The Chairman of the Croke Park Implementation Body, P.J Fitzpatrick today appeared before the PAC to outline the work of the Body and the progress of the agreement. Click here to watch, scroll to 01.38.35 to watch my contribution.

Following the announcement today that the UK Chancellor is to give each tax payer in the UK a detailed breakdown annually of how the government spends their taxes, Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East) has called on the Irish government to do the same. Murphy has been preparing a Tax Transparency Bill and is to publish it shortly.

Commenting on Chancellor Osborne’s announcement, Murphy said: “Ireland should follow the UK’s lead here in bringing greater transparency to public finances and highlighting the relationship between what people pay in tax to central government and how that money is spent.”

“When I heard of Ben Gummer MP’s proposal back in January I thought it was an interesting idea. My office was in touch with his and we’ve been doing our own research and work on a ‘Tax Transparency’ Bill since then. The Bill is at an advanced stage and we should be publishing it before the Easter recess. It won’t look too different to what the UK Chancellor has announced today. It’s a good idea and we should adopt it.”

“Open government is good government. We have a responsibility to let the people know directly how we are spending their money. They can then make their own judgements after that. But overall it should greatly inform the debate that the public has before and after each new budget. It’s especially relevant at the moment given that we are engaged in such a dramatic correction of the national finances and money is scarce.”

The Bill will include the central element of an annual statement to taxpayers, summarising how the tax they paid was spent in the previous year and then breaking that amount down in to percentages and the actual monetary amounts that were allocated to different areas. It would give a breakdown of money spent on behalf of each individual on things like education, health, social welfare, debt repayments and government itself for example. Estimates for the coming year would also be provided.

“We’re still doing work on putting together some examples of the kind of information such a statement would provide, but very roughly, if we were to take just the 51.9 billion allocated by the government for current spending in 2012 (gross voted): a single person earning €60,000 would see that they had spent a total of €20,067 on taxes (income tax, PRSI, USC). The statement would then break this figure down and show that 17% or €3,411 of their earnings had been spent on Education, 26% or €5,217 had been spent on Health, and 40% or €8,026 had been spent on Social Protection.”

Two additional elements to the Bill will be a VAT calculator on the Department’s website which would assist people in estimating their previous VAT payments in the year and would perform a similar function to the annual statement on income tax. The other element is a proposal that would see all single expenses or payments over five thousand euro incurred by a Department published in real time on that Department’s website. “This would help people to follow the money from their own statements to the relevant Department’s spend” according to Murphy.

“I haven’t had a chance yet to sit down with Minister Noonan about this but I hope to soon. We still have some holes to fill, like when in the year the statement might issue for example. Of course this is all dependent on the Minister and the government accepting the Bill.”

Note: Re example, tax case is taken from Budget 2012, illustrative cases, example 9. Current spending percentages for 2012 (gross voted) is taken from Revised Estimates for Public Services 2012, pg.9. The example is illustrative only and more detailed examples will be provided with the publication of the Bill.

Hello, we’re currently making some changes to the website and some of our systems.

For the immediate future new posts will be less frequent, you may not be able to access certain content, or you may find older content is no longer available.

Apologies for this, but hopefully the coming changes will be worth the temporary inconvenience. Any questions, give me a call 016183324.

Eoghan

Today the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment came before the PAC. I raised my concerns in relation to the Poolbeg Incinerator. Watch the proceedings here and to watch my contribution scroll to  04.27.59

An update from Séan Sherlock regarding the enactment of the European Union (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2012:

I fully acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed by many people regarding the introduction of the European Union (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2012 which were signed into law on 29th February, 2012. I wish to re-emphasise that it has been necessary to introduce this legislative measure to restate the position that was thought to exist in the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 regarding injunctions against intermediaries prior to the High Court Judgement of Justice Charleton in the case of EMI & others –v- UPC and to ensure that Ireland is compliant with our obligations under EU law.

