Sinn Fein TD, Aengus O Snodaigh, wolfs toner

There is much ado  in the papers about Sinn Fein TD, Aengus O Snodaigh, who managed to use up €50,000 worth of Dail (Irish Parliament) printer toner - paid by the taxpayer - in only two years. 

 O Snodaigh doesn't appear to have an inkling that there is anything wrong with such abuse of state fonts - funds - maintaining that the toner was used for printing at his Dublin constituency office.  

That's a lot of ink toner.  The Indo puts it this way:

"It would have taken him three months, working eight hours a day, five days a week, even if he had been using all of his three Oireachtas-supplied printers simultaneously.

And it meant that Mr O Snodaigh would have printed enough A4 leaflets to cover the GAA's Croke Park stadium -- which sits on an area of 65,000 square metres -- three times over."


It seems that Sinn Fein TDs made up 13 of the top 20 Dail users of State ink cartridges, so they are quite prolific it seems.  And the same party, which hasn't quite managed to shake off accusations of involvement in the Northern Bank robbery and other armed actions, is now the largest opposition group, ahead of fellow shysters and cultural nationalists Fianna Fail. 

So it's not that long ago that the Shinners were stockpiling cartridges of a different sort, rather than the rather harmless variety available in PC World.

Perhaps we should see it as progress, of a sort?

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Michael O'Leary for CIE?

I hate flying Ryanair, I must say. But I can remember the days when you nearly had to take out a mortgage just to fly to London when Aer Lingus had a monopoly on Irish skies.

A few years back, I was in a situation when I had to take the plane every other week, and I was glad of Ryanair back then. If they hadn’t been around I couldn’t have done the amount of necessary commuting I had to do.

So, although Mick O’Leary might be a bit of a bollocks in many respects – albeit a clever and amusing one – he did at least open things up with the business model he copied.

You would wonder if he couldn't have a look at CIE? I mean, how many times have you been standing in the pissings of rain, to be treated to the sight of empty “OUT OF SERVICE” buses cruising blithely by? Can you imagine our Mick allowing a Ryanair plane take to the air empty because the pilot wants to get back to Dublin Airport for his sarnies?

And what about the vexed question of signage? Irish Rail must have spent a lot of taxpayers’ money on their fancy digital signs, which were to inform the public of their train’s arrival. As far as I can see, however, they were never switched on in some stations. Coolmine being one example and Maynooth (see pic) being another.

What is the point of investing in a system such as this if no-one can be arsed to make the things functional in every station? By the same token, I have seen northbound trains with “Bray” scrolled on the front (Bray lies south) and incomprehensible platform-change announcements that leave “the skulls” (Irish Rail staff's affectionate term for their paying customers) scratching said crania.

A lot of things get blamed these days on cutbacks and lack of investment, but this kind of nonsense was a boomtime phenomenon too.

Rather than a question of money, is it simply a matter of not making the effort?

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Motorway driving, Irish-style



What is it about so many Irish motorists that they cannot get their muddled heads around the idea of motorways?

And what special kind of self-assurance and supreme confidence in their own stupidity do they possess that they will obstinately sit in the overtaking lane of a three-lane motorway, blocking traffic behind them, even as the inner lanes are free?

I’ve never seen it occur – on such a regular basis – anywhere else.

 Is it down to pure cussed stupidity?  Or is it because quangos such as the RSA (Road Safety Authority) do not divert sufficient resources to meaningful driver education in this country? 

It prefers to bombard people with ridiculous adverts depicting daydreaming drivers somersaulting their vehicles spectacularly before flattening  little Johnny on his swing in the back garden, instead of telling them how to use motorway lanes correctly. 

 Of late, I’ve had cause to use the M50 several times a week, and my blood pressure hasn’t been the same since. It seems that the best way to make progress on the M50, and other Irish motorways I assume, is to stick to the inside lane. That stays relatively empty, apart from the occasional truck, while the middle and outer overtaking lanes are chock-full of half-wit lemmings driving within touching distance of each others’ bumpers, their  progress bearing no relation to accepted lane convention.


Paddy and Mary don’t do “slow” lane it seems.


And that’s mightily ironic.


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Public Consultation on VRT

I am sick of it, I really am.  Last week I got a renewal letter from my motor insurance broker.  I was somewhat disconcerted to note that my premium had gone up by 75% on last year's quote.  75%!!!!  

