpetuating division, , anti-semitism and anti-Westernism in this Western, Christian country. I speak as an atheist – but one who recognises the comparative tolerance of Christian culture relative to much of the Muslim world – notably with respect to the rights of women and homosexuals. Tolerance is a two-way street.

Last year, a Federal investigation in the US found that a textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia taught students that killing adulterers and converts from Islam was permissible:

Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.

Other passages in the school’s textbooks state that “the Jews conspired against Islam and its people” and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed “polytheists.”

The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government…..The commission said it obtained 17 of the academy’s textbooks through a variety of channels, including from members of Congress. The texts did appear to contain numerous revisions, including pages that were removed or passages that were whited out, but numerous troubling passages remained, according to the panel:
* The authors of a 12th-grade text on Quranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.
* The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write that “(m)ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible,” meaning that a Muslim can take with impunity the life and property of someone believed guilty of polytheism. According to the panel, the strict Saudi interpretation of polytheism includes Shiite and Sufi Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.
* A social studies text offers the view that Jews were responsible for the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims: “The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims).”

This question is another moment of truth for the Irish Left, many of whom have campaigned tirelessly for the rights of persons historically disenfranchised or downtrodden in Irish society – such as women and gay people. They face an inherent contradiction between their belief in “multiculturalism” (which promotes diversity for its own sake) on the one hand – and the rights of those who would lose those rights if the Saudi system of Sharia Law were to be introduced into this country. It is impossible to separate an education system from the culture it supports. If we allow the seed of Saudi Wahhabism to be sown in our schools, we can wave goodbye to women’s rights, gay rights, and freedom of religion as the political system of Saudi Arabia shows. That country outlaws homosexuality and conversion of Muslims to another faith on punishment of death. Premarital-sex is punishable by up to 100 lashes, with adultery punishable by stoning to death. If the Irish Left mean what they say when they call for a more pluralist Ireland, then here is their opportunity to prove it. They should oppose the establishment of this school – and all schools which undermine the cohesion and mutual respect upon which pluralism and tolerance depends.

–

In a decision sure to spark furious condemnation from “no” campaigners, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has announced new regulations on airtime set to grant the political-parties the vast majority of airtime during the campaign.

Broadcasters are not required to allocate exactly the same amount of time to both the Yes and No campaign when it comes to editorial coverage.

However, they must ensure that the total airtime given over to political party broadcasts is equal.

The guidelines come into effect from Friday, ahead of polling on October 2.

Willie O’Reilly, chairman of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, said the Coughlan case meant broadcasters were strait-jacketed into dividing time equally, regardless of the merits of any argument.

“The perversity of this is that weak arguments gain traction with repetition, and charismatic leaders of doubtful representation are feted by the media,” he said.

“It is a cranks’ charter….Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe said the forthcoming referendum on children’s rights had cross-party support, but the policy of giving equal airtime to both sides in a referendum debate could result in a group such as “a paedophile association” being given 50 per cent coverage”.

Article 40.1 of the Bunreacht na h-Eireann – largely the basis of the Supreme Court judgements – states:

1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function.

The umbrella body that represents Irish NGOs, Dochas, held its AGM yesterday morning, so the Minister had his line well worked by the time he gave his Trinity lecture. The basic premise was that the stronger the economy, the more aid Ireland will be able to give – a thrilling piece of insight – so given that the best way to repair the economy is to restore confidence in the stability of the public finances, cuts now allow for longer aid flows in the long run.

By way of background, it’s worth noting that as far back as 2000 Bertie Ahern committed the country to meeting a UN-encouraged goal of spending 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid so as to assist developing countries in achieving the MDGs. The suspicion is that this was as much about basking in a bit of international kudos as anything else, given that this target was originally supposed to be met by 2007, and needless to say it wasn’t. The new target date, 2012, now looks equally unattainable. Taking into account this latest reduction in aid – the fourth in less than year – we’re looking at 0.48% of a rapidly shrinking GDP going on aid this year.

Now, of course everyone has to take the hit when the country has to do such major surgery on the accounts, and it’s not like going back on your word is unheard of in international affairs. The manner and sheer scale of these cuts do, however, do give rise to a couple of observations.

First, even if one accepts the idea that sorting the public finances ought to be the priority in returning the economy to good health over the next few years, where the cuts come from is a separate issue. The UK, in producing its own hairshirt budget a couple of weeks back, didn’t touch a penny of its £9 billion or so in overseas aid. Indeed, the opposition Conservatives have placed international development alongside the likes of domestic healthcare as an area of spending that would be “ringfenced” until 2011 under a Tory administration.

In Ireland, the story is different because the government simply doesn’t care as much about development. The aid budget took four hits in under a year not despite it being a difficult decision, as the Junior Minister argued last night, but because it was a soft target. There is no significant constituency that will be outraged enough by this decision to make an issue of it. Secure in the knowledge that nobody’s going to march on the Dail in support of a higher aid spend, and reckoning that letting down the poor isn’t a big vote-loser, the government went for the easy option. This will come at a very high cost to those recipient countries, principally in sub-Saharan Africa, which will already be in trouble due to the recession.