I am satisfied that the High Court now has significant guidance in the implementation of this legislative measure arising from the underpinning EU Directives, as interpreted by the recent Court of Justice of the European Union case law, to ensure that any remedy provided will uphold the following principles:

Freedom to conduct a business enjoyed by operators such as ISPs;

The absolute requirement that an ISP cannot be required to carry out general monitoring on the information it carries on its network;

Any measures must be fair and proportionate and not be unnecessarily complicated or costly;

The fundamental rights of an ISPs’ customers must be respected, namely their right to protection of their personal data and their freedom to receive or impart information.

I am determined to ensure that Ireland will be a premier location where innovation can flourish and where innovation is facilitated by our copyright laws and data protection regime. In this regard, I am committed to reviewing and updating the Copyright legislation currently in place in order to strike the right balance between encouraging innovation and protecting creativity.

In this context, I am particularly anxious that the Consultation Paper of the Copyright Review Committee, which was launched on 29th February, 2012, is carefully studied by all interested parties to stimulate a constructive and well informed debate on these issues. This is a wide-ranging Consultation Paper which examines the current copyright legislative framework to identify any areas of the legislation that might be deemed to create barriers to innovation. The Consultation Paper is available to download at the following link: http://www.djei.ie/press/2012/20120305b.htm

I would like to encourage the deepest engagement by all interested parties in the consultation process which has been launched in order to stimulate a constructive and well informed debate on all of the issues raised in this rapidly evolving area.

I am confident that the work being carried out by the Copyright Review Committee together with the interaction and input of all of the interested parties will result in establishing Irish copyright law on a firm footing to encourage innovation, foster creativity and meet the challenges of the future with confidence.

Yours sincerely,

Seán Sherlock TD

Minister for Research and Innovation

Deputy Arthur Spring: I welcome the opportunity to discuss the dire situation in Syria. What is happening in that country shows the lack of respect for human life by President Assad. He calls himself president, yet the country has been run by himself and his father for 41 consecutive years. Assad was elected unopposed in 2000 and 2007. Unfortunately, now we see why no opponents put themselves forward for these elections by the way of the current regime. There is a cruel irony in this, as President Assad is a trained medical doctor who worked in hospitals in Damascus for many years prior to getting involved in so-called politics, and, in reality, as we all will be aware, replaced his father as a dictator of Syria.

When I learned of his background in medicine and of his years in working in hospitals, it aroused suspicion within me as to how much control the army has over the killings that are taking place in Syria and the level of collusion that was shown in “Prime Time” on Monday night between the medics and the army. This evidence leads me to believe that international sanctions currently being imposed on Syria will not bother President Assad and the army which is propping up this regime at his behest. He was put in power with the approval of the army and it shows what kind of regime it is.

In Kosovo in the 1990s and in Rwanda also, the international community was slow to react and, subsequently, we found out that thousands of people, and in the Rwanda case hundreds of thousands, had been massacred. I would like to see further intervention, possibly from the UN and NATO. I want Ireland to put pressure on the international dimensions that exist for us to do so. It is not enough to stand idly by, and especially when one sees organisations such as the Red Cross being prevented from entering borders at present. We need to raise the profile of what is going on but we also need action. I am appalled by what I perceive to be Russia’s and China’s lack of interest in human life.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy: Recently, Deputies Spring, Ann Phelan and I were in Vienna as part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s parliamentary assembly. At that meeting, we discussed the issue in Syria. Unfortunately, it does not pertain directly to the work of the OSCE but we felt what was happening there was so grave that it was our duty as parliamentarians from across the OSCE regions to raise this matter. At the conclusion of the meeting, Parliamentary Assembly President Efthymiou, from Greece, read out the following statement the assembly:

“As President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I deeply regret the violence and loss of life in Syria. As OSCE participating states and partners for co-operation have expressed their concern about the current situation, I call for a full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country. I salute the journalists who have paid such a heavy price to keep the world informed.”