Before you ask, no - I was not done for drink driving.  I did not crash my car into a ditch or a wall.  I did not even get a single penalty point.  I have a clean driving licence, car, motorcycle, truck and bus.  I have the full no-claims bonus.  I have never made an insurance claim in my life, or had one against me.  Oh, and I don't own a MINI.

The reason - the broker explained - is because St Paul's, the insurance company that covered "niche vehicles" (in an Irish sense)  - has pulled out of the market.   Recession-torn Ireland is not a great place to do business, it would seem. 

Much of it can be blamed on VRT, in my view.  That and a compo-claim culture that makes insurance costs in Ireland - and the cost of living and doing business - far higher than they are elsewhere. 

There is currenty a consulation process (such as these things claim to be) on VRT.  If you want to have your say on the unfair Vehicle Registration Tax, please email your submission to the address below.  Include your name and address:

VRT@finance.gov.ie

 For what it is worth, here is my submission:

Dear Madam/Sir.

I would like to suggest that, rather than playing about with VRT, your Department should simply abolish this unfair tax which is contrary to the principle of free movement of goods within the EU.

VRT was only introduced by the Irish Government of the day when vehicle excise duty was abolished by the EU. It is a disgraceful tax, Kafka-esqe in its lack of transparency (particularly the cooked-up Open Market Selling Price notion), and means that I, as an Irish citizen, cannot avail of the EU market when buying or selling my car.

It means that my fellow Irish citizens are forced to pay nearly twice as much for their cars, in some cases, as their lucky counterparts across the border who had the sense to maintain their union with Britain. A year or two ago, the Commission on Taxation - paid for by the Government - suggested that VRT be phased out. I believe your Department should, for once, heed advice it - through the taxpayer - has paid for.

VRT has a knock-on effect in the Irish economy as a whole, as it also inflates the cost of insurance, as vehicles have a much higher capital cost in this country purely because of VRT. If a car costs 40% more to buy, it is not unreasonable to surmise it will also be far more expensive to insure.

 It is also an anti-aspirational tax, as Paddy and Mary can only dream of owning higher-spec vehicles that are within the reach of ordinary working people in other countries. That has an effect on the motor industry too, of course, who have been remarkably compliant on this issue - possibly concerned for selfish reasons about the used car market seeing lower prices should VRT be scrapped.

This is not a valid argument. If I buy I car for €50,000 and it depreciates by 50% in three years, that means I must find €25,000 to replace it. If I was a British subject, and bought it same car for €30,000 in the UK, I would be looking at depreciation of €15,000.  My used car might be "worth" less as I sold it on, but I would be paying far less for any car I might buy. So SIMI and the rest should cop themselves on and look at a revived industry that would come about after the abolition of VRT. 

Remember too, that you can place a 100% tax on cars if you like, but you will not get a single cent if nobody can afford to buy them. Cheaper cars would mean more sales, and even then the Exchequer is creaming 23% VAT on each unit sold.

Motor manufacturers have been making great strides to make their cars cleaner and safer - this very consultation process admits to being prompted by the fact that manufacturers have cleaned up their act considerably, particularly the likes of BMW, and are producing vehicles which emit far less CO2 than a few years ago. They should be rewarded for this, not penalised. Or does the so-called "green" element of VRT and motor tax refer to "green" in an envious, rather than an environmental, sense?

The Irish government should stop robbing the Irish motorist blind. It does that well enough with road tax, in a country where motorways are tolled and some byways resemble a landscape from the Battle of the Somme.

Stop tweaking VRT.   Abolish it.

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Commemorating 1916 - let's admit it was a bad idea

Since independence in 1922, when our gombeen ruling class took over running the country, it has gone rapidly downhill.   Maybe it's time to admit it was all a bad idea after all?

And taking over a biscuit factory and a post office in 1916?  What was that all about?  As parody republican Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly once observed, would it not have made more sense to have taken over a brewery?  At least the following morning the rebels could have awoken with stonking hangovers, and incredulously asked themselves "Oh Jasus, we did wha' ???".

Anyway, glad to see Enda has been politically mature enough to release the following broadcast (sneak preview):



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Clondalkin and Ballymun Gaeltachts now, is it? Things become more bizarre by the minute...

