Dubhthaigh
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Dubhthaigh is known for his bullish attitude towards progress, his old-complicated and new-simple reforms, and for his ability to be both pretentious and self effacing.
Arrival in Ireland
Soon after Dubhthaigh had joined the Independent Voices party, he found it to be without a president and figurehead - Digits having left the game temporarily for personal reasons. Becoming disillusioned with the lack of communication and unity that ensued, Dubhthaigh again searched for a party he indentified with. Following much debate with Darragh[ire] and Theus, he decided to join the Irish Republican Socialist Party, which encompassed many of his political beliefs. It was from here that Dubhthaigh's political career would launch to the higher echelons of government.
Congress and the Ministry of Finance
With the support of his new party, and aided by his increasing presence in IRC and the Media, Dubhthaigh was able to win his first congressional seat - now representing the region of Cork in the Dáil Eireann. This was well within a month of his arrival in Ireland. Driven by a desire to lend his talents and mind to the operation of the Irish government, Dubhthaigh began setting his sights on a deputy Minister's position. Seeing Brian Boru's presidential campaign as a springboard to achieving this, he lent himself to the politicean's aid, attempting to help in the areas of Media and public relations. Upon the failure of his candidate's bid, Dubhthaigh messaged the victor - Patton, and found himself in the position of Deputy Minister of Finance. At last he could now prove himself.
Due to personal issues, Dubhthaigh's then senior-minister Nogin the nog was unable to fulfill her duties. This is how Dubhthaigh first demonstrated his competancy in the position of Minister of Finance. Throwing himself into his work, he audited the state's assets, budgeted the ministries and began work on forward-thinking initiatives designed to stimulate the economy. Impressed by Dubhthaigh's work, president Patton made him co-MoF as a reward, a position which is second only to the President.
For the next four months, Dubhthaigh was able to retain not only his Congressional Seat, but his Cabinet position too, making him one of the most successful (and quickly so) politicians of the time. Throughout this period he worked under a number of additional roles: Ambassador to the United Kingdom, CEO of The Company Bank and President of the Irish Social democrats: the re-branded ISRP. With security in his position, Dubhthaigh was able to settle into working on constitutional reforms and amendments, creating legislation and tackling subjects that others were loath to attempt
Presidential Term and Impeachment
Election and the Cabinet: Following an unsucessful attempt at the Presidency the month before, Dubhthaigh attained the title in the month of March 2010. This achievement was a culmination of numerous weeks of hard and heated campaigning, in the course of which tensions between the Congressionally-dominant Right, and the Left, climaxed to an all time high. The culture of negativity experienced during the campaigning weeks did not end with the election, and immediately following his success Dubhthaigh was threatened with bans and reprecussions, based on false accusations of 'multi' votes. Furthermore, the transition from the previous IUP administration was painfully slow, with access to some orgs taking almost a week to be handed over.
Despite this awkward start, Dubhthaigh proceeded to select and direct his cabinet, whilst beginning initiatives to tackle not only the bulky and inefficient Congress/Constitution system, but the economic and military challenges of impending V2. To achieve this, he created two committees. A controversial appointment to the Cabinet was the finance whiz Brian Boru, who a few months before had engaged in a mock theft of state assets. Despite Boru not having access to any state orgs or funds and being a 'founding father' of the Republic, Dubhthaigh was forced to cancel his appointment in light of pressure from Congress.
Policy: The first day of Presidency saw alot of work from all involved - including a marathon non-stop 5.5 hour cabinet meeting which set directives for most of the term. The Ministry of Technology was formed in order to create an IRC weapons delivery system, and to provide statistics and logs of economic and ministry activity. The IDF was restructured to improve the (previously non-existent) supply of weapons, and this was seen to work well in the deployments to come. Strong relations were developed with the countries of Croatia, the US and Canada and Australia, which culminated in the signing of MPP's and perhaps the future entry of Ireland into Brolliance. The Ministry of Information became the central outlet for government communication in order to ensure quality, and whilst it got off to a rocky start, this system has been used to some extent today.
