Failed tycoon Sean Quinn has managed to get Google to remove negative information and wouldn’t the Labour party love to do likewise.
The bankrupt billionaire has used the Right To Be Forgotten privacy law to get the social media giant to take down scores of articles about some past legal affairs.
This is unfortunate as many of these totally factual stories and court cases highlight extremely controversial financial transactions which resulted in massive losses for the taxpayer which in turn impacted on the lives of ordinary people.
Therefore it is up to journalists and the media to ensure that the public never forget that the reason the public is paying a 2% levy on most insurance policies is down to Mr Quinn’s gambling on Anglo Irish Bank.
No doubt Labour would also like us to forget some of their actions in the recent past but unfortunately a political party whose very survival is dependent on (hopefully good) publicity can hardly claim a right to privacy.
If there was a wish list of phrases that Labour might ask Google to forget it would include austerity, JobBridge, water charges, vulture funds and (especially) Joan Burton.
As the Irish rugby team was making history against the All Blacks last Saturday afternoon, the current Labour leader Alan Kelly was giving his keynote speech to the party’s annual conference. Timing is everything, eh?
He called for a “fairer and kinder” Ireland and reminded us that Labour had served in Government before – as if we could forget even if Google did agree to wipe the slate clean.
The Labour leader said he’d go into coalition again but only if policies were comparable and if their political partners had what he termed a “moral compass”.
The public might find this a bit rich seeing that the Labour party lost theirs sometime around 2012.
Indeed those who weren’t watching the rugby might question how a man who planned to take water charge payments from workers’ pay and social welfare benefits during the austerity years had the cheek to talk about morals of any description.
Mr Kelly went on to say it’s time for a “new deal” but the problem for Labour is that they bear much responsibility for the old deal that has left us with the worst ever housing crisis and a health service on the brink of collapse.
As the hospital wards and intensive care units overflow we should never forget that it was the Fine Gael/Labour coalition which dismantled the health service forcing nurses and other medical professionals to emigrate.
Mr Kelly’s party was part of a coalition which invited in the vulture funds to pick over the bones of the economy and now they are here to stay to prey and generations which will never own a home of their own.
When mountains of cash was going to pay the debts run up by Mr Quinn and Seanie FitzPatrick the Labour party was gung ho about imposing a property tax and a charge on our drinking water.
Even if Google did wipe out Labour’s misdeeds, those who came of age in the last 10 years will remember how Ms Burton slashed young people’s jobseekers allowance and forced them to work for €50 a week on the notorious JobBridge workfare schemes.
Tens of thousands of single parents can’t forget how Social Protection Minister Burton cut their one parent family payment leaving them virtually destitute.
Former Labour leader Brendan Howlin has admitted cutting child benefit and rent allowances was “awful” but claimed they were necessary.
The stories on Liveline of medical cards being taken from dying children are etched on the collective memory of the nation.
While Mr Kelly’s speech might have gone down well at the conference, and in The Irish Times, it is unlikely to move those who would have at one time been the party’s core support.
Most of them will have long ago migrated to Sinn Fein or the other parties on the left of the political spectrum.
The electoral demographic has changed and the public won’t forget Labour’s record but will remember The Who’s song We Won’t Get Fooled Again.
