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THE PEOPLE OF Clones never imagined they’d end up learning so much about the inner workings of the Brexiteer wing of the Tory party. Or that they’d have to keep quite so up to date with the machinations of Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and their supporters.
Alongside the weather and the exchange rate, views on the latest Westminster dramas are now go-to conversation openers in the Co Monaghan town of around 1,700 people, nestled around a kilometre from the border with Fermanagh and with multiple cross-border and cross-community links.
Local businesses were given a “shocking eye-opener” at a large-scale meeting with a Revenue representative in recent weeks, veteran Sinn Féin councillor Pat Treanor said, chatting over a cup of tea in the centre of the town.
The local Enterprise Office and other agencies have also been attempting to prepare businesses for whatever transition takes place – either on 29 March or at some yet-to-be-decided point in the future.
A local trader said the community felt it was stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ as political leaders – apparently jammed in a messaging loop – continued a seemingly never-ending cycle of summit meetings and parliamentary votes.
Another man working in the town, asked to describe the mood, reckoned there was “a heightened sense of what the f***”.
The Revenue service said last month it was not planning for customs posts along the border. It is, however, preparing for a massive increase in import and export declaration forms – in the region of 20 million, compared to last year’s figure of around 1.7 million.
In the event of a no-deal Brexit at the end of next month, the relationship between towns on either side of the border would shift from free trade and shared customs rules to the most basic international rules, with trade taking place under WTO tariffs.
And in spite of politicians insisting there will be no reimposition of a border between the two jurisdictions many locals who spoke to TheJournal.ie this week said that if the talks ended without a deal, border checks would be inevitable.
“I’d go back across the border 50 or 60 times a day just doing ordinary business,” said Liam Strain, a busy local vet.
Strain’s business has already been hit with increased costs. Like many veterinary practices in the area, he’s had to open a second premises on the far side of the border to prepare for separate regulatory regimes post-Brexit.
Vets have also been sent information on vaccinations and animal transport, and what to do in the event that the UK effectively becomes a ‘third country’. Aside from setting up additional premises, however, Strain said it’s hard to know how else to prepare.
It’s up in the air … nobody knows what the regulations are going to be. If you don’t know what the regulations are, you don’t know what to get ready for.
Professional concerns aside, Strain said people in the area remained hugely concerned about possible disruptions to daily life.
“People that are not from the border think that you cross the border to go on your holidays – but it’s just day to day living, going across the border. It’s going to be an impediment if there’s going to be stoppages. If there’s going to be any difference in the price of a product north or south, where it can be smuggled, that will eventually end up in some class of a checkpoint.”
Eamon Fitzpatrick, who spoke alongside Strain in the yard of his fuel and hardware business on the outskirts of the town, said there were widespread concerns border posts could lead to heightened tensions.
“For all that has been gained in the last 20 or 30 years it’s going to be lost again.
You’d like to be thinking it’s not – you put it into the back of your head. I think a lot of people put it into the back of their head because they don’t want to be thinking of a scenario of the bad times coming back again.
Said Strain: “The Troubles and that whole thing to the generation below us is like us whenever we were younger talking about the Second World War – because they just don’t understand it.
“It reminds me of asking my father what it was like during the Second World War.” He added: “That’s great.”
At the height of the Troubles, just one of the five roads into Fermanagh from Clones remained open. Any traffic wishing to pass had to go through a full military checkpoint – often resulting in long delays.
This former ‘Concession Road’ is now dotted with businesses every few miles. Countless botharíns run off it to either side – but at the height of the IRA’s campaign in the 1970s and 80s these routes were spiked, blocked with concrete blocks or blown up by the British Army.
Routes along the length of the border began reopening from the 1990s – with the last few roads and bridges being repaired and reopened just over a decade ago. 275 official land border crossings now exist between the North and the Republic – more than along the whole of EU’s eastern border.
Fitzpatrick’s own yard would straddle the EU-UK border after Brexit. When TheJournal.ie last visited the area around 18 months ago – and still over a year after the 2016 referendum – he said the continuing uncertainty was the main problem.
Not much has changed in the last year-and-a-half, he said. Strain agreed. The perpetual uncertainty was having a chilling effect on business in the area, he reckoned – citing one business he knew of that had been planning a major investment in the area but decided to put plans on hold due to Brexit fears.
Both said they’d heard of major international retail brands that had decided against investing in sites in the town as the negotiations lumbered on.