A final thought: given that development is pretty low on the Irish political agenda, and doesn’t get the public as riled up as do many other issues, surely an increased onus lies with Mr. Power to fight his corner? As a Minister of State for Overseas Development watching the overseas development budget took such a beating, you’d have to feel like a bit of a spanner. If the aid budget is cut still further over the year, which Mr. Power has refused to rule out, it will certainly show how little weight are given to his representations by the government. Assuming, of course, he is even making them.

A letter to The Irish Times by Peter Power giving his account of all this can be read here.

Things are particularly awkward for the latter, because the treaty still isn’t ratified in the Czech Republic, and Declan Ganley’s favourite politician Vaclav Klaus is now kingmaker in that country.  Micheal Martin seems to be quicker than his EU colleagues to see the iceberg that’s coming, as reported in this interview which appears to be only with Bloomberg (it must have been set up as a booster for the economy).  Note also Martin’s falling back on psycho-babble to describe the economy — “we’re still in a difficult space” — but he’s asking the right question: who is the counterpart for Ireland’s remaining negotiations on the Lisbon treaty?

Or at least, he wasn’t at the time.

Well, the government lost the referendum, so after a few months of soul searching and sulking in the Dail bar, Cowen and company headed for Brussels to see what the governments of other EU states would agree to in order to soothe the fears of the Irish voter. I don’t know if they used Ganley’s tickets, but here’s hoping they did. At a time when the government refuses to give cancer vaccines to children, you’d hope they’d take up any chance to save the tax payer a few quid.

Last week, Minister Michael Martin offered the following summary of the consequences of the Brussels talks.

Last week’s agreement means that, if Lisbon is ratified, we will retain the right to nominate an Irish person to future European Commissions. This is a major concession on the part of the other member states. Our people’s clear desire to retain a permanent Irish presence at the commission table in Brussels will be respected, but only if we ratify Lisbon.

Our second aim last week was to get a satisfactory response to concerns that surfaced about the possible implications of the treaty for a range of issues such as taxation, defence, social and ethical issues and workers’ rights.

On Friday, EU leaders gave us a commitment that Ireland will have its concerns satisfactorily addressed. Specifically, they have undertaken to provide full legal guarantees with regard to taxation, Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality and the provisions of our Constitution concerning the right to life, education and the family. This represents a very significant achievement.

The bottom line is that the Irish people have spoken and EU leaders have listened. Those who were expecting mere declarations in response to Irish concerns have been proven wrong. What is being offered are firm legal guarantees with treaty status. In addition, the summit confirmed the high importance attached by the union to workers’ rights, one of the issues included in the Government’s statement of the Irish people’s concerns.

Personally, I’m not impressed by the new arrangement regarding commissioners. It’s not as though you can see many benefits from having Charlie McCreevy over in Brussels, but given that Libertas made the commissioner issue the linchpin of their campaign, you’d have thought that Ganley and his minions would have been happy about this. After all, Ganley ended the press conference where he produced the tickets that he bought the pro-Lisbon party leaders by offering to pay their taxi fare to the airport and declaring

Our message to voters is very clear. On Thursday, send Brian back to Brussels, and tell him not to come back without a commissioner. On Friday, he will have both the mandate, and the means, to get a better deal.

Ganley reacted in the following way:

The Irish government and the powerful elite in Brussels are showing utter contempt for the democratic decision of the Irish people in rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. Not one sentence will change in a “new version”. Some non-legally binding texts will be added in an attempt to fool the people. They tried this with the French, they tried with the Dutch, they are trying with the Irish. It’s time to put a stop to this bullying.

Now what needs to be understood at this point in time is that Ganley knows no more than any of us. The government will announce the details of the legally binding guarantees only after the technical details have been finalised, most likely in June of next year. It is probable that these guarantees will take the form of an international treaty, which is about as legally binding as they come. Ganley seems to be claiming that he knows the details of a treaty that doesn’t exist yet. It seems that not only is Ganley a wonderful businessman but he’s part-time psychic as well.

Let’s face it, Ganley and Libertas lack any resembling credibility. Their history is short but complicated and their message is ever-changing.

Ganley claims to be pro-European. He claims to have supported the government on all of the other referendums held relating to Europe over the years. This would include treaties like the Mastricht and Nice. Previously, I offered the following summary of the contradictions in Ganley’s position.

He never read the Nice Treaty, but supported it, apparently thinking it wasn’t really necessary to do so, yet when it came to the Lisbon Treaty, he condemned others for not having read the document.

He supported the Nice Treaty even though other countries did not get to vote on it, yet when it comes to Lisbon, it’s wrong that other countries don’t get to vote.

The Nice Treaty that he supported created the situation whereby membership of the Commission would be reduced, yet he urged voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty because it would mean we would not have a commissioner.

Ganley supported Nice in spite of the fact that it removed our veto on matters relating to ‘enhanced cooperation’ but asked the public to oppose Lisbon because ‘enhanced cooperation’ threatened our tax system when the only real change the Lisbon treaty made to matters regarding ‘enhanced cooperation’ was to make it slightly more difficult to achieve.