It gets more and more bizarre as the recession bites, with the same old lobby groups fighting ever more vigorously for a slice of the rapidly depleting funding pie. And what more voracious an example of the genre than the Irish Language Lobby? 

Our so-called republic was founded on the twin stones of Catholicism and neo-Gaelicism. The priests and nuns have more or less faithfully departed.  Unfortunately, the Gaelic revivalists are still with us, nourished by a seemingly still-plentiful pot of taxpayers' money.

The latest example is a campaign to have Ballymun and Clondalkin declared Gaeltachts.  I kid you not. 

It appears that the Gaeltacht Bill 2012, currently in gestation, seeks to redefine the meaning of the term "Gaeltacht" to mean just about anything at all. Hence the above.

Up until now (according to the most recent Sunday Times) regions qualified for Gaeltacht funding if they claimed to have 25% Gaelic speakers among their populations. Another definition was an area where Gaelic is the predominant language.   So, boys and girls, are the burghers of Clondalkin predominantly Gaelic-speaking, or even 25% so?   No, I didn't think so either - but such troublesome provisos don't matter any more.

 

What this Bill will do, is stretch the credulity of the term "Gaeltacht" even further than it has ever been stretched before, therefore making a complete mockery of the whole idea.  In effect, a charter for grant-grabbers and opportunists.

See the following from the Irish Examiner, Feb 8th:

‘The Department of Gaeltacht last night said that language planning at community level will be central to the new definition of the Gaeltacht. Areas outside the traditional Gaeltacht areas may be recognised as Gaeltacht areas, subject to fulfilling particular criteria.” 

"Language planning at community level"... what?  Why should a language need to be "planned"?  And by whom?  Similarly, it is not clear what the “criteria” will be, but no doubt the Shinners, other cultural nationalists and busybody language hobbyists will be out in force to meet them.  Never mind reality and the compliant, passive majority.

Already it is proposed, according to the Times' piece, to set aside some local authority housing in Ballymun exclusively for Gaelic speakers. Now you tell me what other country in Europe discriminates on grounds of language when allotting State housing? 

And if this comedic scheme gets the go-ahead, will the words Ballymun and Clondalkin be obliterated from road signage in Dublin, as English names are currently expunged in the Gaeltacht proper?  Could the mocked-up pic you see above become reality?

If you consider that, according to the National Adult Literacy Agency,  25% of people even “have difficulty reading and writing” in Ireland as a whole, how much greater is the problem in places like Ballymun and Clondalkin? Places where considerable social and educational disadvantage have remained unaddressed for decades.

Rather than attempting to address the festering problems of Dublin's most disadvantaged areas, however, the Government prefers to give funding and encouragement to vocal Gaeilgeoiri hobbyists,  and enable them in their delusions concerning bilingualism.

Meanwhile, any real evidence of Dublin's true polyglotomy is most likely to be found amongst the capital's Polish, Chinese and other international citizens -  despite Government cutbacks in English language support in the State's schools, while it simultaneously indulges the nonsense bollocksology of Dublin Gaeltachts.

Road signage in Ireland... again.

Road signage in Ireland has been covered before on the blog.  You know... signs in Gaelic only, including the internationally loved "Stop" and every other sign in, or pointing to, the Gaeltacht.  Many gullible tourists have spent their two weeks' holiday - and large sums of money to "friendly" rip-off gombeens -  vainly searching for the town of Dingle.

We have a semi-orbital motorway part-way around the capital which informs drivers who enter it only of the directions "north" or "south" - no actual placenames.

We have dual carriageways with lower speed limits than bockety rural regional roads.  We have only a handful of signs informing motorists of junction layouts in advance. 

 It's a mess, but the Irish authorities have never quite grasped the intended function of signage:  to impart information. 

What about this beauty at a right-turn junction (or is it?)  at the Blanchardstown centre? 

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The Famine, the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War... some figures on mythology and nation building

Recently, there has been some soul-searching taking place on the subject of Ireland's "neutrality" during the Second World War, Alan Shatter's statement that  "‘we should no longer be in denial that, in the context of the Holocaust, Irish neutrality was a principle of moral bankruptcy"  being but one example.

Following on from that, an article by Diarmuid Ferriter appeared in the Irish Times, which prompted some debate in the comments section.  The following is from "Kate", who makes some very interesting points which go beyond the subject of neutrality.  In effect, she questions the solidity of  of Dev's and the nation-builders' very foundation stones.

