Sam Maguire's Rant

Profiting from our Misery

2008-06-27T16:45:00.000+01:00

The first duty of a Government is to look after the citizens which it claims to protect under the Constitution of the country of Ireland. This is the mandate they were given when elected by those same people.
The world is in the grip of an economic crisis caused by many factors, one of the main ones being the price of oil. Oil is at the time of writing priced at $138 per barrel, 63% more than it was 12 months ago. Reflected at the pumps, this means a massive increase in costs for those who drive to work. Home heating oil has increased by the same ratio, agricultural diesel ‘ditto’. Manufacturing industry is being crippled under the weight of higher energy costs.
Everybody from the small homeowner to the large industrialist is suffering because of events outside their control. There are no winners in this situation. Right?
Wrong!
Every time the price of a barrel of oil goes up, the Government of this banana republic of ours wins. They win because of the high levels of excise duty and Vat on the price of oil. Every price rise at the pumps means more money is extracted from the unfortunate drivers of Ireland, who have no choice but to use their cars to get to work because the lack of alternative transport infrastructure.
Having blown away fifteen years of boom-time revenue, our Government doesn’t have a bean to see out the bad times that we are now facing. Therefore, despite numerous calls from various industry lobby groups for some sort of fuel rebate, the Government has refused to even consider the matter. They are making money on our misery.
One of those lobby groups is the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA). This body is so weak that the Government just swats away the feeble protests from it, not unlike you might do with an annoying fly. It might listen to the farmers (IFA) but the stuff the truckers.
The IRHA should consider using the ammunition it has in its arsenal.
If unity could prevail in this most notorious of fragmented sectors and a combined transport stoppage strategy was employed, the Government would soon wake up to the crisis facing all sectors because of their inherent greed.
If all trucks, buses, and smaller commercial vehicles stopped tomorrow, carnage would ensue.
In five working days there would be no food or general provisions left on the shelves of supermarkets.
In three working days there would be no fuel left in any of the filling stations.
In seven working days, stocks of critical medical supplies for hospitals would run out.
In five working days, pharmacies would have no medicines to dispense.
Pubs would close because deliveries of drink would stop. Restaurants would do the same.
Because most major factories use a JIT system (Just-In-Time) of ordering and receiving raw materials for production, factories would close within two working days, throwing tens of thousands out of work.
Schools would close immediately because there would be no buses to transport the pupils, and even if there were, there would be no heating in the classrooms.
Airlines would have to stop flying because fuel would not be delivered to their tank farms.
Within ten working days, the country would descend into anarchy. Riots and looting would be commonplace and a dysfunctional society would turn on itself. The Army would patrol the streets, but what services can hungry soldiers perform?
And, if you are waiting for the Government to implement the National Emergency Plan, you will wait.
We are an island nation that depends on transport to provide the links so that we can live. Without transport, any island is doomed.
Will the IRHA and other transport organizations please get together and tell the greedy mandarins in Government the consequences of ignoring the pleas of the transport sector.
For once in your life, show them the power that you have. They might just listen this time.

A BLOODY NOSE NEEDS A TISSUE

2008-06-18T16:48:00.000+01:00

Well, look what we have done to poor old Europe! Left their Lisbon Treaty in shatters, it seems. Ireland is now the pariahs of the European Union. A little island in the North Atlantic, population 4 million, has wrecked the plans of the other 496 million people in the EU by voting No to the Lisbon Treaty.

One German MEP stated that we should “be thrown overboard from the EU boat without a lifeboat” for doing such a thing.

It is only when you hear such a statement you realize that we were so right to vote No in the first place. The bullies in the European schoolyard, having muttered veiled threats before we voted, now are very clear about their desire to kick the shit out of us for not doing what suited their agenda.

Ireland has a constitution, which demands that any changes to it are voted on by the people. This amendment required just such a vote. In this instance, that luxury was not afforded to the citizens of the other 26 countries that make up the EU. We wonder if it were, how many of the 500 million people would have voted against the Lisbon Treaty?

In 2005, the basis of what is now the Lisbon Treaty document, was put to the French people and roundly rejected by them. France took no chances this time and did not allow a free vote on the issue. They have some cheek is lecturing Ireland on the democratic decision reached by their people.

Already the blame game is underway in Ireland and in Europe as to who is responsible for this so-called `failure' to bend the knee to our masters. So what really happened to make Ireland reject the Treaty?

The answer is a combination of factors.

First, the intelligence of the Irish voter is of the finest calibre. In all our general and local elections, we have always the PR (proportional representation) system. Experience of this complex voting exercise has educated the Irish voter.

Secondly, the arrogance of all the mainstream parties in personalizing the canvass.

Images of your local TD or councillor, seeking your Yes vote insulted the electorate by asking them to vote along party lines without actually examining the contents and implications of the treaty.

Thirdly, the bullying tactics of Brian Cowen and his cohorts in Europe, who were wheeled out to the Irish public telling them to be grateful for 35 years of EU benefits and implying that Europe was owed a Yes result or there would be hell to play.

The fourth, and probably most pertinent reason, was the strength of the No campaign. Normally a plethora of loony left-wingers, Greens, Sinn Fein and various shadowy anti-establishment organisations would have comprised the No opposition. They would have been dismissed by the media and the politicians for what they were - a disaffected bunch of no-hopers with spurious agendas. They would have little or no credibility with the electorate.

However, this time the No campaign was painted with a veneer of respectability and

authority by the presence of the Libertas group, led by businessman, Declan Ganly, together with the campaign fronted by another well-known and successful business magnate, Ulick Mc Evaddy.

The articulate arguments of these men in relation to the tax issues, amongst others, made the floating vote suddenly sit up and as their own questions. These were no head bangers telling the nation to vote No because an endangered snail species in Kerry might become extinct if the Yes campaign got their way.

These guys had street credibility and a history of business achievement envied by many, including those in Government, who questioned their source of funding in a effort to blacken them.(just tell them you won it on the horses, lads!)

The high turnout was reckoned to favour the Yes campaign but the reverse occurred because those higher numbers were people who were informed of the alternative and arrived armed to vote No.

The schoolyard bully is always a coward. It is no different this time. Cowen and EU president, Barriso, have crawled back into the undergrowth threatening that when we are on our own they will get us.

And they probably will, you know. But for now at least, they are looking for some tissues to wipe the blood of their noses.

LISBON TREATY MY ARSE !

2008-06-09T09:12:00.000+01:00

It is only when you see the flustering and blustering of Brian Cowen and assorted Government ministers in the last week as the polls showed that the No vote was equal to the Yes vote that you realize the Irish people are being sold a dummy by their own Government on the Lisbon Treaty.
Cowen and his fellow puppets in all the main parties are afraid of displeasing their masters in Brussels. What we are getting, in effect, if we vote Yes, is a Constitution of Europe, which will take precedent over our own. It is fair comment to say that our current Irish Constitution allows the people have a say in their destiny in Europe. Most other countries steam-rolled it through, with recourse to the opinion of the people who elected them to high office.
In Ireland, thanks to the foresight of our fore fathers, issues like these have to have the approval of the people. In this sense, we will be used as a barometer of opinion as to where the EU is headed. There is no doubt that a federal Europe on the lines of the United States is the ultimate aim of the bigger states like Germany and France. here. The Lisbon Treaty is of course partially the work of Bertie Ahern who got agreement on a great deal of what we are voting on when Ireland had the EU presidency for six months in 2006.
Of course, as we now know, Bertie had only his own interests at heart when he brokered that deal. Ireland came way down the list on Bertie’s agenda.
He had his own goals to pursue, which was a nice job in Europe in reward for being a good boy and leading little old Ireland into the starting stalls, to use a horseracing term. (Not that Bertie would know too much about horses. Oh! Wait a moment – he does! He made a fortune on the English racetracks in the nineties. Christ! I nearly forgot about that.)
Anyway, Bertie probably has the best of both worlds now that he is no longer leader of our country. Cowen will take all shit from Brussels if he fails to deliver and Bertie will claim all the glory if the Yes side wins by saying that he was the architect of the Treaty. Cue a plaintive cry from Drumcondra about that job he was promised.
The truth of the matter is that the powerful Eurocrats will swipe Bertie’s interest away as that of an annoying fly buzzing around their big room. And they will do the same to Ireland. Make no mistake about that.
The EU is a much more culturally and geographically spread entity now. It is not like the days when it was made of ten states and Ireland had one tenth of the power and a proper veto on items of national interest.
In those days, Albert Reynolds could win an election by boasting about the £8 billion punts he extracted from the EU coffers for Ireland. Those days are no more. The EU is a community of 300 million people of which we make up a little over 1%.
What clout do you think we are going to have in such a monolith? Very little, under the proposed Lisbon Treaty and no matter what way all the Government and opposition spin it you can be sure of one thing – we will be shafted.
Tax harmonization will enter through the back door, be very sure about that.
Take no heed of the so-called get out veto clause for Ireland. It is so vague and open to interpretation that we will not stand a chance of imposing our will upon the rest of Europe. They have looked on for the last 35 years as we rifled the coffers of Europe to make the country temporarily rich, only for Bertie and his cohorts to blow all the gains away on crazy projects and arse-licking the unions.
Vote No for a chance to make the many grey areas of this Treaty more black and white. Do not let the vested interests of Cowen, Kenny and Gilmore (not to mention Bertie) allow us to sleepwalk into a federal Europe without any protection.
Do not believe the false and alarming rhetoric that comes from them about us being the black sheep of Europe if we vote No.