As the possibility of a no-deal exit increased in recent weeks, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe warned that a disorderly Brexit would be an “unprecedented event in recent economic history” with exporters and food producers being hit heaviest by tariffs at first, and a sharp decrease in job creation.
Monaghan and neighbouring Cavan have the highest level of exposure in the case of any scenario where the UK leaves both the common market and the customs union, business group Ibec has warned.
Eamon McCaughey, whose family run the Matthews newsagent and store in Clones, said he was concerned about the impact on employment in the area. Echoing the views of all the locals we encountered he said “the fear of the unknown” was consuming the area.
“Our town here, we’ve come through so much. You go back to the 1950s, the railway closed and that was a big blow to the town. After that then there was emigration.
“Then what really, really set the town off was the Troubles. We didn’t know our neighbours. You couldn’t travel from one side to the other… There was mistrust.
This is going to reignite that. We’ve come so far in the last 20 years – we’ve a great town now, a great community spirit. I’d hate to see anything that would knock that.
Many locals spoke of concerns that border posts could lead to an increased threat from dissidents along the border – something former PSNI chief Hugh Orde alluded to last week, when he said that any officials posted to the area “by definition [...] would become a target”.
Pat Treanor, the Sinn Féin councillor, said he hoped cross-community relationships had developed to a degree that made a return to violence unthinkable.
“When people talk about going back to the past … nobody wants that,” Treanor said, as we spoke at a drop-in and support centre for former republican prisoners in the centre of the town.
“Most of the people I would talk to, the hope would be that politics has developed far enough that we can resolve this through political dialogue, negotiations, peaceful protests … all of that type of stuff.
Nobody can… I certainly wouldn’t be using the scaremongering stuff at all. Anything we can do to avoid that we’ll do it.
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He will but the cheque will bounce
Why Not write the cheque out now for €20 Million after the referendum to the Irish Hospice Foundation. I know why. Because you telling lies again.
And so the empty promises begin!
How about following up on the pre election promises first.
The empty promises continue…
Electioneering already!!!!
One of those big novelty cheques written with a big fat black marker, framed and hanging on the wall beside Minister Quinn’s contract to with the students and an autographed copy of Enda’ 5 Point Plan.
# if in 4 years time should the cheque not be for 80 million
Nope. As the Seanad will be abolished in 2016 if a yes vote wins.
Ah yes his word is as good as Lenihans “It’ll be the cheapest bank bailout…..”. Yeah right Bruton.
Unfortunately a sizable portion of the electorate are naive enough to believe the promised savings and the governments motives with regards to aboloshing the Seanad.
You want to keep then ? Just to give the 2 fingers to the Goverment i presume??
@ Declan, no, we can give 2 fingers to the government any day.
A no vote doesn’t mean we want to keep the Seanad in it’s current state,
it means reform is what we want, not removal.
Remember when Enda promised he’d publish report cards on the performance on each Minister? Something tells me this cheque is equally as likely to appear…
ffs…this site???
Ha ha, that’s if he lasts that long!
What would the cost benefit be to the exchequer be if the office of the President was either (a) abolished or (b) extended for life as we currently have 1 current and 2 ex-presidents drawing down pensions.
Not to mention ex taoisigh. Liam cosgrave has 24/7 garda minder.
Was Liam Cosgrave part of the ‘gang’ at the recent ‘Council of State’ , can anybody name all the attendees, must be a good pull out of the exchequer ?
A piss in the ocean. I’d rather the slimeball and his sneaky little ilk types were held in check by the Seanad. The president won’t be able to refer bills to the public? Having a laugh.
I thought the govt. were to stop using cheques by next year? Ahhhh meeja he tricked you there.
Could not see his pants in the photo. But they were on fire – i can assure you.
Tut tut Richard. You’re assuming FG will be in power. Look what happened in Austria’s elections last weekend. Their version of FG and FF got a bloody nose – to the point where they don’t have the numbers to form a govt between them.
It looks like Enda will get his way. The Seanad will sleep with the fishes. But I wouldn’t be complacent if I was you Richard.
Change is coming
I look forward to my cheque. By that time there will only be 20 people still in Ireland.
On a point of law. The Minister gave the guarantee of the payment and not the man himself. Therefore it will be the Ministers Department who will issue the cheque and not the man himself.
So basically the Minister has guaranteed that €20 million of Irish peoples tax money will be used to pay €20 million to the Irish people.
Good point. Shows how much shite he talks
Hey look
His nose is growing !