Some controversy stemmed from the merging of the Ministries of New Citizens and Health, compounded by the regretful abscence of the appointed Health Minister and the degree of personal hostility from the Minister of New Citizens. The system aimed to reduce workload for the MoNC and allow more widespread donation of Gifts, although its success was limited due to the above reasons. The University was disbanded and a system of Mentors resident in the IRC and Chat was instituted. An inter party council was called by Dubhthaigh in order to try and break down the Right / Left hostility, and to appoint equal numbers of Ministers of New Citizens from each party. (An attempt to ease the effect of party loyalty a single MoNC can have on newbs).
Beginning of the End: The first huge error by Dubhthaigh made came only a few days later, with personal confrontations between him and IFP members culminating in a PR disaster. Dubhthaigh had been receiving personal messages from an IFP player, who claimed to hold secret knowledge regarding a PTO threat to Ireland. Despite attempts to bridge the gap, the player refused to give the President any valid information about the seriousness or origin of this plan. In an attempt to find out more, Dubhthaigh determined to gain intel from the then-private IFP forum. When access was achieved, no additional info was found, but he did discover that the IFP had been discussing ways to remove him from the presidency 'even without reason.' In addition, a plan was formulating to share members with other parties, thus removing the entire Left wing's ability to run Congressional candidates. This, ideally, would result in a system where the Right wing could hand out or remove Presidencies at will. Following this discovery Dubhthaigh made a large PR mistake, and openly accused the IFP of attempting to usurp the democratic principles of the Republic. This resulted in a huge mud-slinging fest in the media.
During the IFP fiasco, Dubhtaigh became even more alienated from Congress support, and began to view the system as over-interfering and slow. This was made worse by the attitude of partisanship and argument in the chamber, an attitude that had led to very little being achieved. To rectify this, Dubhthaigh proposed a state of national emergency, which would allow the President to manage the country almost completely, and give the Dail time to sort out its own troubles. This was not well received, and only further made the relationship between Congress and President disfuncitonal.
Around this period there was a revolt by some elements of the Irish Army. This was headed by the elite Na Fianna, who protested against the appointment of John Jay (a very experienced and hard working MoD and former president), following the unannounced and undiscussed resignation of his predecessor Donovan Thomas. Fearing for the future democracy of the nation, Dubhthaigh determined he would not allow the army to dictate policy and thus would not concede to their demands to remove John Jay from the post. He offered the soldiers one day to return to their duty without punishment, or they would be removed from the IDF until the end of the term. This decision was poorly broadcasted and poorly received.
Impeachment Votes: During this time, the trolling against Dubhthaigh intensified and began to become personal and mental abuse, quite often targetting his depression. It became obvious that with a right-dominated Congress, nothing could be achieved by Dubhthaigh or indeed by any leftist President, and thus he resolved to remove the Dail from the equation. The President requested a close friend to propose an impeachment vote, which he knew would (closely) fail, and would therefore give him one un-impeachable week with which to manage the country and improve things. The plan was a success, and during the following days Dubhthaigh instituted a new and improved system of government which we see and trust today. That is, a President and Cabinet in charge of running the country and all it's assets, and a Congress reduced to it's Game functions. Companies were built, existing systems were overhauled without fear of repreccussion, and there was a general feeling between Ministers that this was probably their last term, but probably their best chance to make a long-term difference.
Finally, an impeachment vote was posted following the 7 day period, despite issues with the legality of the proposal. Dubhthaigh was impeached, and JS2K was appointed by the game in his stead. The transition of government access was relatively easy and took roughly one day.
Legacy: Dubhthaigh is sure to remembered fondly as 'the one who went crazy and got impeached.' To some extent this is true: His disregard for good PR and forceful approach to getting things done often gave off bad signals to other players. However, his term certainly began the transition to a more efficient and mechanics based government system, recently solidified by his new Constitution, and also left a number of changes which we still benefit from today, including:
- The first step to solidifying relations with Brolliance.
- The removal of Congress and unenforceable legislation from the game area.
- The creation of companies in preparation for V2.
- Further development of state industry.
- A history lesson of how to do alot of work, and to broadcast it badly!!
Congressional Reforms
Dubhthaigh has created and co-authored a large number of changes to the system of Irish government, such as:
System Developments:
- The Constitution of the eRepublic of Ireland
- The CC and LCC Act
- The Abolition of All Unenforceable and thus Unconsitutional Legislation
- The re-structure of the IDF
Constitutional Amendments:
Government Initiatives:
