I would have thought that if Deputy Mick Barry is right, and there are indeed dark forces in the political establishment out to exterminate the hard left, then taking the Jobstown protestors to court with the hefty charge of false imprisonment would be a tactic you definitely would not employ.

I couldn’t understand the DPP decision to take the case from the beginning. By last Thursday, we were all convinced as such, that it was wrong on so many fronts.

Deputy Mick Barry stated in the Dáil within minutes of the verdict that this was a “stunning defeat for the political establishment”. But my take on it was that the morning news broke that Deputy Paul Murphy and others had been taken from their beds in dawn arrests, the same political establishment had actually served to shoot itself in the foot. The hard left was on a winner, no matter the outcome. Making martyrs of protestors. Remember how it worked for farmers 50 years ago? Can you imagine the social media conspiracies had the Jobstown defendants gone down?

But let’s not forget the source of the story. What Joan Burton and Karen O’Connell went through that Saturday afternoon must have been terrifying. Just put yourself in that situation in your mind. I have, and I certainly would have not liked it. Remember the verbal abuse and the thrown water balloon prior to the actual car lock-in? It was totally unacceptable behaviour under any circumstance.

So there was no way that the DPP and the gardaí, not to mention Joan Burton, were just going to walk away and forget about what happened. Action needed to be taken and justice tried. But the charge of false imprisonment was a surprising and disproportionate case to take.

If you were to ask anyone the day after what happened to Joan Burton, doubtful many would have come up with the charge of false imprisonment. In fact, when you study the video evidence from the garda helicopter and the onboard observation that there was no hassle, it’s astonishing that this case ever made it to the steps of the court. The jury did its job and no one could argue with the verdict. But there are many questions left unanswered, not least the complete dismissal by the jury of senior garda witness statements. Why did the DPP take the case? And what of the huge costs to the State? All quite embarrassing for the so-called political establishment.

That is why the accusation of a political agenda doesn’t stack up for me. Because if this was all part of a grand political ploy to smear the left, they must have consulted the same manual they did when trying to set up Irish Water. CL

Denial in the

farm lobby sector regarding Brexit

The news from the EU budget commissioner Gunther Oettinger that the CAP budget is in the firing line post-Brexit can hardly have come as much of a surprise to anyone. Not least the farm lobby, yet the reaction there was one bordering on denial.

A good negotiator will try to hold what they have, of course, but instead of wasting time deluded that we can carry on with the same share of the EU budget after 2020, now is the time for the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to bring all parties together and design a position paper on CAP reform which is progressive and equitable. There will still be a huge cheque coming to Ireland to divvy up among less farmers post-2020.

In a post-Brexit world, Irish agriculture needs to work together rather than bicker and side-swipe, as was the case during the last CAP reform.