At the end of that statement, the parliamentarians there supported him in it. As the head of the delegation that went to the OSCEPA, I repeat that statement here to voice my support for it. When we speak of intervention in this context, we are talking very much about humanitarian intervention. What we have seen in Syria is medical care being used as a tool for repression, and it is disgusting.

I would very much like to know what our policy is as a country. We were very quick to support NATO military intervention in Libya when it occurred, yet we are not so quick in this case. Why the discrepancy between the two?

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Deputy Shane McEntee): The matter is close to everybody’s heart. By right, we should be discussing this for a couple of hours rather than a couple of minutes. We stated it would never happen again after the Second World War and it has happened several times since. In this case, I hate to think that we must wait another four years for the truth when people are being butchered by their own government.

Horrific suffering and a campaign of ruthless repression is being visited upon the civilian population in Syria. The Government, in concert with its EU partners, has strived to exert strong and united political pressure on the Syrian regime to end its campaign of repression and make decisive progress towards fulfilling the aspirations of the Syrian people for a democratic transition. The grim facts of this conflict are truly horrifying. Credible reports of more than 7,500 people killed since March last, an estimated 200,000 internally displaced persons, and 35,000 who have fled to other countries as refugees. According to the latest report of the commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate events in Syria, state forces stand accused of committing widespread and gross human rights violations which amount to crimes against humanity. They have done this, apparently, with the knowledge and consent of President Assad and his regime.
There is no doubting the widespread international revulsion. This is evident from the overwhelming support for various resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council in recent weeks. It was also evident at the initial meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People group, which the Tánaiste attended in Tunis on 24 February and where more than 70 countries gathered to voice their support for the Syrian people and for international efforts to end the conflict and promote peaceful democratic transition within Syria. There is an obligation on the international community to do all it can to end the violence and suffering of the Syrian people and to help them to chart a new way forward.

The immediate priority must be to secure a ceasefire which will end the indiscriminate shelling of cities such as Horns and Rastan and at the same time provide the UN, ICRC and others with humanitarian access. The visit yesterday of the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Baroness Amos, to the Baba Amr district of Homs revealed the true extent of the human catastrophe. She reported that the area had been completely devastated and most inhabitants had fled to other parts of the city or nearby villages. It is vital that full humanitarian access to the whole country is achieved urgently.

It is regrettable that the UN Security Council has so far failed to agree a resolution on the situation. The Government regards it as a welcome development that discussions have now got under way at the UN on a new draft resolution primarily addressing the humanitarian situation. It is incumbent upon the Security Council to live up to its responsibilities in the area of the maintenance of international peace and security and to adopt a resolution at the earliest opportunity on the situation in Syria. No other action could better convey to the Syrian regime the strength of the international condemnation of what is happening in that country.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Peter Mathews): The Minister of State’s time is up.
Deputy Shane McEntee: I will conclude shortly. In saying all of this, we must be also realistic about what the international community can accomplish in regard to Syria. There is little or no appetite anywhere for any form of external intervention. This also extends to any idea of arming those now opposed to the Syrian regime. We must never fail to remember that Syria is a country through which many fault lines run, whether political, ethnic or religious. The worst-case scenario would be if Syria were to slip into an open civil war which would be profoundly destabilising for the entire region.

Deputy Ann Phelan: I am grateful for the opportunity to add my voice on this situation and that my comments will be on the record of the House. There are new lows happening every day in the Homs area of Syria, where it is now being reported that local hospitals are unable or unwilling to provide blood transfusions to patients in dire need because the medical blood banks in Syria come under the aegis of its Department of Justice. I ask the Tánaiste to bring his weight to bear in order that this situation be rectified. I do not believe I have heard anything as low as this in my time. Anecdotally, we hear that some members of staff seem to be taking part in this, which is abominable.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Minister of State for his reply. There is incredible hypocrisy on the part of the international community. While I am not calling for military intervention, there are other things we can do. We are reading reports from Médecins Sans Frontières about problems in terms of resources and supplies, including getting medical supplies into the necessary areas. Deputy Ann Phelan touched on this point. What kind of financial resources are we willing to put behind some sort of medical assistance? Are we examining ways of getting medical assistance into the country to help those areas that do not have the necessary supplies, including supplies of blood, and expertise, given people have had to flee?

