The women I remember of that generation, while no doubt worked hard to raise their families, couldn’t run or even walk at a fast pace. They wore head scarves and housecoats and wouldn’t don a track-suit or pair of trousers on pain of death. They laughed down their sleeves at anyone who did “that fitnes or aerobics craic, sure they were only coddin’ themselves”. Self improvement was not a viable option. You were down, you stayed down and who did you think you were to dare to aspire to anything more? It was your destiny as a young Irish person to become no more than your humble beginnings would allow. The only hope certain people had was to be exalted in suffering. Take your punishment as it is what you deserve after all. This was the backdrop of my girlhood. Such a climate impacts in different ways on people. If you crave acceptance and approval the obvious way to go is emulate those who seem to be universally accepted and approved of. Somehow this did not happen to me. I have no idea why. I did want to be noticed, I wanted to be praised and complimented like all little girls do, but somehow I couldn’t roll in with the poorly, sickly, seen & not heard mode of conduct. Instead I got my attention by being a loud, boisterous tomboy. This kind of behaviour is not rewarded in Irish society. We are expected to be humble and self-effacing. If we are not humble and self effacing, others will attempt to humiliate and destructively criticize us, because that is the Irish way. This seems to work to a certain degree when we are at home. It does not, however, work in our favour outside of our native land. Humble and self-effacing tells our international neighbours that we are push-overs. Maybe our Taoiseach truly believes that we are not deserving of anything better…? That we are destined to be the whipped dog of Europe…? Our rightful place at the feet of the mighty Troika…? Good old pat-on-the-head self-effacing Paddy the lap dog.

Patronising attempts by our most senior politician to allege “Paddy likes to know the story” are not met with a congratulatory slap on the back, but more likely to be met with the dull click of a hung up telephone. The snivelling, forelock-tugging that seems to be endemic in our government is not just excruciatingly embarrassing, it is corrosive and destructive.  Why would anyone respond positively to a mealy-mouthed weakling asking for a few crumbs? If the image projected is one of weak dependence with no back bone, why would anyone feel the need to enter into any meaningful discussion? Weakness may illicit mercy in Irish society (although I am no longer entirely sure about that) but it certainly does not do so in German nor French society.

The Troika came in and took the reins from an insecure, self-effacing, sickly and incompetent government. Nobody really made any attempt to stop them. No discussion, no deal, no compromise. The government rolled over and took its enema like a good submissive, long suffering patient because after all we only became this ill due to the brief period of excessive partying, right? The chunk of the Irish electorate that truly believes we deserve to repent, that we must pay up, that this is what we have coming to us, these are perhaps the self same people who are overwhelmed by an innate national insecurity complex. Otherwise intelligent people I encounter in day to day life and online, expressing a sense of shared guilt and shame regarding the fiscal debacle we find ourselves in. Maybe these people are haunted by a sense of guilt since early childhood, maybe they take the whipping because it is in their nature to feel they dont deserve anything better, maybe the spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child mentality of our childhood has a lot to answer for…?

Our entire nation is being squeezed dry to repay debts that we did not incur. We are slowly being pushed through a merciless grinder to cover the risk of unsecured bondholders who would not have shared their gain with us had everything not gone tits-up. All the while as our government happilly socialise a debt that has no place in the lives of citizens, we are being fed a line that we are doing the honourable thing and not the idiot, doormat thing. While arguing on Twitter recently that a NO vote in the Fiscal Compact Treaty Referendum may have opened the door to discussion about a bank debt deal, an otherwise perfectly intelligent tweeter cited the tired old phrase “we have to pay our debts”. This was almost sinister to me. It was as if a ridiculous phrase could be repeated enough times and even clever, savy people would be lulled into a trance-like state of delusion, just like some of our politicians. I try so hard to comprehend why “The Fighting Irish” accepted without question the decision of successive governments to pay a debt that is not our responsibility to pay, and why a (thin) majority of the electorate repeatedly roll over when government sells them a feeble line that has been in turn fed to them like an enema. Except the flushing out occurred from our pockets not theirs. No member of the Irish government has lost a job, an expense account, their home, their car, their prestige, their dignity (such as it is), so why should anyone in a secure government job pay anything more than lip -service to the real issues facing this ailing nation? Talk is cheap. And no amount of talk will fix this. The bickering in Leinster House continues. The he-said-she-said whataboutery drones on. New enquiry proposals pop up overnight like mushrooms on a golf course regarding alleged shredding of documents pertaining to bailout information. The card punching continues. Time rolls on. Pensions are qualified for. At least 166 futures are secure for the time being and that is all that is certain. Meanwhile the rest of the country goes to hell in a handbasket

