Just a few things:

Here in the US, the problem is relaxed enforcement of regulations across the board, which forced one meat packer in New Jersey out of business a year ago.

The relaxation in enforcement has been right out of the republican playbook on governance, and has been since at least the Reagan administration. Vice President George H. W. Bush went to work those first dayswith a list of things the government could do to help the Big Three automakers, which these days seems sort of laughable.

Republicans would say that the free market operated as it should when Topps Meats closed and they'd be sort of right. But tell that to the handful of people who became ill and could have died.

I wish I knew more about Irish politics though, so I could place your larger point in some kind of context. So I could put faces on the players.

"It Can't Be Just About Us"
--Frank Schnittger, ETian Extraordinaire

To make matters worse there is public shock at the shooting dead of a socially conscious member of the community by a gang of young teenagers who he apparently chased after they threw eggs at his house.  Apparently he used to host the same teenagers in his house but stopped after the neighbours complained at the noise and disruption.  Teenager suspect carried gun before row - The Irish Times - Wed, Dec 10, 2008

The local teenagers had been allowed into Mr O'Kane's home on Shelmalier Road for a period earlier this year and many shared his interest in repairing cars and motorbikes. However, local people complained to gardaí that the teenagers were drinking in the house.

notes from no w here

European Tribune - Comments - Toxic politics

Where is leadership in Europe going to come from?

We are the change that we seek ;-)

...

On your diary, this seems to be a case of fraud. Industrial agriculture is obviously more vulnerable to fraud with large-scale consequences, although there are cases of fraud in organic agriculture, too. There are going to be questions about whether the monitoring system has been set up right, as you state. Certainly classifying the recycling plant as low risk seems to be a mistake, given what we know from the last dioxin scare in Belgium. Incedentally, this seems to have resulted in better monitoring there.

Mostly, though it is a matter of doing a thorough criminal investigation and throwing those who were involved in the fraud in jail, preferably for a long time, as well as confiscating their assets to idemnify to the largest extent possible those who have suffered damages as a result.

Another globalism "success story" spins in.

Where is leadership in Europe going to come from?

Certainly not from our three stooges namely Cowen Lenihan and Hearney.