Vote No!
And, if you get the chance, vote No a second time!

THE BANKS – DEVILS IN DISGUISE

2008-06-04T11:20:00.000+01:00

I have never seen the devil in the flesh. For many years, I lived with the comfortable notion that the devil was an invention of my mothers in order to get me to bed early and generally behave myself. In the bright spring of youth, every pleasure was apparently a sin in the eyes of my parents and their peers.
Drink was the devil’s potion and Hell awaited you if you abused it. The pleasures of teenage fornication were denounced from the pulpit, and pronounced as a fast track route to meet Satan. Needless to say, all thoughts of the devil and Hell were quickly extinguished by the lust engendered by Susie next door. For her part, she didn’t seem too interested in the devil either! Neither of us had the good fortune to meet him and if we had we would have probably sought his approval and carried on with our shenanigans.

Decades later, I still have not encountered the devil in the flesh. However, I have met him, and he exists all right - in the shape of the bank manager.
Not any individual bank manager, let me say. The modern day bank manager dealing with clients at the coalface of business and living is mostly a decent sort.
He will do what he can for you but he is controlled from on high. He or she has no power.
In days of yore in Ireland, the local bank manager was a powerful figure. He was his own man and had the power to make or break you with his sole decisions. He had no need to refer to higher office for decisions made on a point-scoring chart. He looked in your eyes and made a character judgement that was seldom wrong. Nowadays, the bank manager in that sense no longer exists.
Instead, you deal with a faceless credit committee that lives somewhere in a shiny glass building in Dublin and never has eye contact with those they loosely term ‘customers’. Victims would be a more appropriate word.
Your account manager in your local branch doles out the good or bad news to you these days. If headquarters hasn’t approved your loan request, they will make suitable sympathetic clucking noises as to the grey suits taking the matter out of their hands. This of course is all an act, mastered by years of training by those same grey suits in the game known as ‘Pass the Buck and care not a Fuck’
The devil in Irish society is the Bank. Not just any bank, all banks. The Bank controls your life whether you are a small business, a regular worker, a home carer or a large business.
The Bank is the many faces of the Devil. Never was it more evident than today in post Celtic Tiger Ireland. For the last 15 years, the banks have thrown money at people who did not even necessarily want it. You were encouraged to borrow by all the banks. In fact, you were made to feel somewhat inadequate and lacking in entrepreneurial spirit if as a small business, or developer or whatever, you did not match the banks expectations that you were good for another million or so. It was very much akin to the scene that took place in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The banks dangled the apple in front of you and seduced you with promises of great things in the future.
Now however, as the credit crunch bites the Devil reveals himself in glowing red.
He arrives in the shape of a dull grey-suited bank auditor who tells you that you were very foolish to take up that loan offered by his colleagues by some years back. They need to increase the security, they need a higher rate of interest, they need this, and they need that to cover their red asses from being burned by the Devils own fire.
Mark Twain was right when said that a banker is somebody who offers you an umbrella on a sunny day and takes it away on a rainy one.
Yes Mother, you were right all along. The Devil does exist!

FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS

2008-05-26T09:35:00.000+01:00

In the week that was in it, a scan at the headlines in the newspapers says a lot for our priorities, or perhaps more pertinently, the impression that the sub-editors of our national dailies (and not just the red tops) have about our priorities.

Our new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, was caught using what was termed unparlimentary language in our parliament. In some heated exchanges in the Dail on Tuesday last, he was heard to the term ‘fuckers’ after a discussion about the cost of living in this country of ours. This was a muttered aside to his Tainaste, Mary Coughlan, after the debate had finished and the microphone in front of him was still switched on.

The next day the headlines screamed as though the man had murdered some of his opponents in the Dail with his bare hands. Banner headlines and various conspiracy theories as to whom he was referring to dominated all the papers, the venerable Irish Times included.

Is it not enough to make you sick?

The country is going down the tubes at a speed that is as bewildering and scream inducing as going down a 200 metre slide with grease on your bare ass and all that concerns the masses is apparently the F-word was used in the Dail!

Is there any hope left for us at all?

We are giving Cowen a small honeymoon period to show his mettle. It has to be very short. Drastic action is needed to avoid the country having to be taken in charge by the IMF.

Bertie has gone to the backbenches with the daft notion firmly fixed in his head that he brought prosperity to Ireland by his cunning methods and grasp of economics (he once claimed to have a degree from the London School of Economics). This notion on one side of his brain refuses to be overcome by rational thought that he was lucky and the real test was how he would prepare the country for the inevitable downturn that would come.

We know now the answer to that question.

He blew 15 years of good times in a variety of pet projects, a vastly inflated public service and a total cave in to the main cause of our current perilous state, the trade unions. His legacy will be one of utter waste of everything that was accumulated over 15 years.

In one year alone, he presided over the evaporation of the gains of a decade and a half.

In Inchodowney, in a famous Fianna Fail think-in, he declared himself a socialist. That was in 2005. The truth is that Bertie was who you wanted him to be during his entire career. Like the chameleon, he could change his colours to suit all occasions.

He will find a nice job in Europe (there will be none left in Ireland) and he will go to his grave with the delusion that he made the people of Ireland rich.

Meanwhile, Cowen is left to deal with the war. Time will tell if his efforts and potential will work.

Sadly, in the meantime all we can do is fill acres of newsprint because he uttered a curse in the Dail. Truly, the country is fucked!

BERTIE THE BOLT

2008-04-14T10:01:00.000+01:00

Taoiseach-elect, Brian Cowen, faces his first major crisis just days after being installed as the leader of Fianna Fail.

Ironically, the pressing issue involves none other than the man he is set to take the reins from as leader of the country on May 6th next, Bertie Ahern.

This time the problem has nothing to do with Bertie’s finances, houses, lovers and all the baggage that was unloaded at the Mahon Tribunal.

Bertie Ahern is the only man struck by lightening twice in the history of the planet, which goes back billions of years. Not alone that, but he survived both attempts!

On Thursday last, Bertie and his entourage were making their way to Belfast for the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. They flew from Dublin to Belfast by the Government jet and were beginning their descent into Belfast when the plane was struck by what Government aides later said was a bolt of lightening. The bolt singled out poor Bertie and the man went into contortions in the seat.

There were four pilots and various aides on board totaling in number fourteen. Nobody was harmed except Bertie, who later bravely shrugged off the incident in his typical understated manner. “Ah shure, these things happen. I got the same dart some years ago on the way to see Bill Clinton in the White House. You get used to it, I suppose”

Back in Dublin however, questions were being asked. The Special Branch was called in to investigate conspiracy theories that were circulating on the internet. Rumours were spreading to the effect that this was no accident at all. Nobody ever is hit by lightening twice. There was some mysterious aura to the whole incident.

Why did Bertie and party need to take the Gulfstream V Government jet with a range of 13,000 kilometres to travel 150 kilometres from Dublin to Belfast? Why did they not go by road up that brand new M1 motorway? Has the toll bridge at Drogheda got so expensive that it is cheaper to take the jet instead?

What about the carbon footprint left after such a method of travel? Was this Bertie’s way of giving the two fingers to the Green Party who were holding their annual conference in Dundalk?

There was much scratching of heads at Garda headquarters. The CIA was asked for assistance as the unanswered questions mounted. They immediately re-assigned a crack unit, based at Shannon Airport, from their normal duties of kicking the shit out of prisoners on their way to Guantanemo Bay, to add their extensive knowledge and forensic skills in the search for the truth.

The CIA blamed Bin Laden for praying loudly to Allah and convincing him to unleash a bolt of lightening targeted to hit Bertie. Brian Cowen rejected this crazy notion outright and offered the scenario that Celia Larkin released a surface-to air missile from Killaloe to extract revenge for Bertie not marrying her when she asked him.

The Special Branch, clearly annoyed at having the CIA operating on their patch, suggested that this was much ado about nothing. They opined that Bertie was always a sitting target to be struck by lightening twice – didn’t he lead a misfortunate life, as sort of a political Jonah dogged by ill-fated events all during his political career.

People giving him money when he did not need it. Other people giving him houses just for the fun of it. Bankers refusing to open accounts for him, even when he was Minister for Finance. Disaster followed him everywhere. His daughter even married a guy from Westlife – the shame of it all! Sure, he was a sitting duck for a bolt of lightening.

As we write, the crisis continues. Watch this space. Space? Who said space?

