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NEARLY 20 DAYS after being appointed Taoiseach, Micheál Martin has spoken to several world leaders and senior EU figures – but he still hasn’t received a call from US President Donald Trump.
In response to questions from TDs, Martin confirmed that he had “not spoken with the President of the United States of America since my appointment as Taoiseach”.
While few Taoisigh have faced a more uncertain world upon taking office, the lack of any communications with the White House is somewhat notable from a country traditionally seen as a key ally.
Leo Varadkar had a 10-15 minute phone call with Trump 14 days after being appointed Taoiseach.
Enda Kenny met Barack Obama in Washington for St Patrick’s Day shortly after being appointed taoiseach, while Brian Cowen met George Bush just over a month after taking office.
Martin has already spoken with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss Brexit and the Covid-19 crisis, while he has also been in contact with President of the European Council Charles Michel and German Chancellor Angela Merkel among others.
Prof Ben Tonra, who lectures on Irish foreign policy at University College Dublin, said the Trump presidency had already illustrated that it’s a place where “norms and procedures go out the window”.
“In the normal course of events this would be scheduled by the State department,” he said.
While stressing that “personal chemistry is decisive” among leaders of bigger nations, he said such a scenario is less a priority for Ireland.
“When you’re dealing with asymmetry between US and Ireland, it is far less so,” Tonra said. He suggested that there was little evidence that Varadkar and Trump enjoyed any significant rapport.
There were questions raised following the election of Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister, after it took nearly a week to arrange a call with Varadkar.
However, the call – when it happened – was described as friendly.
The Department of the Taoiseach did not respond to questions about any plans for a phone call with Trump.
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Why don’t they “unplug” the web altogether and we can go to mass every Sunday and have some priest threaten us with fire and brimstone ……. Sounds like the 50′s all over again ….. On a good note we will have the 60′s to look forward to !
No government should be allowed to regulate the Internet. Its the only true meaning of free speech left.
You’re right. Sites like journal.ie are the last place where free speech remains.
Unless the moderators don’t agree with your point of view that is, in which case the comment will be deleted.
Im with you Melissa.
I’m pinged more than published !
@Melissa. Free speech means you can say what you like – but it doesn’t mean you can force someone else to effectively pay for the bandwidth to publish it if they feel it violates their code of conduct or exposes them to possible litigation, which is the case with the comment sections of sites like TheJournal. Set up your own blog, news site, twitter feed, whatever you like, and say whatever you want – that’s the free speech the internet offers, not the freedom to force your comments on someone else’s operation.
@Melissa Knowles and @DubInNaas
Sorry there folks, but I have to agree with @Stephen Johnston – TheJournal.ie does not delete comments because we disagree with them. That is perfectly obvious from the heated debates that go on in the comments sections of some of our articles – people are free to argue both sides of the coin.
However, we absolutely do exert our right to delete comments for a number of reasons, including personal abuse levelled at the author, other commenters or the subject of an article, comments which are flagged for libellous/defamatory content, obscenities, homophobia, racism and so on. Our full comments policy is available for all readers to consult: http://www.thejournal.ie/comments-policy/
Kind regards,
Susan Daly, Editor, TheJournal.ie
“OH NO! The website I don’t own, or pay any money for deleted my inflammatory comment in line with the terms & conditions I agreed to! How very dare they!”
Yes, what right do I have to leave an inflammatory comment on a website that I don’t own or pay any money towards. Now, let’s get back to the matter at hand-how dare they not allow me to download a movie for free which I don’t own and which cost millions to make….
@Melissa
Sadly you miss the point there. It’s not about stopping someone downloading an illegal copy of a movie from Pirate Bay or the likes; if you read the article above you would understand it goes way WAY beyond that!
@Melissa, did you read the article or just the headline?
It’s a lot easier to have a useful discussion on an article if people read the damned thing…
Total BS. It’ll ruin everything.
Posting a link to something will be near impossible in case some sort of infringement is going on.
Plus it’s probably only the start.
Whats a CD?
Creating a law such as this is akin to a pub being closed down because a customer…or even someone simply on their premises, plays a song on their iPod for all to hear.
Dublin Bus would also be forced to halt services because a paper, other then the free metro, would be left by one commuter and available to others.