This wont be the first time we have let others come in and take over when it came down to the wire. Our leaders have in past times sold out for the promise of some reward or other. I am certain that the historians amongst you can go a lot further back than the 12th century, but coming from the gem of Leinster that is Ferns I remember the stories of Diarmait MacMurchada & his dealings with foreign invaders. It seems that when push comes to shove, the priorities that should be 1) Country, 2) Party, 3) Self  get tossed to the skies and land in quite a different order. The Normans did of course build some pretty cool stuff here when they came. History occasionally tends to be re-written to reflect the required outcome and not necessarily actual events. I wonder how the bank guarantee, subsequent bailout, Troika invasion et al will be recorded in Irish history? Perhaps it will be nestled in the chapter named something like “The Collapse Of The Single European Currency” or “The Fall of Europe’s Economy” or “The Most Idiotic Practises of Socialising Banking Debts”… Who knows? Nigel Farage puts it quite well here

The tabloid media blatantly sensationalize every event reported to give all scraps of information the appearance of newsworthyness, as is the wont of the genre, but the more conventional (and sometimes described as “respected”) media is prone to its own share of rabble rousing hypocrisy, albeit with more subtle language. The much publicised “race for the Aras” is a stunning example of the multiple standards of reporting. Information about various candidate’s pasts is being “leaked” in the media at various strategic intervals. Stories up to a decade old suddenly becoming topical when the most recent RedC poll reveals what some perceive as alarming change of positions of certain candidates in the race. Copious use of sensationalist language on all sides. Emotive phrasing designed to tweak, pinch and pull at a broad dichotomy of society’s tender spots. While one candidate is portrayed as being sympathetic to murders, one questioned about his possible involvement in several murders, and called a bare-faced liar by a much loved national figure who was briefly mooted as a potential candidate himself, another is depicted as a promoter of pedophilia. Others are ridiculed for being dull or just plain whacky “All Kinds of Everything” one could say… The resulting effect in the case of what should be a dignified procedure is that our Presidential Election, the race for the Aras has become a bit like the plot of one of my favourite childhood cartoons The Wacky Races.

Just as soon as the wheels are buckled under one potential candidate’s campaign another goes shooting ahead only to be halted in their tracks by yet another damning revelation…. Am I getting forgetful with age? Were previous Irish presidential campaigns as tawdry as this one? I do not remember them thus.. Where is the dignity? Or do we need someone “a bit on the dodgy side” in the Aras in these unusual times? Is it possible that the Ireland of the next 7 years faces a voyage in uncharted and choppy waters, and in order to navigate those unpredictable conditions we need a figurehead who encompasses qualities different to those of the staunchly virtuous past presidents? Also should the process be so heavily politicised? Could it be more democratic? Why do twenty signatures from figures with clear political affiliations/associations decree who may be ultimately permitted to run as president of this tiny nation? The phrase “let the people decide” is bandied about a lot, but is that not yet another example of say-one-thing-and-mean-another? Shouldn’t that phrase really be “let the people decide after we tell them what we have partially decided for them”? Instead of democracy is that not the ultimate hypocrisy?

Today my first campaign as an independent candidate for the constituency of North Tipperary & South Offaly comes to an end. It’s been an amazing experience in more ways than one. Less than three weeks ago I had no plans to run in this election. I was as many of you that read this, an Irish citizen fed up and annoyed by the way this country of ours had been brought to a state of financial & economic ruin by a government that was completely disconnected from and ignorant of the wishes and needs of it’s citizens. With the election in sight I started looking around at who the candidates in my constituency were. Not a single one of them instilled much confidence. Those representing the current government parties deserved to be put behind bars or to be at least barred from politics. The rest either represented opposition parties who idly stood by while this country was ruined or did not have an agenda that I had any faith in. Every single one of them was full of lofty promises but I have not an ounce of faith in these being fulfilled once they are elected.

Because we live in unprecedented times. Forget about my policies for a moment. You can read those here. Let me just lay out the facts for you. Our country is in an economic depression, what’s more we haven’t seen the bottom yet. There is a wave of mortgage default coming down the line and the government has failed to put the buffer on the line to stop this. Instead all the effort and money has gone into paying of a debt that isn’t ours. An 85 billion euro bailout has been accepted at a punitive interest rate. We have a 15+ billion euro deficit. We have a level of unemployment that is just plain scary. We, my fellow Irish citizens, are waist deep in the poop. And we need strong people to help us get out of this. We need people who can make the right decisions, who do not have any allegiance to the “old order”, political hierarchy or any other false idols. We need people who will face the brutal light of day and who will make decisions with the interest of Ireland and it’s citizens foremost in their minds.