BERTIE BOWS OUT; WHY WE SHOULD BE GLAD

2008-04-07T09:31:00.000+01:00

Bertie Ahern succumbed to the inevitable this week when he tendered his resignation to take effect from May 6. This timeframe allows him to address the joint US Congress and Senate and provide him with an opportunity to say farewell on the grandeur of a world stage and add an impressive last line to his CV.
It is all a long way from the petty nit-picking probing of the Mahon Tribunal into his financial affairs, (as he seen it) which led to his departure on a very low note this week.
These revelations, and his incredulous explanations of his dodgy dealings with cronies in the mid-nineties, probably reveal the true Bertie that he so cleverly camouflaged during his political career.
In the end, he lied like an intellectually challenged eight-year old altar boy caught red-handed drinking the altar wine. It was farcical to see him digging a hole so deep for himself and then insulting the intelligence of the Irish people by his pathetic stories in trying to get out of it.
Let us credit him first with his undoubted achievement.
The torturous negotiations in bringing order and peace in Northern Ireland leading to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 stands as his greatest contribution to the people of the 32 counties of Ireland. His skills at achieving consensus helped to bring a solution that eventually morphed into devolved Government in Northern Ireland. Bertie Ahern deserves credit for his involvement in that process – but only as part of a team. And, bear in mind that his predecessors, Albert Reynolds, along with John Hume, were the real architects of the peace that is now in place when they opened secret dialogue with Gerry Adams and Martin Mc Guinness in 1994. Ahern never gave credit to either man in all the backslapping that occurred when eventually the North started looking after its own affairs.
In fact, he shafted Reynolds in the most two-faced manner when Fianna Fail nominated Mary Mc Aleese as Presidential candidate to replace Mary Robinson, having promised Reynolds his vote, only to betray him at the last minute.
Bertie Ahern is a complex character. Being educated in politics by Charles Haughey and graduating with first class honours – “the most cunning of them all”- eliminates him from any tolerance of the notion that he was some political innocent abroad. He cultivated the image of the ordinary north-sider made good in politics by sheer hard work and a disciplined constituency organization. At the same time, he was possessed of Machevellian purpose and intent that only the ‘Master Haughey’ could have honed to supreme levels. Bertie was clever enough to build around him an army of cohorts to do the dirty work and retain his innocent “wouldn’t harm a soul” image in his power base of Drumcondra.
When the top job became his, he brought many of these comrades with him and placed them in positions of power that was not for the good of the country, but for the good of Bertie. Added to that, he appointed a huge raft of professional advisors to go along with the public servants already paid to advise him. In a country of less than four million people, Bertie had enough of staffers to run the United States.
Clever people surround themselves with cleverer people. It is doubtful if Bertie ever had an original thought in his political life such is the array of knowledge at his disposal. His inability to think for himself was cruelly exposed at the Mahon Tribunal when forensic question about his financial follies were met with the most ludicrous and incredulous answers. Once away from the strings of his political puppeteers, Bertie was a walking liability to Fianna Fail and there was no way the party was going to let him go before the tribunal again as Taoiseach and pile more agony on them.
Therefore, it is hard to make out the character of the real Bertie. Was he a buffoon who brought Fianna Fail back together with his conciliatory methods? Was he a brain who had a great vision of what he wanted to achieve, and the cunning to carry it out? Apart from his positive role in the North, what did Bertie achieve for the people who actually elected him to office?
In a nutshell, very little. He presided over unprecedented economic boom that was under way when he took office in 1997 and to which he made little contribution. His greatest act was to appoint Charlie McCreevey as Minister of Finance. McCreevey was a maverick that could bully Bertie and his ministers into his way of thinking. A range of measures introduced during his reign as Finance Minister, most notably the cutting of Capital Gains Tax from 40% to 20%, ensured that McCreevey contributed more to the Celtic Tiger than Bertie ever did, despite the former hiring more public servants than the state ever needed.
Ahern wasted the billions that reached the coffers of Government, mostly from the property boom. He must take sole responsibility for his own vanity projects and the failure of his ministers to control budgets on various projects.
It is frightening to consider what was lost on the likes of the Luas, Port Tunnel, electronic voting machines, the M50, the Ppars health IT exercise, Bertie Bowl, Aquatic Centre etc etc.
Worst of all though was the Benchmarking Commission that gave away over a billion euros to public servants that were already overpaid. This was solely Bertie’s baby.
The ability of Ahern to achieve consensus was not a skill at all. It was a weakness. He gave into the unions for the entire duration of his political life. The PR people would portray agreements a victory for common sense when, in fact, Bertie surrendered. The unions played their part in the charade and sniggered up their sleeves at the meekness of the man.
In summary, Bertie Ahern was a lucky politician who in time will be remembered not for what he done for the state, but what he didn’t do. He rode the wave of the good times he was fortunate to find himself in and then washed the proceeds down the toilet.
He departs his office, leaving the country in a mess.
He did the state no service at all.

The Season is Upon Us

2008-03-31T09:16:00.000+01:00

January through March are horrible months in Ireland. The weather is bad, money is in short supply after the Christmas excesses and all the economic forecasts for Ireland in 2008 are in the gloom and doom category.

In sporting circles however, January means that it not far away from the start the Gaelic football and hurling season. Spring and summer beckon with all the usual anticipation and discussion from the county teams down to the Junior 4 club side. The summer in Ireland will be defined by how your club or county performs.

Weather is irrelevant. The GAA supporter is a hardy animal and in the playing months (usually March to October) he or she are possessed of an almost manic religious fervour.

The GAA organization and its games are unique in the world of sport. Nowhere are there as compelling and attractive games to watch, played by amateur men and women to very high fitness levels and a huge degree of skill. These games attract massive audiences within Ireland, and yet remain virtually unknown in any country worldwide. With the exception of ex-pats organizing games in the US, UK and Australia, these wonderful games are ignored by mainstream media the world over. And boy, what are they missing!

For those who may not know of the national games of Ireland a brief introduction is in order. Gaelic games are basically divided into football, hurling, camogie (effectively ladies hurling) ladies football and handball (akin to squash without racquets). The first two mentioned are the main games, played by men.

The core of the entire GAA system is the parish club and the amateur ethos. The parish is an area within a county the borders of which were originally defined by the Catholic Church. Generally, what is known as the “parish rule” applies in that if a player is resident in a particular parish he is obliged by rule to play for the club that exists there. Of course, many parishes are large towns in which there are multiple clubs and in such cases, players have a choice from which to play.

No player in any of the sports receives payment. Only at the top administrative level do officials who occupy full-time jobs get salaries and expenses. A grants system is about to be introduced in 2008 to compensate inter-county players. This has attracted controversy and it remains to be seen how it works out. In many ways, this has come about because GAA has become a victim of its own success with huge demands on players from county and club.

There are over 2,500 clubs in the 32 counties. The game is structured administratively by an All-Ireland Central Council and then on a provincial basis through to a county board command role down to the club itself. The best players from clubs are picked to represent their county in the provincial and all-Ireland championships.

The volunteer aspect of the organization is incredible. Mentors and officials at club and county level work passionately to ensure the continuation of the games through generations, as other sports vie to attract the kids. For a sport that is confined to the 32 counties, the attraction and huge power it wields is a phenonomen not seen any where in the world of sport.

The amateur aspect is also the key to its success. Gaelic sporting heroes are tangible, ordinary men and women who perform heroics on the field of play, watched by thousands, and by a vastly larger TV audience. Yet, they have jobs to go to on Monday, whether it is a building site, or an accountancy practice, a teaching job or a university place. These young men and women are touchy, feely people that you will meet down at the pub having a pint, largely ignored by their local peers, but mega stars in the national media. They live ordinary lives with their feet kept firmly on the ground. There is little room for posers in the GAA dressing rooms and the down to earth attitudes of most players, famous or not, is one that is implanted in them from a tiny age. .

As a huge force for good in every community, whether it be a tiny village or a large town, it is impossible to calculate the enormous cultural and personal benefits that emerge from the presence of the GAA club.

At a higher level, the success of the game has enabled the GAA, and Ireland, to have one of the great stadiums of the world - Croke Park. This stadium has a long history but the foresight of the upper echelon of the GAA to demolish it in stages and rebuild it completely was a truly fantastic feat for an amateur organization. If only these people would take over the running of the country from the dimwits that are doing it now. Croke Park is now an excellent stadium seating in excess of 82,000 people. Not alone though is there Croke Park, but also many excellent stadiums around the country. Venues such as the hurling stronghold of Semple Stadium in Thurles and Clones in Monaghan spring to mind as good examples of regional stadiums.

It speaks volumes for the quality of the people running a huge amateur organization when you compare them to their counterparts in the FAI.

This supposedly professional body has made a complete shambles soccer at local and national level, despite the great years of success in the 80’s and 90’s. The FAI never capitalized on the high profile and success that Jack Charlton brought to the team and the country. The incompetent imbeciles that parade as professional administrators in the FAI could take a lesson from what the soccer brigade sneer at as the Grab All Association.

It could be more correctly described as the Give Away Association when one sees the funds that filter down to ground level, creating high standard amenities in every little village and town land, whilst the soccer clubs are still togging out behind the ditch and the national team is homeless!

The some what archaic administration system where the existence of County Boards, Provincial Councils, and Central Council management tiers is often criticized for the inability to move issues along quickly. There is more than a degree of truth in that, and this has often led to stalemate in trying to reach important decisions. None more so than the thorny and controversial decision to open Croke Park to facilitate the playing of soccer and rugby, games that were once alien to GAA culture because of the British occupation of Ireland at the founding time of the Association in 1884.

This mindset was reinforced by the memory of a barbaric act by the British forces in 1921 when they entered Croke Park in armoured cars, and opened fire on both spectators and players without warning. Thirteen people were killed on that day of shame, including one player, Michael Hogan, whom the Hogan Stand is now named after.

