Where have all the kids gone?

A look at unaccompanied asylum seeking children who have gone missing while state care in Ireland. How many have gone? Where have they gone? Why have they gone? Whats being done about it? 

Last week we had (24th of May) International Missing Children's Day and the ISPCC put out a press release to highlight the needs of parents and families of missing children and in that regard to highlight the importance of their new hotline service for missing children. However what they do not mention in either their press release or on the news that day was that the Irish state have an extremely shameful track record in looking after the needs of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. There is shocking number of them that go missing and our never found. Last week we were reassured that the majority of children who go missing in Ireland are found within the first 72 hours and a unknown but large number of missing children were taken by one parent unknown to the other. However what they always forget to tell us is that they are only talking about children who happen to have an Irish Citizenship and not children who happen to have been born somewhere else in the world.

Book Review: Miliband's State in Capitalist Society.

An academic book review I wrote for college before Christmas.

Given recent discussion of Chavez and Socialism for the 21st Century, Syriza and the Idea of a Left Government (or Worker's Government) and the debate around radical reform or revolution I feel it is important to look at Miliband and the criticisms which have been made of his Marxism.

Book Review: The State in Capitalist Society: The Analysis of the Western System of Power (1969) by Ralph Miliband.

The State in Capitalist Society was considered to be a very important book around the time it was written in the 1960s/70s for anyone who was interested in a sociological examination of the state and its relationship to the capitalist economy and in particular people on the left, especially Marxists.

Miliband was one of the first modern day authors to challenge the ‘common sense’ pluralist view of the state and the notion of the state being an independent democratic body that can bend one way or the other depending on public opinion. Ralph Miliband has notable offspring, his son Ed Miliband is now leader of the British Labour Party and his other son David is a Labour Party MP for South Shields. Ralph Miliband’s works are still considered to be extremely important in left-wing academic circles in the UK today. Miliband played a huge role in defending the works of Marx from both the right and defenders of the Soviet Union. He continued to have a huge influence on academia and the left and the right up until his death in 1994.

Miliband - Chilling out.

Freemanism, Conspiracies and Legal Trickery.

(Freemanism has nothing to do with Morgan Freeman)

There is a spread of new and interesting ideas out there. People are being convinced by enthusiastic individuals that they do not have to pay their TV Licence, clampers have no right to touch your car, you do not legally have to pay your Household Charge, Property Tax or Car Tax, Toll Bridges are illegal and that Bailiffs and County Sheriffs have no legal standing in Irish law. Ultimately these ideas stem from the notion that the law can only be broken if there is an offence committed against another person, if there is a victim. This line of thinking also leads to things such as "The Strawman Theory" and other quack ideas.

These are the things that I would like to explore in this piece.

Ben Gilroy and the Far-Right.

It has been revealed that Meath-East by-election candidate and leader of Direct Democracy Ireland (DDI), Ben Gilroy has links with the far-right.

Ben Gilroy - Secret Right-Winger

I won't go into detail about who DDI are as I have already done that on a previous post on this blog. In that post I made the assertion that DDI is most likely secretly right wing and they claim to be "neither right-wing or left-wing" to appeal to a wider voter base. I also alluded to the how they play on nationalist sentiment in terms of imagery and rhetoric and how this can be dangerous if we do not know what they really stand for beyond direct democracy.

Direct Democracy Ireland and Constitutional Politics.

A newly established political organisation, Direct Democracy Ireland, have been travelling up and down the country holding public meetings, recruiting new members and establishing new branches.

Who are this organisation? Where did they come from? What are their goals? Can a new constitution bring us the change we need? These are some things that I want to explore in this post.

Direct Democracy Ireland (DDI) is one of the many new political groups that have sprung up since the beginning of the crisis. It is extremely positive to see so many people question conventional, establishment politics, getting active and forming new groups. DDI launched as a political party in November of last year at a press conference in Buswells Hotel with about 200 people in attendance. They claim to have 450 members and now have 1,663 likes on their Facebook page.

So given the size, growth and activity of DDI I feel they are worth looking at in some detail. I will not discuss their polices in any great way, anyone can check them out on their website.

UCD EggGate.

A look into the series of events that led to three students being reprimanded over attempting to egg Enda Kenny.

On the 29th of November last year University College Dublin hosted the official opening of the college's new Student Centre. A wonderful new student facility paid for by students through a student centre levy of €250 in addition to the registration fee. The event was attended by students involved in student societies and sports clubs as well as staff at the new centre, the university authorities, student union officers and Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The Nature of Irish Student Politics.