Like **** he will. This will be one of the things that will be made out as a joke when the savings dont materialise. Butbthe worst part of this referendum is there is no longer means at all for members of the Oireachtas to petition for a referendum which is enough in my opinion to vote no.
Sure we’ll all have 20 million by 2017.
Out of his own pocket.
Ah, not out of his pocket. 1/ he probably won’t be in power. 2/ cheques will probably be obsolete. 3/ it would be public money anyway. 4/ Pat Rabbit openly admitted something to the effect of; you lie to get elected. Promises come easy to most politicians, it’s integrity they struggle with. Don’t forget the Lisbon Treaty was going to mean prosperity and jobs for everyone.
I for one am voting No.
Blackmail Springs To Mind,,,,If We Dont Vote The Way They Want Us To,,,,Then We Dont Get The Savings That They Aint Gonna Give Us Anyway,,,,,,,,,Cut all their pay and tax free allowances, then we might meet them halfway
In 4 years itll be 80 million. Well if it costs 20 per year
The Seanad won’t be abolished until 2017 if it’s voted to be abolished.
Minister Bruton is telling a “porky”
The Gardai are on strike at present – the Courts are almost empty- check it out!
The Minister for Justice plans to appoint 5 or 10 new judges!
What will the extra cost be to the State?
The judges are only working half days at present so why does the Government want a new Court between the High Court and the Supreme Court?
Reform the Legal System
Reform the Senate do NOT abolish it!
Amazing still doesn’t have a clue how he would go about making this €20 million saving but still claims he will save it. Mislead the voters much Richard?
The cost has been confirmed as 20MM. If thats what it costs, why wouldn’t it be possible to save that amount?
Thanks l’ll take the word of the referendum commission that said it can not establish if €20 million will be saved. Unlike FG they have not misled the voting population in previous referendums as found by the courts.
You do that Kerry. The fact is that if it costs 20 million, then it’s possible to save that 20MM. Whether or not the savings are realised is a whole other story.
6.7 million on pay and expenses per yr for 60 people, most of whom aren’t short a few quid anyways I’d say, and for doing what exactly…?
My views are you a member of the current government? It has been established that people will have to be employed by government to do the work the seanad currently does. Are you suggesting these people will work for free?
We are paying bondholders by the billions (http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.ie/2013/09/tje.html ) and Bruton is spouting about € 20million , another sound bite from another political ‘want to be next’ Taoiseach. OMG Bruton & Gilmore are starting to make Enda Kenny look good.
Now if we could get rid of some more of the soft jobs and easy pensions politicians have created for themselves. As well as the politicians themselves.
And the last thing we need is another court. Reform the local courts first before creating more high paid judge and solicitor jobs. Did we not learn anything from the inquests that didn’t lock away anyone.
Are people really planning on voting yes because it’ll save 20 mil? In the grand scheme of things, when we have to cut 3.1 billion from the budget, saving 0.02 billion isn’t going to save the day
We waste ten times that amount without raising an eyebrow, yet people are going to make a massive and potentially far-reaching change to the constitution because of cost?
I think the saying is ‘Penny wise and pound foolish’.
Fg said it would save20 million a year what happen to the other 60 million lies lies and more lies
What other 60 million?
I think Jim means over a four year period in the next seanad. Year 5 is missing though?
More s%&#e talk..Can anyone put a figure on the actual savings from the so called bonfire of the quangos we were promised.
Bet more money is being wasted..not less.
Why not gamble 20 million of Fine Gaels money over the course of a number of years if he can guarantee the savings of 20 million a year. Back up his statements with guaranteed cash for the Irish people. Then is vote yes.
A drop in the ocean of debt which this country has taken on thanks to banks mismanagement. Thanks Richard I will never forget what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have done with the debt and neither will my grand kids. So getting rid of the Seanad will ensure that no more amendments make into bills and that diluted government is on the way.
“This is a body that in our view is politically obsolete” – does anyone else find this statement a bit on the sinister side? The cost savings argument is bullshit, like a saving of 20 cents on the cost of buying a car. Anyone unsure about how to vote should read the article In yesterday’s Sunday Times. I was undecided until. I read it and confess that I didn’t really understand all the implications of the constitutional changes. The key one for me being that the Government will be able to push items through the Dail WITHOUT a debate.
Remember how the bank guarantee worked out for all of us. I’ll be voting NO.
Sorry minister but our democracy NOT for sale.