Thereafter, members of the British forces were not allowed to be members of the GAA. As the state evolved into what it now is, a Republic of Ireland of 26 counties and a separate 6-county province of Ulster, governed by the British, the ban applied up until recent years to members of the then RUC (now the PSNI ).

The most controversial aspect of the GAA rules that carried through from the 1920’s was what was known as the “Ban”. This rule prevented players of Gaelic games participating in what were termed “foreign games”, this meaning soccer and rugby. These two games were considered to be British games and therefore alien to Irish culture. It was the most ridiculous rule ever invented by the GAA and was broken so many times, by so many different methods, that public opinion forced the organization to revoke the rule in 1972.

That the rule lasted that long is not something of which the GAA should be proud.

Thus, the controversy about opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby was rooted in the events of many years ago. It took three years to get the motion approved to allow this to happen, and showed that history can be a great restrainer of progress. However, happen it did and one of the great memories of this scribe was watching Ireland beat England in the 6-Nations Rugby Championship at Croke Park in 2006 at a packed and indescribable cauldron of emotion and pride.

Let it be written in stone so that none may forget. Gaelic games are the face of what make Ireland wonderful and unique. We should, as a nation, be intensely proud of the GAA and therefore proud of ourselves as individuals involved in any role that may be as a mentor, supporter or player.

Roll on the summer of 2008!

We can handle the January blues with the mere thought of the joys that might be ahead.

The LIE That is IRISH PUBLIC SERVICE

2008-03-27T11:30:00.000Z

The most incorrect term for workers employed by the Irish state is that of “public servant”. The title suggests that they carry out their duties in their place of employment, be they gardai, nurses, teachers, county council employees, tax officials, or ( the old favourite) clerical workers, in a manner that serves the public in an efficient, fair and courteous manner. The title is an abomination of what it appears to portray, or what it should portray. Public servants are there to serve the public and are paid by them.

In thousands of little cameos ever day in this country there are examples of how the reverse is true.
From over zealous taxmen, to petty health officials and Gardai that thinks their uniform entitles to act like Hitler by dishing out punishment for the most diminutive misdemeanors whilst ignoring the real crime that would be too much of a problem to tackle, we are financing the most lazy and incompetent so called public service in the world. And that is before the breathtaking arrogance of some of these people and their representatives, the union leeches, are even taken into account.
Ireland has the highest amount of public servants per capita in all of the EU states and most likely, if it were checked, in the entire world. They make up 20% of the entire Irish workforce! An incredible statistic that when one ponders about it, is quite frightening.
Who are all these people? Where are they? What do they do?
One fifth of the working population is employed to service the beauracratic needs of the other four fifths, needs mostly created by that 20% in endless regulations and red tape scenarios that are a hopeless illustration of their worth to their employer, the Government, and most of all to their paymaster, poor Joe and Joan Soap, the taxpaying public of Ireland.
Ever since Charlie Mc Creevey lifted the ban on public service recruitment in the late nineties, the biggest employment growth sector in Ireland, even exceeding the construction industry, has been the Public Service. It is also now the highest paid mainstream employment sector, some 40% ahead of the average Irish industrial wage and way above the European average, of course.
This situation has managed to evolve largely because of the ludicrous Benchmarking Process when Bertie Ahern caved into the union demands some years ago in a withering surrender designed to keep him in power. If the Labour Party had been in power they could have not done such a good job.
The legacy is of course a completely bloated public sector pay bill that the economy was just about able to handle in the good times, but will in the future become the Great Nightmare now that reality is coming down the tracks with not even a light on it. And, of course, the last that will suffer are the incompetents that occupy the lofty perches of the public service.

Have you noticed the increasing public debate that is slowing becoming louder on the policy of the current Government (or is that lack of policy?) on the thorny issue of immigration. Irish Independent columnist, Kevin Myers, has sparked a bit of liberal uproar by suggesting that Ireland should enforce an immediate
ban on immigration within the thresholds of our legal commitments to the EU policy on the matter. The facts are that Ireland operates a wide open gate to nationalities of all shades and creeds to enter this country. They do not seem to have set any boundaries on the limits that should apply. Kevin Myers is right. This short-sightedness now is going to have massive implications for Irish society down the line in a decade or more.
We do not have any moral obligation to loosely open our borders to all and sundry just because when times were hard, we emigrated to other countries, such as America and the UK. We don’t owe Nigerians, for example, a living because our descendants worked in America or Australia or wherever. We owe them nothing and the pious attitude taken by Irish NGOs is naive to say the least.
Ireland is hard put to look after our own and, as stated above, will be even more so now that the economy has slowed down. To refuse entry to people with doubtful credentials is not racism. To consider our own needs first and foremost is not racism. We have an eminent bunch of do–gooders in this country that seem to think that if we are not absolutely open and inviting we deserve to be labeled with the ‘R’ word. These mouthpieces are generally well heeled, well educated, considered to be academic and totally removed from the harsh reality of modern Irish life. They sip wine and pontificate at art exhibitions and envelope openings about the enchanted overview we as a nation must have. Do not be specific, just generalize please. It makes it so much less painful.
Their attitude might become more specific when their little Johnny or Jane arrive home and announce that they are going to marry Raja, or Mutu, who are from just down the road (the Kandashar or Nairobi road, that is). Just watch them choke on their cheese and wine then!
At least Tourism Ireland might be happy. All these inter racial relationships will surely increase the numbers taking an Ireland vacation. Ireland Travel Information will have to set up new offices in the Congo and Brazil. The Four Seasons hotel in Ballasbridge will be inundated with enquiries for their ‘Pamper Packages” and Thornton’s Restaurant will be booked out for the year.

Happy Days !!

WHAT HOPE IRELAND’S BANKS?

2008-03-20T10:39:00.000Z

On the 17th March that great American financial institution, Bear Sterns, effectively collapsed and had to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve in a scenario not entirely unlike what happened in the UK with Northern Rock bank. It has been dubbed as the Paddy’s’ Day massacre

The difference was that while the Federal Reserve - the American equivalent of the European Central Bank (ECB) - done so in partnership with another giant American bank, JP Morgan, in the UK the British Government stepped and actually guaranteed the depositors funds. Northern rock is now probably the safest bank in the world in which to put your money. It also has an Irish branch in Dublin and this British guarantee applies to Irish depositors whose savings are lodged there.
You may well ask what has all this to do with the ordinary Joe and Joan Mc Soap in Ireland. They are going about their business, putting some money away in various institutions and stocks, bonds and ordinary savings. Some may be on company pensions. Some may have their cash locked up in a capital-guaranteed product with some of the Irish banks, earning a low but steady return and allowing them to sleep peacefully at night.
Yet others, who may consider themselves more financially astute, have invested in complex products with their broker or financial adviser.
So, the current meltdown in the world’s financial markets has everything to do with the future of the Mc Soaps in rural or city Ireland. It is time to head to the pharmacy and get some strong sleeping pills. You may need them if cold sweat interruptions to your sleep are to be avoided.
Two weeks ago, Irish investors in a Friends First bond which was packaged by the now defunct ITSC lost every cent of their investment when ITSC ran into liquidity problems caused in no small measure by the sub-prime lending crisis that started in America.
This crisis erupted when greedy American banks issued mortgages to people at very high interest rates because the borrowers were high risk. The banks however figured that they had weighed the risk correctly and, while there would be a higher level of defaults, the high interest rates on those loans that were repaid would more than compensate for that downside. Just to be sure, however, they securitized (sold on) these loans to other banks worldwide to reduce their exposure.
It is a bit like a bookie laying off a big bet that they cannot handle if it were to come off.
The American banks were wrong. Defaults were huge. The NINJA’s, as the borrowers were known, (No Income No Job No Assets), didn’t pay the money back and never will. And when that happened banks all round the world, including Ireland, were left holding the baby as these securitized loan packages became weapons of mass financial destruction. Billions and billions were lost by banks.
Lack of trust and confidence has now developed to the point where wholesale banks are refusing to lend to each other - an essential trading activity that keeps the wheels of commerce moving.
The knock-on effects are potentially disastrous for everybody from the greatest movers and shakers to the ordinary Joe and Joan.
Share prices in banks and construction companies have nose-dived. That pension you were planning on to retire to Spain is shrinking away. The actions of greedy and irresponsible banks in offering loans to people who had a poor credit history will destroy the value of your pension.
Here in Ireland, the PR people are spinning soothing expressions of confidence in our main banks. We have no problems, they say. We are not exposed to any possible liquidity problems, they murmur calmly. This at a time when the stock market value of Irish banks is a third of what it was a year ago. No problems?
What nonsense!
It is of course a front designed to keep the confidence of their customers. In the back office, you can bet your life there is panic.
And if they are panicking, then you should be having heart attacks.
If a run comes on an Irish bank and it collapses you get between 5% and 20% of your deposits back at most. And you will wait for it.
It is laughable at times to see how institutions and politicians delude themselves into thinking that Ireland is somehow insulated from the problems of the world because of our great economic achievements as a small nation in the last 15 years. The accidental Celtic Tiger has coated us with the lacquer of invincibility, it seems.
Let us spell out the reality. One week ago, Bear Stearns had assets under management equal to eight times the GDP of Ireland! Today they are no more.