Ireland's largest student union, University College Dublin Students' Union, is facing a referendum on affiliation to the Union of Students in Ireland. The call for disaffiliation is becoming extremely popular and increasingly hard to challenge. The old mantra of 'united we stand divided we fall' seems to fall on deaf ears as people do not see or believe in the USI tagline "together we're stonger". This has led a number of people to discuss the very nature of student politics, apathy and engagement. This post is an attempt to stimulate debate about the nature of Irish student politics.

OilWatch Day School - Save Our Seafront.

Today Save Our Seafront Dun Laoghaire hosted a day school on the issue of oil, oil rigs and all the environmental concerns, legalities and technicalities that go with oil exploration and rigging by large multinational corporations.

50 people gathered in the Kingston Hotel in Dun Laoghaire to learn the issues and discuss a campaign plan for challenging the Minister for the Environment and Tony O' Reilly's company Providence in their plan to explore for oil in Dublin Bay just off the coast of Dalkey.

Dun Laoghaire's premiere pizza spot.

This machine can make a pizza in 3minutes. There are two tables and chairs and Dun Laoghaire shopping centre advertise it as a restaurant.

Guns Kill People.

Washington Post Journalist Todd Lindeman has compiled this graph to illustrate violent deaths in America by age and cause. The results are shocking. I don't know how the vast majority of people don't see through the NRA. It explains a lot about the power of lobby groups like them in America.

Continued State Prejudice: The Irish Travelling Community.

Wrote this a while ago for www.swp.ie 

In this article I want to examine the development of the state’s attitude towards the Irish Travelling Community and by doing that look at the relationship between settled and travelling communities.

Much like anti-working class discrimination, Traveller discrimination seems to be an acceptable form of prejudice in modern Ireland. In everyday society words like ‘tinker’ or ‘pikey’ seem to be thrown around as if there is nothing wrong with these sweeping insults. In Dublin city centre it is a common thing for pubs and clubs to refuse to serve travellers and people are often asked to leave 

Integration of Africans in Irish Society.

Written in 2011 as an essay.

There are some interesting findings here, in particular in relation to the police and the state and their treatment  of migrants.

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I want to look at the development of Irish social policy in the way of immigration and integration. The typical indicators of levels of integration are education, health, culture, language and qualifications. I will look at each of these in detail. One could have excellent educational qualifications but have no English, ones culture may not be catered for in anyway by the state and one’s health care may not be catered for by the HSE. For example Sickle Cell Anaemia (a disease which mostly affects black people) treatment was not available via the medical card up until relatively recently. 

I will look at policy that impedes integration and aspects of legislation that aids it. Different people from different places have different levels of rights. Tight bureaucratic rules can impede integration and social inclusion. Bureaucratic forms and rules can cause problems for people with no English or low education.  I will look at each of these elements of integration in detail. 

Sexism and Gender Inequality in Ireland.

Written in 2011 as an essay. 

I decided to pick this topic as the 100^th anniversary of International Women’s day was just a few weeks ago. The weeklong event raised some important questions and proved that sexism is still a problem and quite prevalent in Irish and international society even in the year 2011.


All one has to do is to look at the heads of schools in UCD, the shafting of Joan Burton on the government panel and the recent threatening of rape as a joke by Gardai to see sexism is what holds women back. There are some obvious facts to point out in relation to gender inequality in Ireland today. It’s no secret that women are more likely to be accused of promiscuous behaviour, more chance of being a victim of sexual assault, less likely to enter political office (15% of TDs in Dail Eireann are women), more likely to fear walking home at night and it is very likely for women to be afraid to enter their own home. “National Research by the National Crime Council found that 1 in 7 women have experienced severe abusive behaviour of a physical, sexual or emotional nature from a partner at some times in their lives. The survey estimates that 213,000 women in Ireland have been severely abused by a partner”. (Domestic Abuse of Women and Men in Ireland: Report on the National Study of Domestic Abuse, National Crime Council and ERSI, 2005).

Myth-busting Lies about Immigrants.

(From 2009)

Every now and then someone will try and tell me an urban legend or a myth about refugees, asylum seekers or migrant families and workers and often these rumours are egged on by false media reports and either bias or sloppy journalism. People are angry and need to voice their anger but this doesn’t always go in the right direction and often the finger is pointed at people who are not from here as it’s a scapegoat for the pent up tension in society.

However I am not claiming that people who say these things are just ignorant or uneducated. I think the routes of racism are much more societal and are about the scarcity of resources and people being pitched against each other to fight for these resources. Most people I feel are actually against racism they just do not tend to know the facts, they just know they are defending the right people. The route of racism is a very interesting topic and it stems from a socio-historical analysis of slavery, imperialism, persecution and war. However that is another day’s work; what I want to do here is simply dispel those rotten myths and lies we often hear on the bus, in the post office or wherever.