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news report
 Wednesday March 12, 2003 14:34 by Daithi macsithd at tcd dot ie
 Coment on the phantom parliament How will you be spending St. Patrick's Day? Or "week", according to the age-old Political Calendar? Michael D. Higgins spoke in the Dail today regarding the decision to adjourn the Dail for nearly two weeks and effectively preventing a debate on Iraq; it was vintage Michael D, and the transcript probably won't reflect the actual language and tone of it (there was even applause at the end which is rare in the Dail) - RTE played part of the recording, will be available later at http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0311/news1pm.html. I can't consider trying to match the passion of his speech and I'm not going to. There is something vaguely ironic about a Taoiseach that celebrates St. Patrick's Day by closing down debate on a potential war, while travelling across the world to offer homage and fealty to those who would try and drag the world into war, and on the failure of that effort, go it alone with the moral support of the fence-sitters like our dear Mr. Ahern. I suppose we should be grateful that he didn't take another week off to watch the races at Cheltenham like the Ministers who were supposed to be defending their Freedom of Information amendemnts (the worst names proposal since Atoms for Peace) - but for someone who has gambled away an apparently flush treasury it might bring back bad memories. So while the Taoiseach presents his bowl of shamrock this year, he'll be able to have a little joke with Bush. About funny elections, funny dealings, funny coincidence, funny money and of course an hilarious grasp of law - not to mention morality. It's so funny I could laugh until I cry.
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Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4The link is incorrect, it should be
http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0312/news1pm.html
and the speech itself is here
http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0312/newsatone/news1pm2a.ram
Impassioned was the right word. It's a pity he loses some coherency, but it's gratifying to see someone actually awake in the dail for a change.
Pity we don't have a version of C-SPAN for ireland.
Thanks. Got my dates mixed up. I will edit the link and add a transcript link later this evening. It is a shame that video is not available; the Scottish parliament webcasts all of its proceedings, and Canada and the UK also have cable/satellite/digital channels with full coverage of the lower house and selected stuff from the Senate/Lords. RTE did indicate that they wanted a digital channel to be reserved for live Oireachtas coverage but I don't think the digital project is very well advanced at present in any case. It would not be all that difficult, considering that the internal Oireachtas relay (i.e. the video that the gombeens watch in their offices before running to vote) is what RTE use for news bulletins and Oireachtas 'drunks and insomniacs' Report. Hooking that to a spare digital channel would be dead easy.
I did ask on the gov.ie site what the story was with webcasting Dail debates. I got an email asking me to contact Tom Dwan, but I haven't been able to get through to him yet. I'll post the results here if you're interested.
Just got off the phone with the head of the broadcast division in the oireachtas. Apparently the system they have is a digital one, all the footage taken by it since it was installed is archived and for a nominal 20 euro fee you can get a VHS copy of any session you want. They have plans to implement a webcasting system as well as a digital channel (a la C-SPAN) but it's not in the implementation stages yet, though no significant obstacles are foreseen.
For anyone wanting to contact the broadcast division to get a tape, the phone number is 01 6193789 and Theresa Mitchell is the lady in to ask for.