Well worth a read.  Thanks to Anna for bringing our attention to this one:

From Kate:

"It seems that De Valera's stance was not so much to keep Ireland neutral, but rather to keep her isolated. .... Maybe De Valera was just too much anti-Brit ..."

Well said: keep them poor, ignorant, swamped in myth and imbued with fear of outsiders. The 'history' of Ireland as instilled by Church and State was insular, self-aggrandising and devoid of context. In De Valera's Ireland the ‘outside’ existed as a threat to Irish Catholicism and/or 'independence'.

As for the magnificent ‘sacrifice’ in the war of independence: a total of 1,400 were killed: 363 RIC personnel, the majority of whom were Irish Catholic and killed by the IRA; 261 British Army soldiers; 550 IRA volunteers, and 200 civilians. (Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, pp. 201-202).

Any objective student of history might note Ireland suffered little loss in "defeating” a “British Empire" weakened by 6 million soldiers dead or lost in WWI - 662,000 of the dead were British plus a further 140,000 British recorded missing; 5,104 of those, men of the 36th Ulster Division on 1st July 1916 at the Somme; just short of 10 times the 550 who died for Irish "freedom". The total number of Irish deaths in WWI as opposed to the 550 who died in the war of Independence was 27,405.

In such context, details of Irish nationalists then murdering each other in a Civil War leaves no space for the usual mythologizing; in rejecting the Treaty De Valera rejected the democratic will of the majority of the Irish people and turned “brother on brother” (James Stephens). Interestingly, the total number of Civil War dead and wounded has never been counted; records show 500-800 Free State Army soldiers killed and “over 12,000 Republicans imprisoned”.

Researchers have estimated 4,000 died – murdered by their 'own' kith and kin, nearly eight times the number of 'volunteers' killed by the British in the war of independence!
And then ‘The Famine' 1845; no acknowledgement EVER in Ireland that, mid-1840s, a 'potato blight' swept Northern Europe, not just Ireland. At that time, there was NO "social contract" anywhere - just charity. Indeed prior to the mirage 'Tiger', it would appear only the self-designated 'elite' survived comfortably in Ireland? I take my information from Mr Ferriter’s excellent series. Pre-1990 it was ‘normal’ for the Irish 'poor' to emigrate in their hundreds of thousands, as it is again today. 

Some facts:

In the mid-1840s: 40,000–50,000 died from famine in Belgium; in Portuguese Cape Verde famine killed 42% of the population; in the Highlands of Scotland 1.7 million either died or emigrated; in Ireland "it is estimated 1 million died; 1.5 million emigrated"; famine resulted "in hundreds of thousands of deaths in north Portugal”; in Finland “15% of the entire population died”; in northern Sweden “more than150,000 died”. People educated elsewhere know these facts and more. 

Something needs to change in the Irish Education system.

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Jimmy Harte, "Magda" on the dole in Danagall, and the Irish Independent.

Last Wednesday the Irish Independent carried a story about a Polish woman supposedly abusing Ireland’s social welfare system. She also, according to the Independent, called Donegal – or Danagall – a “shithole”.

Few - apart from Danagallians perhaps - could argue with the latter, but she said no such thing. It seems, in fact, she was very complimentary about the place and its inhabitants in an article which appeared in Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, dealing with the experiences of Poles looking for work in Ireland.

“Magda” had actually said that she did not like being on the dole and wants to work (having previously been employed in restaurants, hostels, and hotels for four-and-a-half years before losing her job). She spoke of her plans to become self-employed having done a FAS course on Hawaiian Massage before pointing out she was getting €67 a week more on the dole than she had been getting in her last waitressing job.

The Irish Independent – hoping, presumably,  to tap the anti-foreigner sentiment that exists in Ireland – either wilfully, or mistakenly, mistranslated “Magda’s” words as saying that being on the dole in Ireland was "like a Hawaiian Massage".  I don't think even Google Translate would get it that wrong. 

It gave the impression that Magda - and by implication other “foreigners” in Ireland, focusing as it did on her nationality – was in this country to rob us and our social welfare system blind, while laughing at us as a bunch of hicks. Well, Danagallians anyway.

Then, some half-wit senator called Jimmy Harte (above)  – apparently of the Labour Party - couldn’t get to the nearest radio station microphone fast enough in order to condemn her, and tell her to “go back to Poland”. Ever hear of “workers of the world unite”, Jimmy?