Shameful if Ireland even entertains the idea.
This is not going to work no matter what laws are introduced. There will be ways around it no matter what the government throws at us. Internet is too big. These record companies are dinosaurs that are unwilling to change to survive. What they want to do will backfire against them big time. Instead of embracing the future they want to cling on to the past. The past is gone, it is never coming back. Record companies are signing there own death warrant.
There will always be ways for the determined and geeky. But lots of us aren’t either of those things, and will end up giving up on the internet altogether, especially if we can’t afford to pay for content. For me personally, access to music is far less critical than access to research – what the internet was invented for! Good science is also retreating behind paywalls, and in an increasingly ignorant age, that is not a good thing!
Yes but the “determined and geeky” are also the ones who created the user-friendly interfaces we all use today.
Corporate money in Politics !
VERY much so.
Thats the Galway tents of FF filled with donaters, the executive golfing buddies of FG and Labour for you.
All giving the parties what they are bribing by back-door legal means with – and smoozing to get what they really want.
Welcome to Irish politics of the a;ready established parties.
UTTER corrupt to the core and non-transparent.
The Irish Democratic Party says Its time for change.
REAL HONEST CLEAR COMPLETE CHANGE
Biggins,
Interesting view.
You suggest that it is uniquely Irish !
Can you name a country where there is no ‘money’ in politics and no crossover between business and politics?
Its the nature of capitalism….
Would be interesting to know percentage of Irish copyright holder from all illegal download in Irleland. I`m sure as 95% or even more of illegal downloads are copyrighted in USA and UK, if so there rise a question why should we should reduce our freedom in order to service the world opressors and responcible for global crisis?
REMEMBER THE PRICE HAS BEEN PAID FOR OUR FREEDOM , DO NOT ALLOW IT TO BE GIVEN AWAY FOR NOTHING!
The Irish Times and RTE are tragic examples of how Irish people look to “authorities” such as the “newspaper of record” for news, instead of entering a controversy and making judgements for themselves. The Irish media probably encourages and entertains controversy less than any media in the Western world.
Ireland is every bit as priest-ridden as it ever was, and it will never move on unless Irish people start to respect authorities less, question authorities more, and stop simply substituting one authority for another (such as what is perceived to be “science” for what was perceived to be “holy”). The Irish consumer must grow up, stop expecting to be spoon-fed “the truth” from “trusted sources”, and demand some controversy in its media.
Why is the music industry not being forced to invest in encryption so the discs can’t be ripped? Answer, because they’d have to do something. They’d have to spend some of their billions. Free music is a music industry problem, not ISP.
They already do encrypt music, movies, photos, books everything. Never heard of DRM? DRM is a huge driving factor behind piracy. “Oh you bought our CD? Want to listen to it on your MP3 player? Sorry you’ll have to buy it again as we can’t have you copying our CD.”
Oh what a surprise another nanny state , big brother law for the people of Ireland . If it keeps up like this we’ll have our own little tin pot dictator soon along with wide spread poverty and a nice ultra right wing dictatorship to keep us all in our place. The next war will be fought with computers over the Internet.
Imagine a world where all the information you recieve is controlled and censored to meet the authorities wishes. These laws would provide an entry point for government regulation of something whose freedom we all take for granted. The laws would start with music and films then eventually move to politically critical information.Some blogs could eventually be deemed as having subversive ideas and be removed. These laws have nothing to do with copyright but are a stepping stone to the regulation of the intetnet/information and ideas. People would no longer ‘surf the net’ but instead will be only be able to ‘surf their net!’
In the US politicians are pulling back from supporting anti-piracy legislation. The White House is reported as against such legislation. But in Ireland on the contrary, because of the unique genius of Irish politicians, Sean Sherlock Minister for Innovation, yes Innovation, is fully behind anti file-sharing legislation and is walking arm-in-arm with the Music ‘industry’ on the issue. So, we have the US with its terrible, even miserable, history of innovation facing down anti file sharing legislation, whereas Ireland with its vast and globally admired galaxies of innovations pressing on with similar legislation. Conservative and reactionary whether FF, FG or the Smoked Salmon Socialists are in power.
