Summary: <br> Graham Doyle Deputy Commissioner, and Head of Communications with the <a href="https://www.dataprotection.ie/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Office of the Data Protection Commissioner</a>. <br> <br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> This is audio from one of the count centres in the local elections. The people ah singing are from People Before Profit who lost most of their council seats, but they’ve come across housing minister Eoghan Murphy and they’re letting him know exactly what they think of some of the proposed solutions to the housing crisis. <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> In case you haven’t seen the video, which was <a href="https://twitter.com/jackpowerIT/status/1132680988688048128" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">tweeted by Irish Times journalist Jack Power</a>, there are a dozen or more people chanting, and they’re at most two or three meters away from Murphy. In between them are a handful of uniformed gardaí who make a barrier, but the incident petered out and everyone went on their way.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> “You can stick your co-living up your arse” protesters chant at Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy at count centre <a href="https://t.co/4BaiyBIEuJ" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">pic.twitter.com/4BaiyBIEuJ</a>— Jack Power (@jackpowerIT) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackpowerIT/status/1132680988688048128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">May 26, 2019</a><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> We don’t know how lucky we are.<br> <br> <br> <br> Eoghan Murphy is a senior cabinet minister,<br> one of the most powerful men in the country. We live in a time and place where<br> people can chant their disapproval of him at full volume in the strongest<br> terms, and then go about their business. <br> <br> <br> <br> I’m reminded of <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/court-challenge-to-begging-law-succeeds-1.1292645" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">the<br> case of Niall Dillon</a>, a Dublin man who was arrested and convicted for<br> begging in 2003. He challenged the constitutionality of the law, and said that sitting<br> outside the shop with a cup in a quiet and peaceful manner was a right that<br> every citizen should have.<br> <br> <br> <br> The courts agreed. They said that<br> unobtrusively asking passersby for money was just exercising his<br> constitutionally-protected right to free speech. The government was forced to<br> change the law to only outlaw begging that was in some way aggressive or<br> threatening to the public.<br> <br> <br> <br> Just think about that for a moment. A<br> beggar takes on the might of the state. The most humble challenges the most<br> powerful in the land. And wins.<br> <br> <br> <br> Take a moment to consider just how unusual<br> that occurrence is. Take any other random time or place in human history. The<br> chances of someone doing that and keeping their head on their shoulders are<br> remote, let alone actually winning.<br> <br> <br> <br> For all its flaws, for all its injustices,<br> its dysfunctionality, its inequality, its maddening bureaucracy, its outrageous<br> corruption, we’re lucky to be in Ireland. In many countries, in many of the<br> countries that we consider democracies, the chances of boisterous protesters<br> getting within touching distance of a cabinet minister are remote, and if they<br> did, they’d be carted off to be beaten to a pulp in cells of a police station<br> somewhere.<br> <br> <br> <br> The Economist Intelligence Unit maintains<br> the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">World Democracy<br> Index</a>, measuring the quality of democracy in every country around the world<br> by objective standards, they have a bunch of them and it generates a score. Of<br> the 167 countries on the list, only five score better than Ireland, and they’re<br> mostly small, with a total population of less than 27 million. So get that, of<br> the 7.