Those people cannot be found in any of the current parties. Every single one of them is blinded by party dogma, too tangled in the web of corrupt politics and have been flogged till they bleed by the party whip. We need a strong independent representation in the next Dail. A counterweight against the self interest of the current political incumbents. We need it to be the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room ready to pounce on anyone who makes a decision or tries to force a policy that is not in the interest of the Irish people.

I am appealing to you tomorrow to give your local independent candidate your first preference vote. This is the only way we will see real change. Because change is what we need. We need to reject the current IMF/EU “bailout” deal for two simple reasons; it’s not a bailout and we can never ever repay this. The current deal will bring this country to it’s knees and our children and grandchildren will still be repaying this debt without it having any benefit to the Irish economy. It’s dead money plain and simple. We also need jobs, real jobs. Not green jobs, pink jobs or mauve jobs. We need jobs that will allow people to pay their bills. No airy-fairy talk but real action. We need to stop cutting the poor and vunerable to fill this deficit hole. It does not make sense cutting welfare payment when there is a jobs deficit. You cut welfare when there are jobs for everyone *not* when there are no jobs. You do not cut child benefit and other payments when peoples income is shrinking drastically. You save when you have plenty and you use those savings when you have little. My mother taught me that and anyone who ever ran a household will know this. The FF/GP government purposely failed to do so and is now making the people at the bottom end of the society pay for that. We need a more equitable tax system (hello flat-tax) that protects the poor while at the same time not penalising the wealth creators in this society.

Please ignore all the blurb about the independents not having any power. There are 233 independent candidates running campaigns across Ireland. That is a considerable number and cannot be ignored. A lot of these independents have similar policies and will vote as a block when in government. Further down the line this could have the makings of a party. Now is the time to make a stand! We need to send a clear signal to the political establishment (who have ruined this country) that we have no faith in them. If we do not do this and continue to vote for parties that make up the current stale political system we have lost our chance to make a change for the good. You hold the power to bring along this change and I ask you, I plead with you to do so. We now not only have people emigrating because they have to, we have young smart people emigrating by choice because they have lost faith in this country. If we do not make a change now we will lose a whole generation and this will become a poor hollow country inhabited by old, grey and angry people.

Do not get me wrong however, voting for an independent is not magically going to fix all our problems. However it will make this country change course in the right direction rather than sailing straight to the end of the flat earth that the current parties seem to have based their policies on. We need a direction and policies that will rebuild this country and bring it into prosperous times again. We need forward thinking and we need people who are willing to put their shoulders under the economy in order to achieve this. We do not need career politicians who are only doing this for the money, power and pension.

Because of this I appeal to you tomorrow to vote and to vote independent!

Thank you.

PRESS RELEASE

15/02/2011

For immediate release

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR NORTH TIPPERARY CALLS FOR FLAT TAX!

Kate Bopp, independent candidate for the North Tipperary / South Offaly constituency is campaigning for the introduction of a “flat tax system” on personal income.  According to Mrs. Bopp there are a lot of issues surrounding the current system of progressive taxation. People complain that it’s imposes a too heavy tax burden on those on lower incomes while not taxing those on higher incomes sufficiently. Flat tax would address both those complaints without penalising either.

A flat tax system would tax all income over an acceptable level of tax-free at the same rate. There would be no deductions, no tax-free allowances but also no loopholes. This brings with it several advantages; it lowers some of the tax-burden on the lower incomes while at the same time not penalising those on higher incomes. It’s based on the more logical approach of valuing tax revenue by the actual amounts paid rather than relevant percentages. To use an actual example, someone on 40,000 euro p/a at a 17% flat tax rate would pay 6,800 euro while someone on 100,000 euro p/a would pay 17,000 euro tax. As the percentages stay the same but the actual amount increases it is the most equitable tax system possible.  What it also does is that it removes the incentives for the rich to avoid tax (legally or otherwise) and the opportunities to do so. These, by the very complexity of the current tax system, are commensurately large for those on higher incomes.

Another great benefit is that a flat tax system greatly simplifies the tax system and results in a huge reduction in the costs of collecting tax revenues. The more complicated a country’s tax system becomes, the easier it is for governments to make it more complicated still, in an accelerating process of proliferating insanity. Flat tax would avoid all this and would result in tax returns that will fit on an A5 sheet of paper. Flat tax is also not just some mythical, theoretical solution to our tax woes. It has been implemented successfully in a number of European countries since 1994 when Estonia became the first country in Europe to introduce a “flat tax” on personal and corporate income. Income is taxed at a single uniform rate of 26%: no schedule of rates, no deductions. The economy has flourished. Others followed: first, Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia’s Baltic neighbours; later Russia (with a rate of 13% on personal income), then Slovakia (19% on personal and corporate income). One of Poland’s centre-right opposition parties is campaigning for a similar code (with a rate of 15%). In all of those countries it has show that it creates a more equal tax climate while not leading to a decrease in tax revenue.