Our advices is take your money from your bank and lodge it in Northern Rock.
The British taxpayer is paying to guarantee you that it is safe.
It will save you a trip to the pharmacy for those sleeping tablets!

A Saint Patrick’s Morning : A poem for a dear friend of mine

2008-03-19T13:34:00.000Z

The sun rises and gives off a glorious red hue,
the splendor which bathes the promising east.
Saint Patrick’s Day slowly creeps to life
As Ireland prepares to celebrate his feast.
The nurse moves silently around his bed
checking the many drips on a listless arm
that once had the power and strength
to tackle the hardest chore on the farm

On a cold and bright Saint Patrick’s Day
this man nourishes no desire or aspirations
to share his nurses cheery vision of how
she will partake in the day’s celebrations
another pulls the curtains and sunlight arrives
without invite or welcome to his sunken eyes.
He can muster only a cough to register his protest
that goes unheard among the gossip and the lies

More voices now converse loudly about him
careless and abstract as though he was not there.
Isolated by plumy tones of rich medical jargon
his miscomprehension a comfort blanket threadbare.
Dignity leaves you without smile or wave in this place
and tranquility is not yet the expected welcome guest
that comforts you in this surrendering dimension
and accompanies you to your one last harvest

He speaks little now, perfunctory is more convenient
than to give stature to false and optimistic platitude.
His mind is floundering in a deep dark forest of recess,
searching for the distant sunny clearing of gratitude.
Failing, for he is proud, and noble were his ways.
Of fair dealings, no man with a lie can ever unravel.
Transparency was his castle built high on a hill.
Decency and honour the avenue covered in finest gravel.

PADDY’S DAY – DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT!

2008-03-13T10:07:00.000Z

Next Monday is St. Patrick’s Day – and the publicans rub their hands in glee. You see they hate it when it falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday because the weekend is not latched onto it, and therefore turnover, and hence profits falls down.
We mention the publicans first, not out of any malice towards them, but rather to get the priorities in their correct order when it comes to describing the manner by which the majority of people celebrate the Holy Day of their Patron Saint.

Frankly, this scribe finds the whole parade business a lot of bullshit. Trucks, tractors, vans and jeeps pull tacky, garrulous floats up and the cities and towns of the country. The streets are lined with freezing cold children who are pissed off after the first ten floats pass by and want to go somewhere else.
Those who are not freezing on the footpaths are slowly dying of hypothermia standing on the back of some grossly themed display that nobody can understand, but may have some deep artistic meaning known only to those who devised it in the first place.
In many cases, the only reason that adults are lining the route along with the kids is because of the booze-up that will take place all day afterwards in the bars and hotels throughout the country. You will later that night find those same freezing kids asleep in the corner of some pub whilst their auld fella drunkenly sings a rebel song by which to remember St Patrick.
The parade will have high-kicking American high school bands and every conceivable brass band that exists in the country will be out in force. This is their glory day and a perfect opportunity to show their talents to what they wrongly perceive to be an adoring public. Every voluntary organization from sports clubs to scouts will dress up and make the effort to enjoy being gawked at by the crowds on the pavements. The only reason they are there at all is that some local busybody with plenty of time on their hands (think public servant) has decreed that the town must have a parade. It doesn’t matter about the quality, just get the quantity. Oh, the madness of it all!
Have you ever tried to go anywhere on a Paddy’s Day in Ireland? Actually drive somewhere in the country when you logically think that the road are quiet and free of trucks and commuter traffic.
Maybe you wanted to visit your mother in Ballydehob, or your grandchildren in Kiltimagh, instead of getting pissed out of your brains down at the local.
How do you get there? Every town and village across the state has a parade. They all start at different times, usually from 11am to 4 pm. There is traffic chaos in and around these places as the parade first lines up on the outskirts of the venue, and then proceeds at a snails pace past some local dignitaries (probably more public servants) standing on the back of a trailer in the middle of town.
So you sit there in your car, fuming as some jumped-up local community volunteer, elevated way beyond his status by the wearing of a high-viz jacket, tells you cannot move for an hour because of this very important event.
The country towns are the worst offenders for the quality of the parades. Anybody who has a business in the area, particularly if it involves wheels, is encouraged to come along.
It is probably an ego upper to be asked to partake in the first place, so Mickey Joe with his ten identical tippers trucks will put the whole lot on show, all clean and shiny.
Not to be outdone, John Joe, who owns the local skip hire business, will lash a dozen identical skip trucks into the convoy.
Of course, Willie Joe, with his agri-machinery business, will get star billing with combine harvesters and tractors with all sorts of contraptions attached to them. Naturally, Willie Joe will be piloting the lead machine and because of the slow pace of the parade, he roars down to potential customers along the footpath. Never one to miss a sales opportunity is our Willie Joe. The kids in crowd go wild when he invites some of them on board and the farmers whisper enviously on the street about the cost of the fancy equipment he has on display.
Add to that, every car-dealer in the area will have all their models on display in every available color, resulting in a tailback akin to what would be on the M50 on a Friday evening.
Meanwhile, you the unfortunate hoor that just wants to see your mother or grand children are forced to watch and wait whilst all this unfolds slowly in front of your unadoring eyes.
When you finally get moving, you are not on the road for twenty minutes when lo and behold another high-viz power junkie waves you to a halt at the edge of a village and the whole exercise is repeated.
Except, this time it is worse, because in addition to the local entries in this parade, you realize that the cars, trucks and skips from the last parade have made their way from the last place joined in as well! This is common practice in rural areas and ensures that the last parade in a particular county will be the longest
So there are you stuck again, having a Groudhog St. Patrick’s Day experience all over again.
Willie Joe is there again, sure enough, and him still roaring out of the combine harvester. Not that you can hear anything of course, because Mickey Joes’s tippers have mighty powerful air horns. Star attraction in this town is those twenty-three artics and trailers belonging to local hero, Paddy Joe’s International Transport and his air-horns are even louder than them feckers in the tippers!

You curse yourself for not going to your own local pub and getting pissed like everybody else. You are now stranded halfway to your destination and with no chance of seeing the mother or the grandchildren.
You are left with no alternative but to do a u-turn and head back home.
Just to put he finishing touches to your Paddy’s Day, a couple of miles out the road another high-viz jacket appears at a roadblock and informs you that you are 30 kilometres over the speed limit and dishes out a ticket and two penalty points!

Sure isn’t St. Patrick’s Day great crack altogether!

PAISLEY: WHY NOT THEN RATHER THAN NOW ?

2008-03-10T11:14:00.001Z

So, big Ian Paisley retired from politics at last. Dr. No, the most aptly applied moniker to the thundering preacher, left the Northern Ireland political scene through the side door rather than the marble exit as the forces of negativity in his own party got their way.

To judge by the acres of newsprint devoted to his leaving last week, one would think that Paisley was some sort of a saint, on whom praise was heaped for the wonderful achievements in a lifetime of work in the fiery cauldron of Northern Ireland politics.

There is no doubt that the last few years in Ulster politics have been hard to digest. Almost forty years of conflict, terror and massive loss of life across both Catholic and Protestant communities ended with Paisley as First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly and his arch-nemesis, Martin McGuiness of Sinn Fein, as his deputy leader.

Five years ago if somebody dared to predict such a scenario, they would immediately be carried away by the men in the white coats and never seen again.

It is without doubt astounding to see what has happened since the St. Andrews Agreement was signed two years ago. Decades of negotiation and intervention by American Presidents and political leaders, such as George Mitchell, failed to bring the two sides to any agreement. When it appeared on so many occasions that a final deal was about to be struck, Dr. No said exactly that and failure was a certainty.

Ever since the extremist DUP, led by Paisley, routed the more moderate UUP in various elections and became the Loyalist standard-bearers, the future of Northern Ireland seemed destined for more decades of decay. Exactly the same scenario was occurring on the Nationalist side of the fence where Sinn Fein created a powerful voting machine in working-class areas of the North to overcome the moderate SDLP and become the hard voice of the Republican movement.

Moderation was replaced by polar opposite extremity. Those watching on sidelines could not contemplate the possibility that anything remotely positive would happen in Northern politics because of the differences and historical hatred between the two sides.

Yet, incredibly, it did. The two sides settled down to working on practical day-to-day issues and genuine political problems. Paisley and McGuiness became known as the “Chuckle Brothers” such was the warmth of their working relationship.

Paisley came to Dublin, all smiles and bonhomie, to greet Bertie Ahern as though the man was a life-long friend.

The world looked on in amazement. This was a modern-day conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. The immovable object that was Ian Paisley had seen the light on the M1 to Dublin! We rubbed our eyes in disbelief.

We were not alone. So too did the members of the DUP. What they saw was betrayal by an ageing and unwell egotist that wanted a grand epitaph on his tombstone. After years of being the hard-line bigot that blocked every peace initiative, Paisley had melted like ice cream in the summer sun as he prepared to meet his maker.

Peter Robinson and his cohorts wanted rid of him before any more harm was done. So, Big Ian and little Ian were shown the door last week no matter what way it was purveyed by the spin-doctors. The red flag of Ulster conveniently hid the knives in both their backs.

It was in retrospect no more than Paisley deserved. He should not be remembered grandly or graciously by history. His was the loud, inciting and unreasonable voice of prejudice when the troubles started in 1968.