Deputy Shane McEntee: In a statement the Tánaiste outlined the widespread international revulsion at what is currently taking place in Syria and the steps which are being taken by concerned members of the international community to try to put a halt to the killings, repression and terror currently being inflicted by the Assad regime and its forces upon the Syrian people. The League of Arab States is playing a particularly important role at present in the peace plan outlined last November, and agreed at that stage by the Syrian authorities, which still provides the only credible plan for bringing the violence to an end and initiating a peaceful transition in Syria. The Arab League has made other important contributions to current efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria, including the monitoring mission deployed in late December and subsequently withdrawn due to the non-co-operation of the Syrian regime.

Arab League Ministers called for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed and the idea of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission was positively considered at the recent meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People held in Tunis on 24 February, which the Tánaiste attended. However, a ceasefire would first need to be in place before any possible peacekeeping mission could be deployed. In addition, some form of authorisation or mandate for such a mission from the UN Security Council would be highly desirable. It is by no means clear that any such agreement would be forthcoming from the Security Council at present, given current Russian and Chinese attitudes. For the moment, international efforts to broker a ceasefire are concentrating on the mediation by the joint UN-Arab League special envoy, former UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, whose mission Ireland and the EU fully support. It is hoped Mr. Annan will be in a position to travel to Damascus for discussions in the coming days.

In conclusion, I can only reiterate the Tánaiste’s words of yesterday that there are no easy solutions to what is a very complex political situation now obtaining in Syria, nor should we view any form of external military intervention or, alternatively, arming the badly divided Syrian opposition, as offering any form of panacea. Such forms of action or intervention are, unfortunately, only likely to accelerate the descent into open civil war in Syria, a civil war, moreover, which would provide profound destabilisation for the entire region, not least neighbouring countries such as Iraq and Lebanon.

Representatives from the Department of Agriculture today appeared before the PAC. To watch the proceedings click here, to watch my contribution scroll to 01.04.06.

Although candidates in yesterday’s presidential election in the Russian Federation were able to campaign unhindered, conditions were clearly skewed in favour of one of the contestants, current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the international observers concluded in a statement issued today.

“There were serious problems from the very start of this election. The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain. This was not the case in Russia. There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt,” said Tonino Picula, the Special Co-ordinator to lead the short-term OSCE observer mission and Head of the delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

The observers noted that all candidates had access to the media, but the Prime Minister was given a clear advantage over his competitors in terms of media presence. In addition, state resources were mobilized at the regional level in his support. Also, overly restrictive candidate registration requirements limited genuine competition.

The election campaign was characterized by continuing and generally unobstructed large-scale protests over allegations of fraud during the December 2011 Duma elections. Demands for honest elections by citizens and candidates led to greater civic involvement in observation efforts to enhance the integrity of the process.

Voting on election day was assessed positively overall, but the process deteriorated during the vote count which was assessed negatively in almost one-third of polling stations observed due to procedural irregularities.

“This election showed a clear winner with an absolute majority, avoiding a second round. However, voter’s choice was limited, electoral competition lacked fairness and an impartial referee was missing. Due to increased citizen’s awareness and involvement elections were more lively, better managed and more seriously observed, whereas structural improvements in electoral regulation were proposed to Parliament – but not yet passed,” said Tiny Kox, the Head of the delegation of Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.

“In this election, candidates could not compete on an equal footing. Although the authorities made some effort to improve transparency, there remained widespread mistrust in the integrity of the election process. As a first step, all allegations of electoral violations need to be thoroughly investigated. In an encouraging development, we have seen a great number of citizens taking part in overseeing the election. Their active involvement can be a powerful vehicle for increasing confidence in future elections,” said Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini, the Head of the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

– Joint press release from the International Observer Team.