Flat tax might just be the solution to one of the big problems facing the Irish state.

Kate is a Wexford born mother of 5 living in Coolbawn, Co. Tipperary together with her husband Evert Bopp. In addition to caring for her family she is also a final year law student at the University of Limerick. Kate is the co-founder of the aid organisation Haiti Connect which has been involved in a number of projects in Haiti for the last 12 months.

In the last 20 years Kate has worked and lived or worked in half a dozen European countries giving her a wealth of firsthand experience of different cultures, languages and types of government.

Having always had a keen interest in politics and current affairs she had steadily become more and more disillusioned with the current political status quo. With a view towards the upcoming general election of 2011 she started looking around for a suitable candidate to cast her vote only to come to the conclusion that none of the candidates from the entire political spectrum offered any hope of improvement. Faced with the choice between not voting, or voting for a candidate in whom she had no faith, Kate decided that her political ideas and grasp of the current economic & political situation put her in a position to run as a candidate herself and offer the people of North Tipperary a viable alternative and the option to vote for an improvement in the current situation rather than a continuation of the status quo.

PRESS RELEASE 22/10/2011

For immediate release.

Kate Bopp calls for Independent candidates to forego €205,000 leaders’ allowance

Independent candidate for North Tipperary and South Offaly Kate Bopp calls for all independent candidates to agree to forego the €205,000 leaders’ allowance when elected.  I only really became aware of this issue yesterday after reading about it in the Independent Newspaper. I know that current wages & allowances for TD’s are an issue that is overdue a review but I was not aware of the specific “Leaders allowance” of €205,000 over 5 years. This is absolutely unacceptable for several reasons. Firstly TD’s already are paid €92,000 per year plus expenses and other allowances. To also pay them in excess of €40,000 per year is absurd especially as this is a “party leader’s allowance” and independents do not have a party.

This allowance was originally introduced in 1938 and the only revision it has since then dates to 2001 when the PD’s extended it to also cover Independent TD’s as they needed the support of a number of independents to prop up their government. Bord Snip Nua has called for it to be scrapped, this was ignored by the Government. While there are a few loose comments about reducing it I would like it to go on record that I will refuse this allowance if elected and I am calling on all other Independents to also pledge to forego the allowance if they get elected.

Facts are that all of the major parties are campaigning on cut backs to be made left right and center while at the same time not pushing for any substantial cuts in their own wages, expenses and allowances. There is a need for politicians to be made aware again that they are public servants and that the Irish people pay their wages. It’s time that the Irish people got value for money!

As always with these type of events present excellent photo opportunities and were used for this purpose by many (including myself).

Kate Bopp & Michael O’Meara

Máire Hoctor TD, Cllr Jim Casy, Darrah McKenna Mayor of Borrisokane, Kate Bopp Independent candidate and Cllr  Michael O’Meara.

PRESS RELEASE

18/02/11

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE KATE BOPP CALLS ON MEP KELLY TO CLARIFY REMARKS ON BAILOUT INTEREST RATE.

Independent candidate for North Tipperary Kate Bopp is calling on Labours Allan Kelly, MEP for Tipperary North, to clarify his remarks made on the EU/IMF bailout interest rate.

During an election debate in Nenagh, Tipperary last night Kelly stated that he had met with EU Commissioner Olli Rehn days before the EU/IMF “bailout” deal had been signed and that at the time of their meeting Rehn had made clear to him that a much lower interest rate was on the table.

“I was shocked by this statement” said Bopp “and I wanted to take him up on this but the discussion went off in a different direction”.  Reflecting on it a day later I am even more amazed by it and think that such a statement raises several serious questions. That’s assuming it’s true. If such a lower rate was available why did Cowen & Lenihan agree to a punitive rate of 5.8%? But more importantly why did  Kelly not mention this very important detail at an earlier stage?  It would mean that an opposition MEP (Kelly is a Labour MEP) sat on his hands while Ireland was shackled to a destructive repayment agreement.

Does this stroke with Labours decision to publicly oppose the bailout and finance bill while at the same time facilitating the passing of the latter? “I am calling upon Mr. Kelly to clarify his comment and to make clear if this lower interest rate was really on the table at that point”. “I think that the people of Ireland have a right to know this and will continue to pursue to matter until a satisfactory ending”.

For more information please see: www.katebopp.com

Or contact Kate Bopp on 086/8645099 or email campaign@katebopp.com