Phoenix article on "Freedom Institute"

national | miscellaneous | news report

Wednesday May 05, 2004 18:09

by Informed Hack

FI NOT organising Pro-Bush March after all

Freedom Institute split on Bush

Trots, Anarchists, Provos and other left wing scum planning protests against GWB's visit to ireland will doubtless be relieved to learn that a Sunday Times report of a counter rally in support of Bush was wide of the mark

The ST had stated that the Freedom Institute was organising a demo in solidarity with Bush but the institutes members have disassociated themselves from the idea and say that the protest is the sole responsibility of individual members of the Institute.

The Institute is made up of militant young PD types who seem to think that Michael McDowell is a bit of a wimp when it comes to right wing politics. Their Position paper on the economy, for example, slams the government for stamping down on overtime for prison wardens and demands that the prisons and other garda functions be privatised. The Young Adam Smith types also believe that the minimum wage is actually "criminalising work"; they complain about "overly generous social welfare payments"; condemn the governments policieis on law and order and dismiss the unions as being guided by "North Korean" principles.

Institute spokesperson, PD member Philip O'Sullivan, is a finance student in UCC and he,along with two othe YPD militants, Dave Cochrane and Andrew Page, founded the institute last year. It appears to be dominated by PD members, (although Cochrane left the party over a row about his website, politics.ie), but O'Sullivan claims that a Green Party Local election candidate in Cork, and two UCC Labour members are are also members, as well as individual members of FF and FG. However, the institute rep declined to name these individuals, perhaps because they would be instantly expelled from their organisations! Irish ex-pat proffessionals in Israel (surprise surprise), the US, and Belgium,are also attached to the institute.

The confusion about the Bush visit arose because two of the leading spokespeople in the Institute, - O Sullivan(economics), and former FF officer John McGuirk(Environment), - are organisers of the pro-bush protest. However, the Institute supports no party, and no government, - merely freedom, enterprise, less government, and strengthened security.