 I heard the interview myself, in which a seemingly frothing-at-the-mouth Harte hinted at physical retribution to Magda from some of his constituents if she didn’t leave the environs.  Even someone such as Harte should realise that phrases like “go back to Poland” are inflammatory in any context.  And how would Outraged of Danagall have identified her among the county's Poles, exactly?  Or would any Polish person they suspected have sufficed?

How many Irish people with a pre-existing jaundiced attitude to “foreigners” would have eagerly concurred with Harte’s statement, while at the same time thinking “they’re all at it” ?

 Never mind the fact that many Irish people have really – unlike “Magda” – been taking the piss out of us and our social welfare system for decades, and maybe generations – even when we had near full employment.  By contrast  “Magda”, and others like her, grafted in the jobs that the Irish did not want to do.  Jobs that career unemployed Paddy and Mary would not get out of their daytime pajamas for.

Sure, people can get all indignant about social welfare abuse if they want – and all the other abuses such as tax avoidance/evasion that go on here - but they should not focus on non-Irish nationals. Or are they saying that it is OK for Irish people to abuse the system, but not “foreigners”?

More importantly the Irish Independent, and other rags, should realise they have a responsibility to report stories accurately, and not publish cooked-up drivel that can act as an incitement to hatred against people who choose to live in this country and – like the real “Magda” -  make a valuable contribution to it.

The same cannot not be said of Jimmy Harte, many of his fellow politicians, and the odd Irish Indo hack.

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Crappy broadband, conspiracy theories, and Danagal

The last post dealt with conspiracy theories on how our beloved blog might be funded by MI5, or similar.  And goodness knows, I wish it was - I could do with the money.

Now it's time for my own theory.

Forces unknown, aided and abetted by persons unknown, are conspiring to keep Gombeen Nation silent.

A brief dalliance with Smart came to an end the day before yesterday when promised improved speeds - due to "uncontested" something or other according to a sales agent -  never materialised. 

The problem, it seems, is my telephone line consists of a bit of string joined to two tin cans.  One can is under the ground at my house and the other is at the "local" exchange some 5-and-a-bit kilometres away.   It's something to do with the Irish "smart" economy, I think, as I smart every time I try to log on.

The estate agent who sold me the house was obviously not just an estate agent, but a Government agent with strong links to Eamon O'Cuiv and the Gaeliban! Note how the word "agent" keeps cropping up. See?

This devious mistress of dirty tricks hoped that the blog would be silenced forever when I moved house, as she knew about the the string phone line.  She even arranged for the house to be bumped up the order on My Home when she knew I would be logging on.  She was given this information by an agent in Vodafone, the previous provider.

Now, thanks to the latest delay with Smart (that word "smart" again - there was once a spy programme called "Get Smart"... this is too much to be co-incidence!) another good blog post has been missed. Namely, the Polish girl stitched up by the Irish Independent... 

Its hacks  wilfully mistranslated an article in a Polish newspaper in order to get  Danagal politicians frothing from the mouth and Danagalians baying for the blood or the "deportation" of a Polish girl who supposedly dissed Danagal, and was depicted as claiming social welfare dishonestly.  (Something no Irish - nor bless the mark - Danagal person would ever do, of course. The Irish in general -  and Danagalians and Indo hacks in particular -  are fine, honest, upstanding people.)

See how reality and surreality seem to mix quite well in Ireland?  

So now, for me,  it's back to mobile broadband on a six-month contract while I wait for UPC to roll-out.  A source in UPC has informed me that this should happen in the next month or two.  Let's hope he is not a double agent. 

In the meantime, the blog will continue from a hidden attic location via newly-acquired mobile broadband. 

Please keep tuning in.


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The shady world of Gombeen Nation and its funding

Sometimes I wish the blog had the power and influence some seem to think it has. Take a comment that came in the other day on an older post detailing Councillor Nial Ring’s opposition to the recent visit by our nearest neighbour’s head of state.

The correspondent had been searching for the good councillor’s contact details, and was rather miffed to come across the bould Gombeen Nation topping the Google search (I tried it myself, but was rather miffed to see Gombeen Nation only came up second). I paste the comment below:

No doubt since I'm not a hater of all things Irish my words won’t get printed. One question I would like to ask is where does the money come from that maintains this bile and hatred? I was just searching for Councillor Rings’ contact details and this is the first thing that presents itself. I know that Google doesn’t provide this kind of exposure cheaply.