I never thought I’d say this but it’s starting to look like
Labour = Big Business
Starting to look like??? Labour (in Ireland at least) has NEVER been anything other than big business. Only a fool could believe otherwise.
Great piece. More back out days are needed.
So dying corporations are going to dictate what I search for and download because cd sales are dropping off? I really hope Anonomyous dont get wind of this! Most people don’t even buy CDs anymore! Our media delivery and consumption methods have changed and these “Corporations” are still trying to flog the old model. A new model based on a subscription service is the only way forward. A death rattle if ever I heard one!
it must be at least 2 years since I last bought a CD…
We have started a campaign similar to that in the US, where we are asking Irish citizens to contact their local TD/MEP/Senator to let them know they do not want this kind of legislation here in Ireland. Phone your local TD, e-mail them, walk into their offices – this has proved a massive help in turning around political opinion in the US on their SOPA/PIPA legislature. Get involved, make your voice heard & stop a law that will if enacted in the wrong way cost jobs in the Irish tech space, potentially harm foreign direct investment in the tech space & create what would be a ‘walled garden’ type of Internet in Ireland.
It’s a way of getting a cheep holiday, when every second person extradited to america to face a court hearing.
Throughout history businesses and monopolies have had to change with the times or die. Over the last few decades though, increasing legislation has changed the way businesses can operate. Through political ‘donations’ and corporate ‘lobbying’ our politicians have bowed down to this shepparding and acquiesced.
Other, more intelligent businesses have thrived and succeeded. Apple (iTunes), Netflix to name but two. I regularly, and legally, buy or view their products. I can buy a song for 99 cents. I can watch many movies for €7 a month. I can buy a movie for less than €5.
Let’s face it guys ‘n gals, this is the swan song of an industry that is unable or unwilling to change. Therefore, it must go the way of the Dodo.
Instead of letting business take its natural cause, what do our politicians do……. Try to legislate in favour of a few businesses that can potentially affect the way we use the Internet. Literally, forcing ISPs to block web sites. Is that what our politicians are concerned with? In this dire fiscal quagmire, they are lining their pockets with eBlood money!!
Not everyone has a credit / debit card. What’s wrong with allowing us to add purchases to our phone bill. Why not add purchases to our revenue accounts or deduct from our dole payments. The Gov. are promoting INNOVATION ISLAND are they not?
There is a constitutional referendum coming soon. I would like to see a couple of amendments.
1) That constitutional rights will be created for and by and belong to human beings only
2) That for-profit business, corporation, chambers of commerce & politicians will have no rights.
3) That Direct Democracy be introduced via our education institutions
Will not happen, sure nobody would need or want the Internet. Also the government secret agencies would have no way of spying on us if everybody canceled their subscription with their ISP.
:-P
Ireland: The new age totalitarian state.
Huh.. Might move to China.
We cannot allow this to happen…freedom of information must mean universal freedom of information…as soon as you start picking and choosing what should be available and what should not you totally violate the concept!
This country really is turning into a shitbox. And only going to get worse.
I love how they only mention CD sales. Not Digital Sales, Concert Ticket sales, Merchandise sales, Advertising Revenue from their Youtube Music Videos, Endorsement revenues, Money saved on marketing and any other way for them to make money since the internet approached.
By buying music digitally from iTunes or directly from Artists the Irish Music industry is counting me as a piracy statistic.
Big Brother is coming to Ireland if this ridiculous law is passed.
Soon there will be no free speech and we’ll end up like our friends
in North Korea ! Sieg Heil Herr Enda !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Has anyone noticed the warning in cinemas just before the movie starts where $250,000 and/or 5 years in prison are the threatened punishments for copying the movie? Bankers and speculators drove this country to ruin and not one of those were fined or imprisoned. But we can go to jail for sharing a shaky, blurry copy of a crap movie. And what about the price of admission to cinemas and the total ripoff for confectoinery and drinks if you do go? The power the movie and music industry carries is enormous.
They need to get real. If CDs were a fiver and cinema prices were realistic people wpould use them And the cost of getting the music to your PC is minimal. No plastic, no jewel case, no storage, transport or warehousing. No record shop staff to be paid. but iTunes still wants 99c a track. Oh, and the record companies claim they need the money to nurture new bands. Don’t make me laugh. If the Beatles were starting out now, and their first single only charted at 17, they would be dropped immediately.