The denial of civil rights to the minority Catholic population by the people and institutions he represented lit the fire that was to follow. Paisley and his “No Surrender” outpourings fanned the flames. His malignant influence created the loyalist terror gangs on the streets and the political thugs in chambers of power that undone the efforts of moderate and good men to bring peace about in those early years of conflict.

The real heroes of the torturous and protracted journey to where Northern Ireland stands today were conveniently forgotten last week in the hype surrounding Paisley’s conversion and departure.

The courage of John Hume to take the quiet, but momentous, step of engaging in secret talks with the IRA in 1994 kick-started this whole process. His name barely received a mention in all the demented rhetoric last week.

The ability of the leaders and doers in the Republican movement to convince their members to a cease-fire first in 1994, and then to give up their arms before any concessions from the Loyalist Para-militaries, are the foundations on which the existing power-sharing assembly is built.

When all the hard, ungrateful work was being done in the years since then, Paisley stood in the middle of the narrow road to peace, arms held wide, obstructing and halting the journey at every opportunity. Only at the last moment did he make concessions

Why he changed attitude so dramatically we will never know. Senility or conscience perhaps? Alternatively, the desire to be remembered benignly in the history books of the schoolchildren not yet born.

Shed no tears at his forced departure or sing no songs of praise.

Paisley had the power to this in 1974, not 2008.

A last minute conversion will not dismantle the structure of hatred and division that he built in his time.

He chose to use his influence not in search of peace but the pursuit of intolerance.

A suitable epitaph, perhaps?

ARM THE POLICE AND SHOOT THE BASTARDS!

2008-03-07T09:23:00.000Z

The recent tragic and horrifying killings of two Polish men in Drimnagh, Dublin brings us back to a topic that we mentioned some weeks ago in our series of “10 THINGS THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT AN IRELAND VACATION”.

Two innocent young men, going about their business were attacked for no apparent reason and stabbed to death with screwdrivers by a gang of up to 20 youths, male and female, outside a chipper. The fact that they were Polish was only incidental to the matter – they could have been anybody.

By coincidence, Bertie Ahern was on a visit to Poland when this happened and the incident prompted him to go on TV there and sympathize with the Polish people about the loss of their two young compatriots.

We have no problem with Bertie doing that – it is mere good manners and whether he was in Poland or Ireland, he would be expected to state those sentiments. It is what he added to those comments that make the blood boil.

He emphasized that this was not the Ireland that he knew and this sort of violence was isolated and was not to be taken as a reflection of life in Ireland.

Are you for real Bertie? Do you ever go out at night apart from crossing the road to Fagans pub, escorted by your entourage of Special Branch agents? Does nobody in your massive pool of advisors ever tell you what the real Ireland is like after dark?

When your own Minister of Defence, Willie O’Dea, is not himself brawling in some Limerick pub, would he not enlighten you about the mean streets of our towns and cities around the country?

What about asking your Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, whose brief includes being in charge of the Gardai, for some information as to the real facts of what life is like for many unfortunate communities and individuals in Irish villages towns and cities?

If an accurate answer is given – which is unlikely- you will be told of old people being terrorized in their homes, of decent people being attacked on the streets by groups of yobbos who record the savagery on their mobile phones, of young couples out for a night being left for dead after being targeted by these scumbags.

You should be told of the horror of a family being told in the middle of the night that their son or daughter is brain-damaged after the work of these sub-human animals.

Can you imagine what that family and victims have to live with for the rest of their life?

When the headlines (if there are any) subside, can you begin to realize what the implications are for any family who now have a vegetable for a son or daughter who once brought sunshine and light into their lives? In a moment of blind madness, their circumstances are forever changed.

The parents and siblings become carers and all the dreams, aspirations and happy occasions that they imagined for their child evaporate just like the hot air you produce when you glibly pass off what happened in Drimnagh as “isolated”.

The truth is there are Drimnaghs every night of the week in Ireland. Not all end in death, although that would be the intention. Many end much worse, and do not even warrant a mention in the local media.

There is now an underclass in Ireland created by the monster of drink, drugs and lack of policing that regard random violence as recreation –something to do to highlight the night out – and have no remorse or emotion about the consequences of their actions.

We have said it here before; you fight fire with fire.

You Bertie, Brian and Willie have a duty of care to the law-abiding citizens of this country. Bring in a bill to arm the police. Ignore the moaning and whining you will hear from the civil liberties gang – just do it!

In addition, do what you have promised so often and increase those police numbers to what is needed to ensure that this cancer stops spreading.

Instead of cops stopping old men driving home after a couple of pints in their local, go arm them and put those same cops on the streets of Drimnagh and all its counterparts.

And so what if they shoot a scumbag who threatens violence on innocent people?

We don’t want any enquiries. Just give the cop a medal and tell them to go do more of the same.

Then, and only then, Bertie you might find yourself in a position to say that such incidents as Drimnagh are isolated.

In the meantime do not insult the victims, and those left to mourn and care for them, with your glib lies that all is well on the streets of Ireland. You do the country no service.

WHAT A HORRIBLE COUNTRY IRELAND CAN BE

2008-03-03T10:09:00.001Z

The state and all its machinations is a very powerful enemy. Try fighting Ireland in the courts of our land over an issue that may set precedent for further action against it and you will soon know that the force is against you.
The fully armed battalions of government power will mobilize to crush the individual as surely as the foot of an elephant will crush an ant. The massive resources of the overweight bureaucracy, paid for by the taxes of the individual it is going to war with, creates a Goliath that David simply will never overcome.
Take the recent High Court case taken by Wicklow couple, Cian and Yvonne O Cuanachain on behalf of their son, Sean, requesting the State to provide their autistic child with 30 hours per week of specialist therapy known as Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), which is a proven method of individual treatment for autistic children.
At present, such children are taught in select mainstream National Schools in dedicated classes. However there are only 12 of these schools in the country and there is a waiting list of 345 children now for places in such schools.
What the O’Cuanachain family wanted was for the Department of Education to provide the funds and facilities to give these children a better future. They had already paid out thousands of euros to have seven-year old Sean have private ABA therapy because they could see the benefits it was giving him.
Last year, the High Court rejected their claim. Last month, the same High Court rejected their claim for the legal costs of taking the action. It deemed that the 5 million euro bill be carried by the HSE, the Department of Education and the O’Cuanachain family.
The first two will simply rob the taxpayer’s pockets to pay the legal eagles, whilst the unfortunate family, burdened already with the daily ritual of caring for their son, is left with the possibility of losing the roof over their heads to pay their share of the costs.
The reason for all the heavy –hitting artillery employed by the State in the 68-day hearing was not to just conquer this single unfortunate family.
It was to make sure that the precedent was not established to allow the other 345 families step up to the Government dining table to seek the crumbs to which they too would be entitled.
Mary Hanafin, so-called Minister for Education, sitting at the head of this particular table in her obnoxious school-marm arrogant mode, dismissed the concerns of the family and even refused a request to visit a school to see for herself the inadequacy of the current welfare her brief provides for theses children.
So a family that had the courage to fight Goliath Ireland if left crushed like the ants for the sake of what? A 10 million euro bill for proper ABA treatment?
Perhaps, even 20 or 30 million euro that it might cost to care for a tiny minority of citizens that the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland states it has a duty of care to. The family is the cornerstone of our Constitution, the ultimate core value protected by its parameters. Read it – it is there in black and white. Watch- as the State JCB drives over it and smudges the ink and the rights of those families enshrined in that document.
A few years ago, Noel Dempsey was Minister for Education. In a Dail debate on a subject unrelated to his brief, he defended one of the numerous costly follies that the Government had ventured into - and lost vast amounts of money on - as an exercise where “only 50 million euro was lost”. Only 50 million euro, you say! Loose change, you might say. Merely the cost of a consultants report, one would guess.
Yes, the State will crush its own when it thinks the “folly” of a family caring for the needs of their child will dent the Exchequer figures, even by as little as 30 million euro.
In addition, in case the impression given is that I have a political axe to grind with Fianna Fail only, let us quickly correct that by saying:
“Hang your head in shame Michael Noonan, ex-Fine Gael Minister for Health, who used all the legal torture instruments of the State to hound a brave mother and wife, Brigid McCole, to her death in 1995, because of the Hepatitis C blood infection scandal. On her deathbed you offered her a pathetic amount on the basis that she stays quiet and the farthings you offered were “without predejuice” to prevent any precedent being set”

You know something folks.
Ireland is a horrible little country to live in, ran by horrible little people!

INSULAR IRELAND IS ALIVE AND WELL !

