Irish Bloggers - who/where are ye?
John muses about the lack of comment in Irish blog land on the overcharging scandal. A search through Technorati last night had me thinking the same. Given the lack of Irish news other than computer scandals and the Irish Soccer Team's failure to qualify for Germany 2006 I thought that this issue might have had more comment.Is the lack of comment due to the fact that many bloggers don't know people who are before the Residential Institutions Redress Board? Or maybe because the Redress Board workings are so secretive to begin with, no-one knew what they were talking about.
Maybe most people are at work when Liveline is broadcast so bloggers have not heard the testimony provided? Maybe some bloggers feel the survivors are lucky to be getting any recompense at all for the abuse that they suffered. Are there many Irish bloggers out there that comment on things that have nothing to do with Sport, Northern Ireland or technology?
posted by Maman Poulet @ 10/18/2005 12:20:00 p.m.
8 Comments:
Check out http://www.irishcorruption.com for blogs on this.
Were here just writing about different things, Me for example about Lebanon. Also dont get live line here so can't comment
Donal, I have seen Irishcorruption.com and also LuasWoman (http://gracegarvey.blogspot.com/) - they were both mentioned in the piece from John that I linked to my original post. Macdara in the Leb - indeed we all write about different things. I suppose I am wondering about the status of political/current affairs blogging in Ireland and what the future holds! Also wonder if there are solicitor blogs/survivor blogs etc.
Yeah, hadn't clicked on that link. I'm a bit lazy when it comes to checking everything out but you have to have limits as to how many links you're gonna look at.
From your comment on John's site though, I agree that that the media did go to town on the Brian Kerr issue. What about an impending pandemic of bird flu that could kill thousands or the Pakistani earthquake that did kill thousands and has left many more vulnerable? The media has lost its perspective.
In terms of solicitor blogs I can guarantee you that no solicitor in his right mind is going to blog about this - even anonymously - rightly or wrongly professions stick together, and I don't see anything other than that happening in this case.
The root of this problem is twofold - the proceedings of the Redress Board itself and the secrecy around it, and the penchant professions have of charging people for undisclosed expenses etc.... in the presumption that they won't dare to question it. This isn't limited to lawyers - indeed doctors, engineers etc... are all into it - and it's this exploitation and that needs to be tackled in the training and regulation of our professions.
Professional regulation is indeed at the heart of this story. Ken Murphy has avoided many questions in the past week on the failure of the profession to regulate itself in the past. There are also disputes on when the Society became aware of the issue and the fact that they did not themselves ask for the powers to be granted to them to adjudicate on the matter. It seems it was survivors who campaigned for the law to be changed so that the Law Society could regulate in the matter of the RIRB cases. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform seems to have acted quickly in this regard. (One of the few times I will be positive regarding McDowell)
Are there many Irish bloggers out there that comment on things that have nothing to do with Sport, Northern Ireland or technology?
I dxo, and I have to say that my response to this was one of underwhelmed lack of surprise. I would've thought that everyone watches their solicitor for being screwed, these days.
http://the-knitter.blogspot.com/
http://detentionorders.iuplog.com/
http://artane.blogspot.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/Irish-Institutional-Abuse
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