So what’s to stop these companies censoring other stuff they don’t like?
That’s how Hitler, Stalin etc started out.
It’s too dangerous to allow companies, whose only motive is profit, to make the call on what stays or goes.
There are too many opportunities for abuse.
Lobby your TD. Write to the papers. Kick up a fuss.Boycott cinemas. Let them know we won’t be buying their products if these laws come in. We are too complacent in this country.
Nurture new bands??
Remember TLC? CrazySexyCool was the biggest selling album that year and the girls had to file for bankruptcy.
This is because the artists get less than 10% of the revenue from record sales. Out of that 10%, they have to repay the record label what was invested in their marketing, studio time, etc, pay their management and any other staff, this frequently results in the artist making nothing from their intellectual property.
This is precisely the reason why artists like Ani DiFranco told the record labels where to go when they were offered contracts, and register their own labels and sell direct. All musicians know the merchandise and the live shows are where their wages come from.
If I like an album, I want my own copy. But wherever possible I try to buy direct, it’s the only way to try and ensure that the artist isn’t getting ripped off..
Perhaps major record labels should spend less time shoving mindless crap and cover artists down our necks and focus on people who bring their own talents to the table, and give them a fair deal while they’re at it..
Or perhaps they should realise that their business model has failed and either bow out or innovate..
Communism meets Capitalism!
There are always going to be people who will pirate anything they can and there will always be people who are happy to use pirated material.
But if you make music/movies/images more easily available and at low cost you stand a chance of getting more people to pay for them than using illegal sources.
One of the biggest problems I have with sites selling music (Apple, Nokia, Eircom etc) as that I have little or no choice as regards the format or the quality. Why aren’t there more options available?
The other big problem I have is cost, why are songs so expensive when the cost of bring those songs to market has been slashed over the years? I’m not condoning pirating music but I refuse to buy from sites like itunes because my perception is that I am paying too much and that the bulk of the profit is going to either Apple or the Music companies. If artists sold music direct from their own sites as a fraction of the cost i’d buy all my music there.
The music industry has been telling us for years that the high price of music is due to the cost of distribution/warehousing/packaging/etc etc. Those costs are no longer there (for digital music), so why hasn’t the price dropped?? Industry profits may be down but it’s clear they have been riding us for years; they are still making billions in profit every year. If they spent less time and money on suing the feck out of everybody and spent more time coming to grips with the digital age they would be better off.
Agree. I will buy from indie bands from sites like bandcamp. Offer a choice of formats. Bands set the price. Many offer the download at one price or you can buy the cd or vinyl for a little more but get the instant download too. In todays market this just makes sense.
As long as youtube still works and youtube converters work its all gooooooooood :)
Laws like this will cripple the likes of YouTube.
They already do. Music videos, snippets from Cartoons and other TV shows/ movies have already been removed which were freely accessible only a few years ago.
And what’s going to happen to Vevo, the new portal for music videos? My guess, that within a couple of years it is going to be turned into a subscription service. Fair enough, it’s their material but it’s also going to be their loss and more so, the musicians loss. The very majority of musicians do not sell enough records to make a living from the royalties. They live from playing gigs and sell their CDs and other merchandise directly at the show and the only way for them to draw enough people to their shows is by exposure. Their records and videos are an advertisement for their live shows, you take that away from them, you take away their only means to live off their music.
If the music industry fails to recognize that if they get their way their CD sales are not going to increase. People would just become more selective in what they listen to. A new two-tiered system might be the result: a) the major labels that can afford to buy their artists into the brainwashing machine of big media corporations which will result in an even more standardized fast-food-music for the brainless and b) a subculture of artists who reject the major label machine, offer their music freely online and do what they’ve done before, live off what they can make on the road.
One has to understand that music labels, and to a degree book publishers, are not very interested in the art they represent or the artists they have signed. They only care about profits. You sign with a major label and they chew you up and spit you out. simple as.
A friend of mine, who has been in the industry for decades has recently given some good advice to those who aspire towards a career in music: Don’t.
and even if the likes of youtube do survive, tge converters will not be available for our use
This is doubleplusungood.