I wonder can it be traced back to the British treasury or a British org that promotes their monarchy?

Please note that Councillor Nial Ring was democratically elected by his constituents, which is more than can be said for some!

Padraig Beirne


Conspiracy afoot, it seems. Declan Ganley has nothing on the shadowy world of Gombeen Nation and the money that funds it.  Does the dodgy cash come from the British Treasury, or a British organisation that promotes its monarchy? Or maybe it is even bankrolled by those masters of dirty tricks, M15?


No, far more banal than that Padraig, I’m afraid. It’s free to set up a blog. The only thing it costs is time - and the odd headache, from beating your head against the wall all the time.

Ireland is, after all, a place where many cannot see beyond the “bile and hatred” that passes for everyday, orthodox political discourse and opinion. Councillor Ring’s banging on about the Rising, "informers" and The 800 Years being a very good example of the genre.

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Kenny - "people went mad borrowing during the boom"

What is it about so many of our fellow Irishmen/women that they can’t face the truth? Our esteemed prime minister, Enda Kenny – who makes a shade of grey seem rather exciting – says that  “[Irish] people went mad borrowing during the boom”, and it creates a furore.

But Irish people did go mad borrowing during the boom – or bubble, as it might be more accurately termed. Not all Irish people, mind you, but enough to get the country up to its hoxters in debt. People who are now saying – like Kenny in another context – that "it’s not our fault”.

Bloody hell. Years back, a German/Turkish mate of mine came to visit – just as the bubble was puffing up nicely – and he was shocked by the amount of expensive cars on our roads. He was even more shocked when I told him some of them cost nearly twice as much in Ireland as they did in Germany, thanks to Ireland's  Vehicle Registration Tax.   All bought on the never-never, when Paddy and Mary were happy to take the money from the banks, bondholders or not.

I remember trying to move house during the boom years, and everywhere I went was swarming with investors. One estate agent – a refreshingly honest young lad – told me how a postman had a portfolio of seven properties on the go. How many did your average solicitor have, I wonder? Given how much easier it was to take care of the legal stuff?  Portfolios that now translate into loss accounts for all of us.

The same lad related how everyone in the estate agent’s office, where he worked, laughed out loud when a semi-D down the road “made” a million. But back then, Paddy and Mary thought it could go on forever. Bertie Ahern thought the naysayers should commit suicide. The media talked it up, uncritically, and the opposition benches were quiet about the Ponzai scheme on which the Irish economy was built. If you stuck your head above the parapet and said it was “mad” you would most likely have it knocked off.

And now, even in retrospect - with the supposed benefit of hindsight - the story is the same with Kenny's belated admission.

It's a pity the ostrich is not indigenous to these barren shores.  It would make a lovely national emblem.




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Another enforced hiatus ends?

Just a quick note to say the blog is in transition from Vodafone to Smart Telecom at the moment and, as seems to be the way of it these days, connecting is proving troublesome.  

It seems my nearest phone exchange is over 5km away, and the line consists of copper wire mined by destitute Victorian urchins.  Its installation was, I'll wager, overseen by Alexander Graham Bell himself (left).

Until now, I had no connection whatsover since Monday, when Vodafone cut off the old one, hence the lack of posts and delays in getting comments up. Now I have a shiny new modem from Smart (received a few hours ago), so let's see how this goes.

I can't describe how frustrating this malarkey is, especially as there are so many good blogging subjects out there at the moment... the hysterical reactions to Enda Kenny's "people went mad during the boom" statement being one.  ENDA TELLS THE TRUTH SHOCK!  Facing reality, you see, has never been popular in Ireland.

But that's another story.  In the meantime, we'll have a look at this new connection and see how we go. 

Thanks for your patience. 


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The Irish and the Nazis - Jig Heil!

' Oh here's to Adolph Hitler ,
Who made the Britons squeal ,
Sure before the fight is ended
They will dance an Irish reel . '

Sinn Fein Irish Republican 'War News ' November 1940


Further to the last post about de Valera blacklisting Irish soliders who joined the British Army to fight Hitler, here's an interesting documentary which sheds yet more light on Ireland's rather sad history with regard to the Nazis.   Big thanks to John for this one.