More reason to vote a massive nooooo
Do not trust this government, they are not telling us the real story about the bonds and how they went about paying for them. The phone recordings are a distraction from Anglo. The real story is much further down the rabbit hole.
Dont worry, Richard Brutal wont be in government in 2017 anyway.
So he has been told his estimate is wrong which is fair enough, but the Oireachtas Committee ‘doesn’t know’ how much it costs to run?
They know how much it costs to run the Seanad, but they can’t give accurate net savings until all the Government proposals for “reform” have been put in place. This will include the longer Dáil sitting hours, the extra committees, the additional legislative stages, and so on. Some of those don’t come into effect until the next election, so it’s not possible to say with certainty right now.
If it costs 20MM a year to run, then 20MM a year can be saved?
Why is it that the commission is not able to say how much can be saved does anyone know?
No one knows for sure.
Btw, I don’t think it’s measured in millimeters.
Its is simple to find out how much every elected or appointed member of the Seanad is paid, add that together and that is the what sill be saved.
Because the staff can’t be sacked, they will be redeployed elsewhere, either in some department or running the new committees (if you believe that’s going to happen). Also, the new committees will need staff to run them, and the TDs who are on them will receive extra allowances and expenses, and maybe more secretaries and advisors.
So it may reduce the €20m bill for running the Seanad, but the staff and other expenses will still have to be paid, just moved around, and it may also cost extra elsewhere. Nobody knows how much and FG haven’t shown their calculations. Where did they get the number? “Pulled it outta me arse” kinda stuff going on here.
Little Jim the cost (pay plus perks plus buildings, heat etc.) was confirmed by the commission to be 20MM I believe.
Btw, I’m well aware that we’re not talking about millimeters :D
Have a read here re. the number
http://referendum2013.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Houses-of-the-Oireachtas-Commisison-response.pdf
Pay and expenses for 60 senators alone costs 6,700,000. For what? Get rid of it
I heard it was 20kg.
You’ll get lots of green for that
The most shocking thing about this is the numbers of people who have been fooled by the €20 million lie. The fact that a spineless taoiseach will not debate it openly is almost impossible to comprehend. They are also sneaking in legislation such as the fact that the president will not be able to refer bills anymore, it is all beyond belief. How these people can sleep in their beds is something I will never understand, given the fact that they have consistently despite their moronic utterings before election time.
We are paying bondholders by the Billions (http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.ie/2013/09/tje.html curtesy of
What about the billions and billions being drained from our Natural Resources by companies that don’t pay taxes or Royalties to the Irish State, they say it’s taxed at 25% but these companies can write off all expenses from previous unsuccessful drill searches and sell the gas back to the state at going rates? Corrib field worth in excess of 12-15 billion euros and we give it away? No jobs created? Foreign workers brought in for the entire project and yet to pay a cent to the Irish people! I want a referendum to abolish these companies from our shores until we as a Nation are ready to extract these resources ourselves on our terms 70%/30% and all profits and these companies absorb their on loses.
0.00000000000001÷ of what we owe. Or 45c per week a taxpayer.
Mr Bruton. Do not presume you and your gang will be in power in 2017!
“Live horse, and you’ll get grass” Mr Bruton & Co, will not be in power in 2017, and well he knows that.
The fact is that we could run the country with 50 or 60 people if we wanted to. The 166 TDs we have are too many and, along with the senators, are like a gelatinous mass of obfuscation that would bring down any normal company or organisation. The important thing here is not so much to save money as to go some way towards leaning out the system. The less folks in the Oireactas the less hot air and delays we will have to put up with.
Would you trust this man to return with the cheque?! Besides apart from the fact he won’t be around politically as Labour will go the way of the Greens, I wouldn’t trust him with my share of the money anyway!
I wouldn’t trust him to mind my dog
20 million divided by around 5 equals 4 million per citizen. Expecting my cheque in the post, Richard….plus interest!
What are ya gonna do with it? Nice holiday anyways, be grand!
I can always dream! But I won’t hold my breath for any promise any politician makes!
You do realise though that your calculations are based on a population of 5 in thw country? But can’t argue with dreaming, I do lots of that myself!
Blackmail!
.
I think it’s over 20.000.000 if you count pensions for former Muppets and current expenses for the Muppets in Office now
Now they are trying to buy our votes – u can shove it up ur ass Richard we’ve had enough if ur shit it’s time the people started to make the decisions in this country after all we are the ones paying for it.
have your say