2008-02-29T09:32:00.002Z

I love elections. Not just Irish elections - but elections on a global scale. Democracy is a fragile soul – a waif-like creature who is only allowed to give her blessings to one third of the worlds estimated six billion populations.
For that, we should be both grateful and ashamed. Grateful for what we have in democracy for all of its faults. Ashamed that as a member of the United Nations, we participate in a sham of so-called representation of all the worlds sovereign states, and yet allow five of the great powers dominate and control the agenda. An agenda that is designed to ensure that democracy will never will never reach the remaining four billion people on the planet.
I could go on about the United Nations and the veil of silk it wears to hide the running sores but you probably would get as completely pissed off reading about it as we do writing about it.
Instead, let us focus on the American primaries for the US presidential elections in November. It is certainly one of the most exciting races in years, particularly the Democratic nomination contest. Anti-post favourite, Hillary Clinton, looks in grave danger of being caught on the final uphill furlong by Obama. John McCain on the Republican side looks home and dry having at one point early in the campaign being on the verge of quitting because of lack of funding.
So what does all of this mean for us here in Ireland?
A good friend of mine surprised me during the week when questioned about his views on the US elections. He claimed to have no interest in them at all, stating that we had enough to do about running our own country to be wasting time watching the Americans go through their admittedly torturous procedure of electing their President.
The reason for our surprise was that this was intelligent guy who ran his own business, which supplied outsourced computer services to about ten multi-national companies in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. Eight of the ten companies were American!
Yet this businessman professed no interest whatsoever in the policies or promises of any candidate in relation to Ireland. He felt that once the peace process in the North had settled in there would be no interest in Ireland by American politicians, as they had no gains to make by making Ireland an issue.
If he had taken the time to study the matter, he would realize that the opposite is true. Ireland is an issue but not in the beneficial sense. Hillary Clinton has long promised that if she gets into power she will impose a 30% tax on American multi-nationals who base themselves in low tax environments to avoid paying US taxes.
Any American companies based in Ireland only pay 12.5% tax on profits to the Irish state coffers at present and none in the US as there is a place a bi-lateral taxation agreement in place between the two countries.
Whether Clinton is elected or not will not matter. The US is heading into deep recession and whether it is McCain or Obama who occupies the Oval office instead of Clinton, making wealthy foreign-based companies pay more tax at home is a popular proposal.
American companies are well known for artificially boosting their profits in a low tax regime such as Ireland. If they are going to be hit with a 30% tax on those profits this country will suddenly become a much less attractive place to do business.
The grey suits in these companies will do the numbers and arrive at a cold ruthless conclusion; there are better places to be than here.
I thinks it is time that our good friend starting taking a more active interest in American politics!

WHY BUILD ANOTHER STADIUM IN DUBLIN?

2008-02-25T10:45:00.002Z

Last Saturday the Irish rugby team played Scotland in Croke Park, in heart of north side Dublin. Since the first games of rugby were played in Croke Park in 2007, following the decision of the GAA to allow games other than Gaelic games be played there, there have been many wonderful highly charged occasions following the Irish rugby team.
The most notable and inspiring game was when Ireland beat England in February 2007. This scribe was lucky enough to be present at what was a wonderful sporting occasion that did more for Anglo-Irish relations than decades of political arguments had failed to achieve.
The first game of rugby played at Croke Park two weeks before the England encounter resulted in a last minute robbery try by France, which ultimately deprived us of the Grand Slam.
After that, things went downhill and we had a disastrous World Cup in France of which enough has been said already.
Italy played in Croke Park in the first of the Six Nations championship and Ireland scraped home against them. France then gave us a walloping in Paris and we now arrive at the Scotland game needing to win.
The form of the team is not the point we are trying to arrive at; instead, one only has to look at the interest for the game to realize that Croke Park was full to the rafters with over 82,000 people. Tickets were like gold dust, even with an obnoxious 100-euro price tag. The rugby brigade is a hardy animal and will support the team through thick and thin, irrespective of the importance or not of the game.
Croke Park, particularly after that historic English game has become a new home to the Irish rugby team, almost a temple indeed, because of the manner of that victory and all the political ramifications that went with it.
With the price of the tickets as a barometer, the GAA are obviously cleaning up and laughing all the way to the bank.
The supporters, many of whom would break every traffic light in Drumcondra on their way to the airport, such was their fear of the area, are now happily downing pints in Quinns and The Big Tree and even in Fagans, Berties favourite watering hole after a tough day at the Mahon Tribunal.
In short, the rugby crowd has taken to Croke Park like ducks to water and why wouldn’t they? It is one of the best stadiums in Europe and yet in their ostrich-like position with their head in the sand, the IRFU are building a mini Croke Park at Landsdowne Road that will only hold half of the capacity of the Drumcondra venue.
Is there no degree of common sense amongst blazers in both organizations to do a deal and keep Croke Park as the main rugby venue?
It is too late now of course, but I feel that if the IRFU and the GAA know now what they didn’t know then, you can be sure Landsdowne Road would be a building site – for offices and apartments!

5 and 6 of 10 THINGS THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT AN IRELAND VACATION.

2008-02-18T12:15:00.000Z

5. The dangers of driving in Ireland: Ireland has one of the worst road accident fatality rates in Europe despite numerous campaigns to stop the carnage by the Road Safety Authority (RSA). There are many factors involved in trying to identify the causes and isolate the segment of the population that contributes to these horrific accidents.
The one common denominator that that stands out is that the majority of deaths are of young people under the age of 25.
The other compelling statistic is that most deaths take place between midnight and 8am.
A third element that stands out is that approximately 20% of the accidents in which there is a fatality involve non-nationals – mostly east Europeans from Poland, Leftie, Romania and other neighbouring countries in that region.
Drink and drugs, combined with the irresponsibility of certain sections of our adolescent society, along with high-powered cars, small as they might be, lead to the creation of a lethal cocktail that invites disaster. In the past number of years the incidents of tourists on an Ireland vacation, being involved in fatal car crashes has increased year on year with many more suffering serious injuries.
Driving in Ireland is fraught with danger so just be careful out there!

6. Do not get sick whilst on an Ireland Vacation: Before departing on your vacation to Ireland, make sure to have a thorough medical check up. Any little problems you might have that have a possibility of flaring up in Ireland, get them sorted.
The Irish healthcare system is the worst in the world. In poorest Africa, they have better care facilities. Our hospitals are an unmitigated disaster zone, particularly in the A+E area. There is not enough of staff to manage what would be considered the normal daily problems that any hospital could expect.
If you, as a visitor to Ireland, have the gross misfortune to have to go to an A+E department of any Irish hospital then prepare yourself for a nightmare. You will be left waiting for hours on end in a crowded waiting area. The extent of your injuries, or illness, will not merit any speedy response above those who may have less pressing problems.
On average, you will wait 7-8 hours before a harassed junior doctor will see you. He or she will make an initial diagnosis and tell you that they will try to find a bed for you and will be right back with some medication. You will never see them again.
Many hours later, an orderly might appear and tell you the good news that a bed has been secured for you. He will then tell you that it is a temporary bed, which turns out be a trolley, on which you will lie on for at least four days, parked in a narrow draughty corridor with people rushing by ignoring your plaintive pleas for help. Your loved ones will visit and make angry requests for better treatment for you. The response will be a vacant stare and a Gallic-type shrug of the shoulders, an utter indifference to the torture you are going through.
Such is the Irish healthcare system.
You have been warned!

The Irish Patient

2008-02-18T12:14:00.001Z

In 1996, British director, Anthony Minghella, had a massive hit with his film, The English Patient, a tale of love, lust and the horror of war set in Italy towards the end of World War 11. The film, which won nine Academy Awards, and deservedly so, and starred Ralph Fiennes. The film depicted the triumph of love in the midst of the torture and terror of war that engenders awful depravity in human beings. .
We are reminded of that thought-provoking film this week by the announcement that the Irish Film Institute has commissioned a film to be called The Irish Patient. This has no connection with the above film or novel.
The film is set in Ireland, a wealthy country located in northwest Europe. The film, which has an over-18 rating, will in our view, find it difficult to pass the scrutiny of the Film Censorship Board such is the high content level of horror and violence.
The plot is a little far-fetched to sustain credibility. It is based on a 1981 novel by noted fantasy author C.J. Haughey, (1925-2006) called The Tightening of the Belt. Producer, Albert Ahern, a confessed fan of all Haugheys’s works, has allowed considerable artistic licence to director Mary Harney to expand the theme.
Harney is, of course, well known from previous hit movies such as No More Smoking Chimney Stacks (1987) which really got her noticed in LA. She got two Oscar nominations for the 1998 unforgettable thriller that struck terror into the heart of taxi drivers in much the same way as Fatal Attraction did to wandering husbands, Deregulate the Bastards! This really set her on her way to success.
The Irish Patient portrays what can happen to a wealthy, smug, middle-class society when a very rare virus, called HSE, breaks out in this island nation of four million people.
HSE is a disease of the brain, thought to have originated in the island of Madagascar, off the African coast. Returning missionaries and health care workers unwittingly bring the disease into Ireland where it wreaks havoc in a chilling and most unusual way. HSE is a selective killer attacking the brain of medical and administrative health workers and Government civil servants. Death is a slow tortuous process as the brain cells melt away over a prolonged period. We do not want to spoil the cinema experience for our readers by giving away too much of the storyline, but suffice it to say that this is not for the faint-hearted. As the HSE attacks the brain, delusion combined with denial of this delusion creeps into the unfortunate victim. Doctors imagine that they are working in the Third World and act accordingly. They complain that their equipment is out of date, some of it is twenty years old, they shriek maddeningly. Health officials, meanwhile, are affected by particularly virulent strains of HSE causing them to close down hospitals and refuse admission to those whom the doctors deem not sick enough. But - and here is where Harney excels at twisting the knife and subjecting the viewer to mental agony - the doctors are no longer able to judge whether their patients are well or not. Their brains are disintegrating and they no longer have the ability to function properly. Chaos reigns and there are some terrible scenes which fully justify the over-18 cert.
Patients lie moaning and screaming on trolleys, the hospital cleaners won’t do any cleaning and stench and filth emanate from the operating theatres. Hospital porters become so deluded that they think they are now radiologists, and in a particularly harrowing chapter of the film, hundreds of women are recalled because they were given incorrect results of breast cancer screens, analyzed presumably by the porters. Unfortunate women are now told that they have cancer having been given the all clear months earlier. Scenes of heartbreak and emotion are too much to take at times, but Harney is gifted at projecting fantasy as reality. However, she may in some peoples eyes have overstepped the mark with The Irish Patient, and many critics feel it is not ethical to project such unrealistic images.
The disease spreads quickly throughout the country. Riots and panic erupt in the mid-west and the police are forced to baton charge an angry crowd in Westport. Many people are injured but unfortunately there are no ambulances to bring them to hospital as the medical administrators, now in the last throes of the awful disease, refuse to put fuel in the ambulances and instead put the funds into their pension plans. We would be acting unfairly to reveal any more of the plot but suffice it to say it gets worse.
Ahern, the producer, has stated to Variety magazine that he feels The Irish Patient is his best work, but the critics have savaged the movie, branding it as implausible and too much over the top for a horror movie. Ahern has taken umbrage at such criticism and threatened not to make any more movies. He indicated that was going to retire at 60 anyway, and said he didn’t give a damn what the critics and film goers thought about him.
As for Harney, given her previous success with unlikely material – Don’t Tell The Tanaiste springs to mind - do not be surprised if The Irish Patient horror movie defies the critics and is a box office success.
All we can say is just hope that the HSE bug never becomes a reality.
Sleep well!

