McDowell believes Asbo’s won’t work, but, will score big with voters

Many are questioning the motivation behind Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s plans for the introduction of Asbo’s, but, the reality is, they’ll be a big vote getter.

"Asbo’s are a typical hardline policy of McDowell," they say. "Just look at his insensitivity to asylum-seekers," they cry. "He’s just a headline grabber."

The last statement is most certainly true, and that is really how you can define Michael McDowell and his policies. Grab the headlines, grab the political kudos. Make the most waves, make the most publicity. His style is that of an American Republican, just a little bit more watered down and without the bible bashing, although, if Ireland was a country where pulpit preaching won votes, you could imagine the Minister quoting from Leviticus ad nauseum.

And it doesn’t seem to matter to him how bizarre the headline grabbing is as witnessed by his outrageous performance on Questions and Answers the other week.

When the subject of asylum-seekers came up on the programme, McDowell produced an asylum application where the applicant said he wanted asylum because he was a king in his village and he didn’t want his son to become king. While trying to prove his claim about bogus asylum seekers, McDowell forgot about the many who come here fleeing war, persecution, rape, slavery and famine.

But it’s all water off a ducks back to McDowell and no amount of embarrassment seems to dissuade him - it’s little wonder he’s a thick skin when you consider his moniker in college was Liga baby, in reference to his remarkable similarity in appearance to the baby that appears on a box of Liga biscuits.

So if he doesn’t care about hardline policies on asylum, then it’s highly unlikely that he’s going to care about a hardline policy like Abso’s. Both policies are vote getters. Go and visit the Dublin 6 and 4 areas and compare and contrast with Dublin 15 in terms of racial mix. McDowell’s constituents don’t want asylum-seekers in their area, and they don’t get them.

Bringing in Asbo’s will be great news for his rich, middle to upper class voters as well. No more noisy neighbours. No more eccentric neighbours do things that don’t conform. No more not taking care of your gardens and bringing down the tone of the area.

If you think that saying Asbo’s will be used to get people to tidy up their gardens is just outrageous, then what about the poor sod in England who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and was told if he cursed again in public he would go to jail? Or the woman in Scotland who was banned from gardening in her bikini?

Obviously there are useful aspects to Asbo’s such as being able to get rid of gangs of drunken youths from spending their summers right beside your house and being a nuisance. But, that was all taken care of in the Children’s Act 2001. So you ask, what’s the problem with the Children’s Act?

Well it appears, that the Act is such a good piece of legislation that it requires extra resources such as the 2,000 extra gardai that were promised by the Government and, erm, money which seems to be scarce despite the extra E600 million in the exchequer. So the more expensive parts of the Act haven’t been enacted, especially the one dealing with anti-social behaviour.

Asbo’s are for the Dublin 6 and 4 brigade and it’ll mean that residents associations in those areas will have more power to control what they perceive as D4 and D6 behaviour than the local authority. More power to the voters, more votes for McDowell.