Brian Cowen wants economic sacrifice and needs the place looking great as if 2016 is some sort of tidy towns parade:
TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen last night invoked the centenary of the Easter Rising in five years’ time as he made a “rallying cry” urging people to make short-term sacrifices to allow a return to prosperity by 2016.
“Yes, we were a generation that lived at a time and place of prosperity, but when challenged we looked to the future and looked beyond our own self-interest and said that, yes, this is a country that is worth working for and building.
“Yes, we can say in 2016 when we get to O’Connell Street and look up at those men and women of idealism that gave us the chance to be the country we are that: ‘Yes, we did not fail our children, but we did not fail our country either,’” he said.
The original proclamation of 1916 was very idealistic in its goals. It can have my allegiance once it comes up with its side of the bargain.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
It has failed to provide unless you are an insider.
On Religious liberty:
Under the new blasphemy law, which Atheist Ireland is campaigning to have repealed blasphemy is now punishable by a €25,000 fine.
It defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.
Chair of Atheist Ireland Michael Nugent said in a posting on the blasphemy.ie website that the new law was “both silly and dangerous”.
Cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past:
yesterday, Mr Gogarty — the chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science — referred to pupils from non-Irish backgrounds as the “dregs” when he was discussing their difficulties in enrolling in schools.
turning the toaster up to 6!