I’m sure what ever happens it won’t be as drastic as this article suggests…But I do see cases where people are downloading (and then uploading) thousands of movies and albums to be hit hard by new laws
It will be that dramatic. Warner Bros. were given a tool by a certain file sharing site to remove any copy right infringing material from same site. WB went on a rampage and started removing anything they didn’t like, most of which they had no copyright or connection to. Including podcasts that mentioned the arrangment, and books, videos and songs that were similar to or competed with material WB were selling.
These companies have a history of abusing such systems, and giving them power over the entire internet is going to cause havoc.
Megaupload was taken down by the FBI. Hackers have taken down sites in response.
http://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-doj-universal-sopa-235/
Fileserve have taken their public posts offline for fear of FBI retribution. This is just the start. Imagine the backlash if they target Rapidshare!
‘Man who makes living from aggregating content opposes copyright.’ Shock. Horror.
The future of the internet is beginning to sound like a 17th century library. Users locked into reading cabinets (basically cages), chained to the desk whilst using the materials available to them. The entirety of human culture is based on people experiencing new (and old) work, being influenced by the ideas of others and adapting those ideas to create new ideas of their own. Modern technology has the potential to make ideas available to people more easily than ever before. Think of the innovation that our technology makes possible, at a level that previous centuries and generations could only dream of.
The corporations that control the copyright of modern ideas have the power to influence the future of human culture. It’s so disappointing that they want to chain us to the desk before allowing us to experience anything.
It’s a total waste of time and money to even consider legislating on this. The laws cannot be enforced & any attempt to block internet content would be easily bypassed by a 12 year old.
I was under the opinion that such laws were unconstitutional within the EU. I am also under the opinion that Sean Sherlock appeared on The Last Word (18/01/2012) to speak out against such a law being introduced. Am I misinformed?
So much for Lucinda Creighton’s joint comments with William Hague to thejournal.ie on November 11th 2011, “There seems to be a lot of reluctance towards the idea of an international convention or treaty on internet regulation and the Irish government shares that reluctance,”
When will this government stick to it’s promises and leave the internet to the people. It is the last forum from freedom of speech, creativity and innovation. I look forward to the retaliation from Google Ireland, Twitter Ireland and Linkedin Ireland. I sense that the government will be more likely to side with our American friends over EMI and their backwards ideas.
http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-government-rejects-suggestions-on-regulating-the-web-268660-Nov2011/
IF THIS PASSED the entire internet will be destroyed. the country is in shit because of lack of jobs and if u bring this is you’ll be destroying thousands on jobs and business’s thats kinda the oposit of what you want… right?
Great talk on TED.com on SOPA/PIPA, probably equally applicable to our version of it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
Hopefully the arguments from google et al based here will persuade govt to back off, that is if they consult them at all. Destroy the internet for the sake of cd sales, great idea.
You’d think if google are this active against SOPA they’d be chatting to our lot.. It’s not like they have any offices based in Ireland or anything!
Really hope our ministers are talking to google or they may be forcing one of our oh so important multinational friends to pull out of Ireland..
(mind you, would that occur to them? The goombas in the Dáil aren’t known for their forward economic thinking..)
I completely agree that SOPA and any Irish equivalent are abominations that will never fully be implemented in law (I hope) as they are too crude.
However, there is a lack of acknowledgement that there is a real problem here. I have plenty of friends that haven’t paid for a movie or TV series in years.
I’ve signed up for the Netflix service here and people think I’m crazy to be paying to stream/download content.
I don’t know what the solution is.? Possibly targeting people that download/share high levels of content directly ? In that way you don’t hurt the agnostic nature of the internet for everyone else?
I think you’re right Fintan. My two cents? The solution should be market driven.
Music companies can try and make life harder for their customers (criminalize them, force them to inferior products like CDs) or come up with a market solution (like Netflix for music) that beats the piracy options out there right now. People by and large will pay for the convenience and superior service of Netflix vis-a-vis Pirate sites. Though sounds like your friends might take a while to come round!
Music labels have the money, and probably some great creative and technical chops. I think they could channel their energies into product development rather than lobbying for changes in the law. Let’s see how Spotify goes. (Once they let it in :) )
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