He supported the government’s approach to the defeat of the Nice Treaty referendum, but opposes the government when they use the same approach to the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty.

It’d take a professional conspiracy theorist or an excellent psychoanalyst to figure out just what happened to Declan to make him change his mind between Nice and Lisbon, but since I’m neither, I”ll leave it to readers to come up with their own theories. What I will say though is that Ganley’s apparent change of opinion in regard to the matters discussed above was glacial in its speed when compared to the rapidly changing arguments presented by Libertas during the Lisbon referendum campaign.

Libertas posters were reported as claiming that Lisbon affected Ireland’s ability to set its own corporation tax rates. Ganley now accepts this, but during the campaign he generally moved on to vague chatter about enhanced co-operation. After the treaty, he admitted that the absence of the Lisbon treaty really didn’t eliminate the supposed threat to Ireland from enhanced co-operation.

Other Libertas bill boards focused on personalities like Lucinda Creighton and Peter Mandelson, who had nothing to do with the campaign. Lisbon had nothing to do with Mandelson’s dealings with the WTO and Lucinda Creighton’s views on European military policy shouldn’t have been an issue. The Libertas campaign also suggested that by voting No we would save our commissioner. This was also false. There were reports that Libertas were also making unfounded claims about the impact of Lisbon on Ireland’s abortion laws. Every time that Libertas was caught out spreading a falsehood they modified their position.

Now with a new referendum in sight, Libertas’s priorities and arguments have changed yet again. Gone (for now) is the talk of corporate tax rates, European armies, Peter Mandelson, commissioners and all the other nonsense of the past. This time, we must vote ‘No’ because of democratic deficits and for other reasons not considered important enough to paste across billboards last time out. The only constant in the Libertas campaign is their commitment to oppose the treaty using any argument available to them. It’s not the government that seeks to “fool the people”, but Libertas. They’re no more pro-Europe than UKIP. Libertas was never about Lisbon. It’s all just been a stepping stone for Ganley on his quest to re-model the EU after his own design.

Banco Santander ran a hedge fund called Optimal Investment Services.  This was basically an umbrella fund which took in client money and then parcelled it out in various investment strategies.  One in particular:

Optimal Strategic U.S. Equity fund.. is fund run by Optimal Multiadvisors Ireland Plc, an Irish arm of Optimal Investment Services, Santander’s hedge fund management arm. Of the 2.33 billion euros invested through Optimal Strategic, 2.01 billion euros belongs to institutional investors and international private banking customers, Santander said.

The problem now is that the sophisticated investment strategy that Santander’s wealthy customers thought they were getting might turn out to have been “Give it to Bernie”.  The question now being, where’s Bernie?

No doubt Irish regulators will think this was none of their business.  If Santander wanted to run a US equity fund for non-Irish clients through an Irish registered vehicle, it’s up to them to keep an eye on it.  But the financial sector is an area where Ireland’s name keeps coming up.  The financial crisis began in August 2007 with the collapse of various structured investment vehicles, many of which were also registered in Dublin.

But there are many signs that the rules of international economic relations are changing.  Note Alistair Darling’s apparent loss of patience with the UK dependency financial havens dotted around the channel and the Irish sea.   One thing for Brian Lenihan‘s crowded in-box might be taking a look at what kind of business our tax and regulatory structure has been attracting, and whether we risk our reputation in allowing things to continue as they are.

UPDATE: Also on the list of Madoff exposures: UniCredit (large Italian bank); Exposure: EUR75M: Dublin-based Pioneer Alternative Investments indirectlyexposed to Madoff via feeders

Feeders are funds whose investment strategy was to place funds with Madoff to invest.

FINAL UPDATE: More losses through another Irish-based fund called Laredo.  And the website of Optimal Investment Services has been pulled.

UPDATE: A politics.ie thread produces the transcript.

But Fine Gael and the Conservatives are closer to a similar position on taxes; the Irish government with tax increases imminent (the income levy) and Gordon Brown promising increases in national insurance (and VAT?) within a couple of years, while FG and the Conservatives are opposed to any tax increases.  On the other hand, Lisbon is a bit of a landmine for Dave, as he surely hopes his promise of a UK referendum will be moot by the time he might be in a position to offer it, as it would be highly likely to generate a No result.  Whereas FG have the luxury of an unambiguous pro-Lisbon position that allows them to outflank FF as the reliable Europhiles in Ireland.  And on Northern Ireland, it can’t have much more of a tour d’horizon although Enda was perhaps curious to see what Dave might say at the UUP conference next week.

So all in all, there was probably more meat in the discussion of strategy than policy.  Enda could certainly take note of Cameron’s approach in PM’s questions — one very pointed question at the start which then leads into a broader to and fro with Gordon Brown, with the hope of a soundbite that makes it the evening news.   For example, I thought Cameron’s line about Brown giving the UK “the debt levels of Italy and the accounting practices of Enron” was not bad at all.  Among the many questions prompted by comparing the two leaders, one perhaps stands out.  Cameron has a rapport with many London voters and Boris Johnson shows that the party can overcome the image of buffoonish toffs to win elections there.  But does FG have electoral buoyancy in Dublin?  It’s hard to see an election win without it.