The National Competitiveness Council yesterday published a Statement on Education and Training; from the announcement on the website:

Education is central to our ability to improve our quality of life and wellbeing through success in selling goods and services on international markets. The quality of education outcomes is central to national competitiveness. Ireland’s education system has been a key contributor to economic growth and improvements in living standards in recent years. We need to have one of the best education and research systems in the world to drive economic recovery. This Statement on Education and Training outlines priority recommendations to enhance Ireland’s education and training system.

Read more here.

In my last post, I mentioned that the question of the compatibility of mandatory retirement ages with EU law was pending before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Court has now handed down its decision, upholding the principle of mandatory retirement ages, but requiring them to be justified on a high standard of proof.

The case, C-388/07 R (on the application of The Incorporated Trustees of the National Council on Ageing (Age Concern England)) v Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, was a reference from the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court), for a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of Council Directive 2000/78/EC (pdf) of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (OJ 2000 L 303, p16), which had been transposed in the UK by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (SI No 1031 of 2006). The Directive and the Regulations provided for a general principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of age. However, they allowed for exceptions that are objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim, provided that the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary (see, eg, Article 6(1) of the Directive). On this basis, Regulation 30(2) allowed for a derogation from that general principle in the context of compulsory retirement at 65. Age Concern (the UK’s equivalent of Age Action) challenged that derogation on the grounds that the derogation did not meet the requirements of Article 6(1), but the ECJ rejected that challenge: Read the rest of this entry »

The issue of compulsory retirement is not an uncommon one, but it arises today in an uncommon context. From today’s Times Online,

Judges take on Ministry of Justice over age discrimination

Two judges this week have launched a discrimination claim against the Ministry of Justice over being forced to retire at 70. … The claim is only the latest of several challenges by judges or lawyers over compulsory retirement. …

An earlier Times Online article reported that senior UK judges are pressing for a change in the law to allow the most senior members of their profession to remain in their posts beyond the age of 70.

This all recalls for me the words of Lord Bridge of Harwich in Ruxley Electronics & Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1996] AC 344, [1995] UKHL 8 (29 June 1995):

My Lords, since the populist image of the geriatric judge, out of touch with the real world, is now reflected in the statutory presumption of judicial incompetence at the age of 75, this is the last time I shall speak judicially in your Lordships’ House. I am happy that the occasion is one when I can agree with your Lordships still in the prime of judicial life who demonstrate so convincingly that common sense and the common law here go hand in hand.

Read the rest of this entry »

Already previewed on this blog, a report today (cover left) from Transparency International (Press Release here) raises the spectre (and not for the first time) of corruption at the heart of Irish political life. In particular, the National Integrity System Country Study. Ireland 2009 says that whilst there is little evidence of grand corruption at present, and the scale of petty corruption is very low, the political culture of personal relationships, patronage, favours, and donations, compounded by a lack of transparency in political funding and lobbying, gives rise to high levels of what the report characterises as “legal corruption”. As Vincent Browne once put it: our political system is built around private gain.

For the future, therefore, the report acknowledges:

Ireland already has a sound legals and institutional framework upon which future progress can be made. For this to happen, existing institutions will have to be adequately resourced, and laws adequately enforced. Just as importantly, a shift in political will and general attitudes
to corruption and abuse of power will be needed.

In particular, the day after a limited form of whistleblower protection came into effect in the health service, the report recommends the introduction of comprehensive whistleblower protection across both the public and the private sectors, the strengthening of Freedom of Information legislation (including the reduction of application fees), and significant strengthening of the rules relating to political funding (including the publication of detailed audited accounts by political parties) and lobbying (including a public register of lobbyists). It may be difficult to write a comprehensive history of corruption in Ireland, but this report is at the very least an excellent snapshot of the state we’re in right now.

Some coverage:
Belfast Telegraph: Ireland suffering from high levels of lawful corruption
Irish Independent Breaking News: Ireland suffering from high levels of lawful corruption
Irish Independent: Political corruption could be costing us €3bn
Irish Times Breaking News: Corruption costing State €3bn, report claims
Irish Times: ‘Legal corruption’ high in absence of accountability; Government ‘has never valued transparency’; Failing to root out corruption (Editorial);
Press Association: Corruption probe report published
RTÉ: Study calls for whistleblower protection

I can’t wait to see what Anthony makes of it all.

From today’s Observer, an article by Carole Cadwalladr that makes the case for the ethical reporting of suicide:

How Bridgend was damned by distortion

… the Bridgend suicides are a case unto themselves. I ask Dr Lars Johansson of Umeå University, Sweden, who has published several papers on teenage suicide, about other, larger clusters, but there hasn’t ever been one. It is the largest teen suicide cluster of modern times, he says, and there’s never been a cluster reported as sensationally, as comprehensively, as widely, or for as long. … But now that the media furore has died down, so have the deaths. Is that a coincidence? And is it just another coincidence that the highest incidence of deaths occurred when the media reporting of the phenomenon was at its height?

The available academic research on the subject of media and suicide is damning: that there is a clear, documented link. And that our thirst for the story looks, from this distance, like a sort of bloodlust. … ever since the first modern research into media and suicide was undertaken in 1974 by the sociologist David Phillips, it’s been known that mass media can be a factor in contagion. … Summing up the evidence in an article for the BMJ in 2002, Professor Keith Hawton, head of the Oxford Centre for Suicide Research, the leading UK institution and probably the world’s greatest authority on suicide and the media, describes the evidence for a link between the two as “overwhelming”. Research has repeatedly shown that reporting by media may facilitate suicidal acts among vulnerable individuals. And that the most vulnerable are the young. …

In an Irish context, have a look at the work of Headline, and the Press Council’s recent discussion document on the topic (pdf).

The title of this post is a famous quotation from Thomas Jefferson (left); and it’s apt for the coming week (here’s an equivalent week earlier in the life of this blog).

The week of 2 March to 8 March is Library Ireland Week (though Cork libraries are also running a year-long focus on reading: the Year of the Constant Reader). Then, next Thursday, 5 March, is World Book Day, with lots of events in Ireland for the day. And for the weekend, from Friday 7 March until Sunday 9 March, book-lovers have a choice between the Dublin Book Festival – with strong participation from Children’s Books Ireland – and the Ennis Book Club Festival.

Chomh maith, beidh Seachtain na Gaeilge ar siúl idir an 2ú Márta agus an 17ú Márta; agus cé go mbeidh se ar siúl ar feadh níos mó ná coicís, beidh a lán le deánamh!