Watch the proceedings here.

February 23, 2012,

Microsoft today announced that it is investing an additional US$130 million to expand its data centre located in Dublin, Ireland.   This investment builds on the original $500m investment Microsoft has already made in the Dublin data centre, which has been operational since July 2009, providing computing capacity to customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

During a visit to Dublin, Peter Klein, Chief Financial Officer, Microsoft Corporation said “This investment shows where we are placing our bets for the future.  As customers embrace Microsoft cloud services such as Office 365, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing and the Windows Azure platform, we are investing in regional cloud infrastructure to meet their needs.“We are delighted to build on the long history of Microsoft investment and partnership in Ireland, starting in 1985. As we expand our Dublin data centre, we remain committed to efficiency and sustainability. Our expanded facility will be 50 percent more efficient than traditional data centres, and will use renewable wind energy when available.  I would like to thank the Irish government and its agencies – particularly the IDA – for its continued support for Microsoft as we grow and invest here,” Mr. Klein concluded.

Responding to the announcement, the Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny said: “We welcome this significant announcement from Microsoft as Ireland continues to regain its international reputation for investment and business. Now central to our Action Plan on Jobs we are delighted that our strategy to become the country of choice for data centres is coming to fruition. We very much recognise the role that cloud computing can play in transforming our public sector as well as being a catalyst for economic growth. Through the Action Plan on Jobs we will continue to make the necessary changes to make Ireland more attractive to companies such as Microsoft. As a long term investor we welcome this commitment by Microsoft to Ireland.”

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD said: “The Government has taken a decision to target cloud computing as a sector with potential for significant job-creation and economic growth for Ireland. Today’s announcement by Microsoft, a world-leader in this area, shows that we are on the right track. Through the Action Plan for Jobs we are determined to implement a series of changes in 2012 and in subsequent years to ensure that we can build on this growth, make Ireland a world-leader in the area, and get jobs growing in the economy again.”

Paul Rellis, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland said: “This capital investment further deepens our roots in Ireland and strengthens Microsoft’s ability to provide governments and businesses throughout the region with a growing range of impactful cloud services.    We are delighted to continue to play our part to support the government in its objectives to return the country to a period of growth and prosperity.”

Welcoming the announcement, Mr. Barry O’Leary, CEO, IDA said: “Ireland has been a leading location for ICT investments over the last decade and I am delighted to see a long standing economic partner like Microsoft, with such a significant global presence, continue to recognise Ireland’s talent, track-record and positive business environment. Investments like this, by a company of Microsoft’s calibre, reinforce our growing reputation as a leading world-wide location in cloud computing.”

Christian Belady, GM of Data Center Services, Microsoft said: “Microsoft has turned up the dial on efficiency in power optimisation of the entire infrastructure of our data centres, enabling us to reduce our carbon footprint and minimize waste. This expansion will add a 112,000 square foot Generation 4 facility and create approximately 400 construction jobs over the next 12 months. Once complete, we will employ approximately 50- 70 people to manage the needs of both the existing and expanded facility.”

The data centre makes extensive use of outside air economization to cool the facility year round, resulting in greater power efficiency with a resultant reduction in carbon footprint and an annual Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) average of 1.25 across the entire facility during peak usage hours. Projected to be 50 percent more efficient than traditionally built facilities, it uses only 1 percent of the water used by other similarly sized data centres in the industry.  With a strong focus on sustainability, approximately 99 percent of all waste at the facility is recycled, including packaging, pallets, crates, and cabling.

About the Data Centre:

The expansion of the data centre will help Microsoft meet growing customer demand for its cloud services, and provide a scalable and cost effective cloud infrastructure for future cloud growth. This technologically advanced facility significantly reduces water, power and energy use (compared with traditional data center facilities) and enables a more efficient and higher utilization of computing capacity and productivity.