Q: What do these two things have in common?
A: They’re both in the news today for the same reason.
Two short quotes. The first one is from the list of motions for the Progressive Democrats‘ national conference today:
Motion 19
Conference calls for a review of the proposed privacy legislation in the Party’s General Election Manifesto in particular to avoid the dangers of muzzling the press through court injunction.
Dublin South EastMotion 20
Conference calls on Government to reactivate the proposal for café bars.
Dublin South East
The second is from a story on the RTE news website:
The PD conference in Wexford has voted overwhelmingly for the reactivation of party leader Michael McDowell’s café bar proposals. … The conference also voted in favour of a review of proposed Privacy legislation.
I’d say that the delegates from Dublin South East (the constituency of Michael McDowell, PD Party Leader, and Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister for Justice) have set several cats among several pigeons with these motions. We’ll have to wait and see whether these policies make it into the forthcoming election manifesto (and any subsequent programme for government).
(Thanks to Daithà for tipping me off about this (offblog)).
And what’s more, the proposer of the Privacy Bill motion (seen for just a few seconds on the RTÉ report – no online video yet) was one Tony Williams, who is both a partner in law firm Simon McAleese (who do a lot of work for newspapers and broadcasters) and a former local election candidate in the Rathmines ward in Dublin South East. So he a) has a good idea what he’s talking about, and b) is hardly a stranger to the Minister. Interesting times ahead.
Eoin,
Many thanks for the link – I’ll reciprocate. Excellent blog, by the way.
Of course, if you know anyone who has a serious interest in private international law, point them to conflictoflaws.net!
Many thanks,
Martin.
A pedant writes:
Surely you mean “several cats amongst several flocks of pigeons”? If the numbers of cats and of pigeons are similar, presumably the pigeons don’t stand a chance, and an awful silence predominates. Whereas what you meant was an awful screeching, as from several flocks of escaping pigeons.
Indeed. Thanks, Steve. My inner pedant is raging at having missed that point!