(Dublin, Ireland)
The Irish government has published figures through the Quarterly National Accounts which it claims demonstrate that the country is out of the recession.
This claim is based on the fact that a “recession” is defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. One quarter with a positive percentage is deemed not to be a recession – would that make it a boom?
The two previous quarters returned a fall in GDP of 7.4% and 7.9%; the last quarter apparently yielded a rise of 0.3%. Bang goes the boom.
According to the government’s own “seasonally adjusted” figures unemployment stands at close to 14%. This figure is appalling enough were it not for the fact that their figures show that around 450,000 people out of a population of 4.5 million are jobless, making a mockery of their figure of 14% unemployment.
The reality in Ireland is that the people are still in a recession and will continue to be for some time to come. There are no jobs; there is no money. The government will continue to fiddle the figures of course – right up until the next election, when the only figures that matter to them will blow up in their faces.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Abusing our intelligence
(Brussels, Belgium)
Last week Belgian police raided the central offices of the Catholic Church in Brussels, church commission offices in Leuven and the home of former archbishop Godfried Danneels in an attempt to collate information about child abuse within the church in Belgium. According to newspaper reports the archbishop’s computer was taken away to be examined, with the suggestion that it was not to find images of children but rather documents relating to cases of abuse reported to church authorities over the past few decades.
The raid appeared to be a direct result of the resignation of the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, and his admission that he abused children before and after becoming a bishop. The church in Belgium issued a statement after the raid in which it declared a policy of “zero tolerance” towards child abuse; the Belgian police force are already way ahead of the church in this issue since the Dutroux case exposed so many unsavoury facts about Belgian society and justice in the mid-nineties.
It was to be hoped that the Vatican would respond with the same firmness; after all, in less than a year the Pope had gone from blaming the whole affair on errant homosexuals to admitting the church should do penance for its sins against children, which is quite a large leap for this pope to make.
Unfortunately the Pope took advantage of the situation to retreat once more into the shadows of Papal secrecy while declaring his solidarity for abusive Belgian bishops. The independent commission set up by the Belgian church to investigate abuse cases took the slight rocking of the boat as a signal to jump overboard as one, declaring that it was the fault of the Belgian police that there was now no future hope of any trust or cooperation between the police and the church.
The Church believes it deserves some diplomatic respect, as if it was a sovereign state and as if those who harbour and promote abusers deserved any respect. It has also demonstrated that it never had the slightest intention of cooperating with civil authorities in any country and was simply waiting for the first police force to stop treating them with kid gloves in order to claim victimisation.
There is no doubt that the Belgian police have acted within their rules of engagement and exactly as society expects them to act. It is unfortunate that the Catholic Church has responded exactly as we expected them to respond – however, it is obvious that the Church is in the wrong, and their refusal to cooperate now will only serve as another black mark against them. They may try to protect themselves behind the Vatican walls, but it is only a matter of time before their walls are breached, not by the police but by the weight of public opinion.
Last week Belgian police raided the central offices of the Catholic Church in Brussels, church commission offices in Leuven and the home of former archbishop Godfried Danneels in an attempt to collate information about child abuse within the church in Belgium. According to newspaper reports the archbishop’s computer was taken away to be examined, with the suggestion that it was not to find images of children but rather documents relating to cases of abuse reported to church authorities over the past few decades.
The raid appeared to be a direct result of the resignation of the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, and his admission that he abused children before and after becoming a bishop. The church in Belgium issued a statement after the raid in which it declared a policy of “zero tolerance” towards child abuse; the Belgian police force are already way ahead of the church in this issue since the Dutroux case exposed so many unsavoury facts about Belgian society and justice in the mid-nineties.
It was to be hoped that the Vatican would respond with the same firmness; after all, in less than a year the Pope had gone from blaming the whole affair on errant homosexuals to admitting the church should do penance for its sins against children, which is quite a large leap for this pope to make.
Unfortunately the Pope took advantage of the situation to retreat once more into the shadows of Papal secrecy while declaring his solidarity for abusive Belgian bishops. The independent commission set up by the Belgian church to investigate abuse cases took the slight rocking of the boat as a signal to jump overboard as one, declaring that it was the fault of the Belgian police that there was now no future hope of any trust or cooperation between the police and the church.
The Church believes it deserves some diplomatic respect, as if it was a sovereign state and as if those who harbour and promote abusers deserved any respect. It has also demonstrated that it never had the slightest intention of cooperating with civil authorities in any country and was simply waiting for the first police force to stop treating them with kid gloves in order to claim victimisation.
There is no doubt that the Belgian police have acted within their rules of engagement and exactly as society expects them to act. It is unfortunate that the Catholic Church has responded exactly as we expected them to respond – however, it is obvious that the Church is in the wrong, and their refusal to cooperate now will only serve as another black mark against them. They may try to protect themselves behind the Vatican walls, but it is only a matter of time before their walls are breached, not by the police but by the weight of public opinion.
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