PRACTICE NOT WHAT YOU PREACH !

2008-02-04T14:56:00.000Z

We live in an Ireland that is experiencing incredible change. Cultural, social, economic and religious values now have different barometers. Migration to this country has created a multi-coloured mural of interaction in all areas of society from the home to the school and workplace.
Alas, in one segment of Irish life the more things change, the more they remain the same.
We speak about an institution with a venerable veneer that now ranks lower in the league of the Machiavellian arts of deceit, dishonour and denial than the Pentagon.
The Roman Catholic Church, of course, always worked in an under-handed and facile fashion, particularly in this God fearing island that we inhabit.
As we write today, on the Feast of St Brigid, we learn that former archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, is attempting to secure a high court injunction to prevent the Commission of Enquiry into clerical child abuse from accessing 5000 documents in his possession relating to various cases.
Connell is now retired, aged 81, and yet he continues to behave just as he did when he was in power. This so-called academic of the cloth, aloof and arrogant in all his mannerisms and pronouncements, presided over a diocese where priests routinely abused children in the most awful manner.
The victims of this abuse – many of whom took their own lives because of it- were overwhelmed by the relentless power of the Drumcondra crosiers when they tried to get justice, led by this two-faced coward, whose only action when informed of abuses was to move the offending cleric to another parish where fresh opportunities lay.
It is no wonder then that he will use every available resource to keep his hands on those 5000 documents. The legal obstacle course that he has now constructed will probably buy him a few years. He may be dead by the time the contents of the documents are revealed, if they are indeed ever revealed. It may be his most fervent wish that he will have passed from this Valley of Tears before the truth is out.
However, let us all hope this will not be the case. It would be nice to see the hypocrite humbled, brought down from his gold-leafed pulpit to face the ordinary people his intellect openly disdains.
The perpetrators of the abuse, sick and twisted people that they were, used the power of the cloth to intimidate and silence their victims. In the suppressed society created by the likes of Connell, and McQuaid way before him, there was no avenue of rebuttal for the victims, not even in their own home.
Credence was the weapon of the Church, moral authority the enforcer and ignorance the weakness of the flock. It was no contest.
The greater sin was for those on high to know, and then to ignore. Combine this unholy alliance and you give birth to consent. This is the only implication that logic allows.
Now Connell and his ilk, bereft of their once powerful cloth, seek a new weapon and another alliance, even more unholy. The Common law and Canon Law will create a potent elixir of distraction in the search for the truth. It will probably buy all the time Connell needs to depart this life festooned with suitable theological epitaphs from his peers.
During his time in office as Cardinal of Dublin and Primate of All-Ireland, matters of clerical abuse were passed on to a senior Cardinal in the Vatican, appointed specifically to deal with such unpleasant business.
His name was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Now where have I heard that name before?

3&4 of The 10 things they don't tell you

2008-01-31T15:17:00.000Z

3. Dublin Airport. For the first time visitor to Ireland, your initial impression of the country starts with your airport experience. It is the same when you visit any country. Airports by their very nature are busy places and the test of an efficient and smoothly operating airport is the levels of stress that the traveler experiences getting in our out of the place.

Be prepared for a zoo at Dublin Airport! If you have never visited the country, and are thinking of doing so, look at alternative methods of entering the country. If you are on an Ireland vacation from America or Canada, fly to London and take a shuttle back to Cork, Shannon or Belfast in order to avoid a chaotic experience at Dublin. If that is not an option, get a ferry from the UK to Dublin Port. If that doesn’t work, then swim the Irish Sea!

Believe us here, any of the above means of avoiding Dublin, the Calcutta of the aviation world, will be more convenient than arriving or departing the place.

Dublin Airport is trying, unsuccessfully, to handle three times as many passengers as it is designed to take. Designed is, of course, is the wrong word. Nothing to do with Dublin Airport was ever designed, or planned, other than on the back of some wet toilet paper.

We could devote an entire book about the horrors of this kip. It reminds the uninitiated of what a refugee camp must be like. Thousands of people are scrambling through check-in, security, baggage handling etc. etc. There is always an air of disorganized panic in the place.

The arrivals and departure terminals are indistinguishable with frantic outgoing passengers meeting disoriented incoming passengers. The baggage handling carousels are disgorging the contents of two or three planes at once, leading to massive scrums as people fight to get their luggage. Inevitably, the lost luggage section is very busy area – staffed only by one disinterested girl who will threaten security on you if you raise your voice.

We could go on and on but why waste ink or paper. Those who read this and use Dublin Airport will understand. We are preaching to the converted.

For those of you who have never suffered, the advice is – do all you can to avoid it!

4. The prices in Ireland. Nothing can prepare the tourist on vacation in Ireland for the shock that will get when they see the prices of food and drink that, along with many other essential services for tourists, are higher than the famed Magilacuddy Reeks in Kerry.

Ireland is an expensive place to live as a resident, but it seems to us here that when people are on an Ireland vacation, there is an additional tier of profit added to the top line. This manifests itself by the greed of many in the industry who regard any tourist as ripe for easy pickings on the basis that they will never see them again.

It is not alone the small “Mom and Pop’ souvenir shops that are the guilty parties in this instance; the rip-off mentality starts at the top with our state-run companies who are the same organizations that loftily lecture us on giving value for money to the visitors to Ireland.

The DAA will fleece you for parking in any one the Irish airports it claims to run.

Dublin Bus and the Luis light-rail system will extract the maximum it can from your pocket. Unlike any major city in the world, Dublin has no integrated ticketing system where one can buy a ticket for a day or a week that will allow avail of all bus, rail and Luas for a set price. The same applies countrywide, where Bus Eireann and Irish Rail cannot have the presence of mind to get together and offer tourists- not to mention our own commuters- a universal ticket that would make travel in Ireland a little more bearable. Even when the unfortunate visitor eventually coughs up enough to take a train journey, the state of the trains in general is shocking. If you are lucky enough to get a meal on one of these ponderous contraptions, you will never, ever again condemn airline food. In fact, after your experience, airline meals will seem like those served in a Michelin – star restaurant!

If you wish to avoid the nightmare that is public transport in Ireland, you may consider hiring a car. Be prepared for a shock! Car hire rates in Ireland are among the highest in the world. Comparisons made by consumer organizations have found that in certain classes of vehicle, Ireland can be up to six – yes six! - times as expensive as our European neighbours. Excuses lamely produced by the perpetrators of this scam include the old chestnut that insurance and labour costs are higher in Ireland and, of course, they

have no option but to pass these charges onto their customers. Of course, they haven’t, in much the same way, as they have no option but to bank the excessive profits generated in Ireland on the back of this daylight robbery.

Once on the road with your wallet somewhat depleted, you belatedly realize that perhaps the rail option wasn’t so bad after all. The train experience is a bit like being in Purgatory, expecting to get to Heaven when it is over, only to find that you are in Hell when you hit the Irish roads! Satan is laughing at you mockingly as stokes the fires to greater intensity whilst wearing a baseball cap with NTR written on it!

National Toll Roads are a highway bandit company, who in cahoots with the Government, will call every 10- kilometre by-pass a motorway and put a tollbooth on it. So, by the time you transverse the country you have parted company with all your beer budget for the vacation, sat in seemingly endless traffic jams, and are the hapless victim of wacky Irish language road signage system that tells you that Daingean in Offaly has suddenly moved to where Dingle once was in Kerry. Let the sat-nav go figure that one out!

All of the above initial experiences, or nightmares, are delivered to you in the most part by state-controlled organizations.
Now just wait until the private hustlers get their hands on you!
Mom and Pop are waiting, so have a nice day!