Fecklessnessiosity

The ESRI released a report last week on participation levels in sport amongst different classes in Ireland and the resulting policy implications. It found that people with low income or low educational attainment had much lower participation in sport.

Regarding income, more people who play sport come from the top 25 per cent of earners than from the bottom 50 per cent. Regarding education, 43 per cent of people who play sport have a third-level qualification, compared to 28 per cent in the wider population.

It appears that around 53% of top half earners (the 'rich') play sport as opposed to only 30% of bottom half earners (the 'poor'). Uh oh, I know what you're thinking; lots of ammunition for the less PC / more rabid columnists at the Sunday Independent in those stats. Well the ESRI thought of that and are very eager to head it off at the pass:

It could be argued that there is no direct impact of income or education on playing sport, but that people with high motivation are simply more inclined to work hard to earn money, to obtain qualifications, and also to make the physical effort required to play sport. If this were to be true, then the relationship between income, educational attainment and playing sport revealed in the last chapter would be driven by a common underlying cause, motivation, and it would be incorrect to assert that low income and low educational attainment themselves cause people to play less. However, this hypothesis based on motivation finds little support in the data.

They go on to give the stats on levels of interest and non-interest in playing across the income quartiles. It turns out that a fairly consistent 58% or so, say they are interested in playing sport - with little variation due to income. So that's alright then. But it strikes me that interest and motivation are two different things. I, for one, am interested in playing sport but not sufficiently motivated to do so (it's too cold, I left my P.E. gear at home, I have a note).

For sheer devilment, lets assume that only those interested in playing sport are actually playing it. Based on this around 90% of the 'rich' that are interested in playing sport, do so but only around 52% of the 'poor' that are interested in playing sport, do so. This means that 48% of the poor who want to play sport, don't, compared to 10% of the rich.

The ESRI seeks external reasons for the disparity (what in society is preventing poor people playing sport). The report says the participation differences are not down to lack of facilities or sport being too expensive. It has a little to do with not having a car or not living in a big city, but these are only relatively minor effects. The report never really examines the case for 'internal' reasons (what is different about poor people that they do no play sport, even if interested) being the cause. It does, however, admit:-

Overall, it is not possible to rule out underlying psychological causes, such as motivation.

.. while being anxious to point out ..

But there is nothing in the data to suggest that this is a helpful approach for explaining the strong relationships between income, educational attainment and playing sport.

One could imagine that if there was something in the data that suggested that poorer people were interested but just lacked the motivation to play sport, the ESRI would think very, very hard about publishing it. They know that the day after they did, the newspapers would be full of 'ESRI Says The Poor Are Feckless' headlines. Fintan O'Toole et al would have a conniption. There would be apoplexy on the Joe Duffy show, questions in the Dail and righteous indignation all over the blogosphere . Probably best not to go looking for such data too hard, eh?

Apologies for being late

... to the party but I have seen just (or rather, heard) the point of Josh Ritter. Lets face it, being an international artist with a hugely disproportionate following in Ireland is not always the mark of quality (c.f. David Gray, Chris Rea) but his song "Thin Blue Flame" from the 2006 album "The Animal Years" is the best thing I have heard this year. And it's available as a free and legal download via his site, which is nice.

That is all, as you were.

Beyond Irony

Meanwhile in Kerry, an embittered old man polishes his father's medals and stares into the middle distance, while a nation celebrates.

The only sound, other than singing, during God Save The Queen was of a large portion of the Irish media muttering "Ah crap, there goes my pre-written story". Their attempts to whip up some controversy last week over the matter were despicable and pathetic. We deserve better.

Some Dutch Gold To Ease Our Election Angst

Maybe Bertie communes with CJH using Ray Burke as a medium.
Maybe Enda has trouble fighting off a cold let alone knife wielding muggers.
Maybe Michael wears a leather overcoat and peaked cap in the privacy of his own home.
Maybe Pat keeps a €20 note printing press in the back of his wardrobe.
Maybe Trevor dreams of hunting endangered species in an SUV with no catalytic converter.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Call me hopelessly naive and old fashioned but isn't voting for a new government meant to have some small relation to picking the party or candidates with the policies you are most in agreement with? Sure character is important both in terms of having the credibility and ability to get their policies implemented and also for the nature of the response to unknown future events that a five year term are bound to throw up. But whatever about their character, the important thing is for voters to want to get done what the parties say they will do.

"I like Bertie Enda Pat Etc. He'll get things done. I just disagree with what he wants to do."

During the Dutch elections an online service called Vote Match helped take some of the personality element out of the voting equation.

The Vote Match system compares your political preferences with questions and statements taken from election documents of political parties contesting the elections. You can give your views on these statements by clicking on 'agree', 'disagree', ‘neutral’ or 'don’t know'. After responding to all statements, you can indicate which issues you consider of extra importance. The program will then calculate which party has opinions closest to yours, and rank the other parties in descending order.

So who wants to create an Irish election version of this? And given the recent policy gyrations, would there be any point?

Because Tonight All the Parties Think It's 1979

Labour promises to keep changing policies until they discover one votes like lower tax rates. The PDs promise to buy votes increase social welfare spending on pensions. Fianna Fail warns everyone not to get carried away and talks about fiscal responsibility.

Who has been spiking the drinking water at Leinster House?

Gentlemen, Start Your Comparisons

There is nothing like a bit of global comparison to get a sense of proportion in your life. Here are two sites to help with that.

The Global Rich List is a site where you enter your annual income and see what percentile of the world's population you are in.

Those in search of more specific comparisons should go to WorldMapper. This was developed by University of Sheffield’s Social and Spatial Inequalities Research Group. It displays maps of the world but with country sizes made proportional to some data such as income over $200 per day or population or number of tractors.

Maybe We're Just Not That Into It, Minister O Cuív

I have been arguing that people wanting to support the Irish Language should speak it if they know it, learn it if they don't (as distinct from just paying lip service to the language).

I wondered how would a working adult, who had forgotten most of their school Irish, go about (re)acquainting themselves with it? The rather obvious answer is to take some classes. So I had look on http://www.nightcourses.com for Irish language courses in Dublin. Results back: 157. 'My that's impressive' I thought 'a veritable groundswell of support. Must be those Seoige sisters..'. And then I started scrolling through the returned result. Ahh.

The nightcourses website search facility is a little eager and brings back everything mentioning 'Irish' in its blurb. So the Irish Taxation Institute courses are included along with those for Gael Linn.

So how many actual Irish language classes are being offered in Dublin?
Answer: I counted 71 classes in 34 different institutes, including ones for Irish Sign Language.

So plenty of choice and no excuse not to learn it, if you want to use and support it.

But then I came across this: Éamon O Cuív says "At a time of increasing affluence and choice in Irish society, it would appear that more and more people are opting for the Irish language."

Hmm.

I wanted to test out the Minister's contention that more and more people are opting for the Irish language. I wondered how many classes were being offered in other languages. For comparison purposes I did this search - for Italian classes in Dublin. After weeding out the cookery and opera classes I found there was 88 classes in 41 institutes.

More and more people may be opting for Irish. But it looks like, in Dublin at least, more still are opting for Italian.