Beal na Bláth

This Sunday will see David Puttnam give the oration at the annual Beal na Bláth commeration in west Cork. For those who have forgotten their history, it was at Beal Bláth that Michael Collins was ambushed and killed on the 22nd of August 1922, and in memory of his massive contribution to Irish history, an annual commeration and oration takes places there every year.

Michael Collins

In recent years, those who have made the oration have included Dr. Pat Wallace, Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan, with the Collins 22 Society maintaining transcripts of their orations which make for interesting reading. According to a 2006 Independent article, he lives primarily in Cork, but to be honest, I wouldn’t particularly know much about the man. However, some scouting about the net suggests he should be good.

He is currently Labour Lord in the House of Lords, and has a history in advertising before moving onto the film industry where he was involved as a Director-Producer in a number of quite successful productions such as Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields and of course the The War of the Buttons. He is currently a Deputy Director of Channel 4, and was one of the main figures involved in drafting UK legislation on broadcasting, particularly as it related to public service broadcasting. At the end of last year, he gave a speech on this area to a BCI conference, which seems to have provoked an interesting debate.

Possibly more interesting however is his current role in the UK with regard to climate change, where he is chairman of a joint committee on Climate Change. Indeed, that committee under Puttnam came out strongly in the past week criticised a government proposed Climate Change bill as not going far enough. In addition, he also addressed the issue of the digital divide, and the resulting implications for equal opportunity for all in society.

There are a large number of issues which he may well address, and it looks like it should be a very interesting event. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it along myself, but if anyone out there can make it down for the 3pm oration and would be willing to write up a report on it, and take a few photos to let us know what went on, please drop us a line.

Fine Gael Presidential Dinner

A date for people’s diaries – October Saturday 13th will see the annual Fine Gael presidential dinner take place in the Burlington.

A Great Election, Now for a Greater one – Project Overall Majority

So goes the (tad ambitious) title for this weekend’s YFG Summer School taking place in Doolin. In a break from previous YFG summer schools which generally tended to deal with policy issues and the like, this weekend’s get-together will be looking at how to build for the recent election. Not so much to review the last election in its minute, and relieve the things that went particularly well or badly, but more to get an idea where we want to the party to go, and how we are going to get there.

In the aftermath of the election there was a mixed mood amongst party members – we were disappointed not to get into government naturally enough, but at the same time there was great optimism that we had got so far. I suppose which view one tended toward depended very much on your background in the party – someone like myself, who was only involved since 2001 would naturally tend towards great enthusiasm with the result given how far we came.

Random Doolin picture

Anyway, irrespective of the initial reaction to the election, the only real way to look forward is with optimism. We have a greatly invigorated parliamentary party with a strong infusion of new, and quite diverse TDs – something which will hopefully be complemented with the outcome of the Seanad elections. Furthermore, with the shape of the current Dáil only ourselves and Labour have speaking rights from the opposition – something which may help solidify the idea in the public mind of a clear opposition.

So, we are in a reasonably strong position looking forward, but as to how are we going to achieve those extra 10 seats or so to enable us deliver government things are not quite as clear. I’m an optimist, so I would tend to the view that we are going to achieve great things, but we cannot presume that it is just a matter of time and things will fall into our laps – but as to what we need to do to achieve that, I don’t have any particuarly great ideas.

As such, it will be interesting to hear the views of YFGers down in Doolin. Naturally parts of this will inevitably revolve around the party’s public face and policy, an examination of the organisation itself, and the role of branches and members within the organisation would be very, very interesting. While we have had massive increases in membership over the past few years, a review of membership and branch activity would be telling as to whether the party gets full value for them. And equally pressingly, what the party wants from members and from branches. Do we need more members, where do we need them, and what do we need them doing?

While the Summer School will tackle the overall picture, there is also the challenge to deliver more from YFG . In particular is it possible to translate the vibrancy of the main college branches to the regional branches – and to ensure strong retention of members from YFG to FG. We need to define what we want to get out of YFG over the next 5 years, and then set out how we can achieve that.

All the above will get some sort of airing over the weekend, in what promises to be a different event to any of the YFG Summer School’s I have previously attended, which have focused in the main on policy issues and the like. But this debate as to how we can deliver more from FG needs to be carried outside of the Summer School, and on further – and it needs to involve all sections of the party to get the broadest possible viewpoints.

 In the aftermath of the 2002 election something similar occurred, but it was primarily a getting the party back up of the ground exercise. This time, we need to focus that energy clearly on what we need to do so that in 5 years time we are in government – and what we need every member, branch and unit of the party to do to achieve that . We have the time over the coming months for such a debate to occur, there will be no excuse if we don’t use it.