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Irish WW2 "deserters" seek pardon

An interesting message from a reader dropped into the inbox recently. It brought attention to a campaign which seeks to pardon some 5,700 Irish soldiers who "deserted" to join the British Army during the Second World War in order to fight Nazism.

A letter writer in Tuesday's Irish Times, Ciaran Mac Aodha-O Cinneide, might sum up the attitude of some who simply insist that  desertion is desertion, no matter what - and such an ovine attitude is characteristic of many in Ireland..

Ironically, they miss the point Captain Peader Cowan  -  who defended two such soldiers at their court-marshall in Ireland after the war  -  made when he defined “desertion” as “leaving a post of danger for a post of safety”.

In the case of these men, they did the exact opposite, with many dying on the beaches of Normandy, the bloodbaths of Arnhem and elsewhere, as their stay-at-home comrades played cards during the "Emergency", as Official Ireland referred to World War Two.

Non-pedants will contend that these soldiers, who rejected the delusional attitude of Dev and the Irish establishment, should have been honoured for their bravery and initiative in helping to topple one of the most awful regimes the world has ever known, despite the opposition of their own government.

Dev, we know, was a slippery chancer who could bend his so-called principles when it suited him. Instead, he chose to play hard-ball with these brave souls when they returned home in victory.  The man who pursued a spineless policy of neutrality, and commiserated with the German ambassador on Hitler’s death, put the soldiers on a “starvation” blacklist to ensure they could never again attain employment in their own country.

Yet more maliciously, even the children of some soldiers concerned were condemned to incarceration in Ireland's industrial "schools" as a result of the policy (Irish Times – “Time to Pardon Soldiers who Left to Fight Hitler” 14th Jan 2012). The Gestapo themselves would have been impressed.

As an example of bitter, petty spite, it is hard to beat. But then again is it surprising?  During the war, when the modus operandi of the Nazis was apparent, it is believed that a substantial number of  Irish people wanted Hitler to triumph. Motivated solely, as was their nationalism and Dev’s, by "bein' agin the Brits".

What is harder to understand, even by de Valera's very low standards, is how he and the Irish authorities still enthusiastically adhered to their policy of blacklisting the ex-soldiers when the full extent and scale of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis shocked the world in the years and decades after the war.

The treatment of these men and their families is up there with the worst of the many scandals in this sorry State's history.

BBC4 documentary on the Irish “deserters” who fought Hitler


Irish Soldiers Pardons Campaign

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HSE worker gets 60k pension after 18 years' sick leave.

Sorry, the longer I do this blog the more I feel like I'll be getting a shouty column in the Oirish Daily Mail very soon.

But bloody hell,  there comes a point when you have to ask what is going on in the seemingly parallel world of the Irish public service?  

According to an Irish Times editorial "Grandstanding on Property Tax" (19th December), our public services (including pensions) cost €1.3 billion a month to run. 

But even in times such as these, when our rotten little kip is being kept afloat by IMF and EU money (we cannot afford to borrow on the bond markets), there is still a residual attitude that public money - borrowed as it is at present - is a limitless resource. 

Have a look at the following extract taken from, not the Mail, but the Irish Examiner of January 14th.  And apologies to any productive hospital workers I might know!

Hospital worker gets €60k to retire despite spending 18 years on sick leave


Saturday, January 14, 2012


A HOSPITAL worker was given almost €60,000 to leave the HSE under last year’s "cost-saving" voluntary retirement and redundancy schemes — despite being on unpaid sick leave for 18 years.

Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner show the unnamed employee was one of 61 HSE South staff paid to leave despite not being on the state payroll. Twenty people had been off it for five years or more. The figures are detailed by an HSE internal audit examination of the exit schemes.

According to the 26-page document, 232 of the 2,003 people who initially took up the national programme to cut health service payroll costs were based in the HSE South. But 61 of those had not worked in the system "for an extensive period". They included a former worker who had been on unpaid sick leave since 1992, when his paid sick leave had expired.

The audit said despite concerns over this person’s eligibility under the scheme, it was decided that under the Redundancy Payments Act he was entitled to almost €60,000: two weeks’ pay per year for 1992 to 2010 (€33,354); an undisclosed bonus week payment; a €23,664 ex-gratia payment and €1,130 "in lieu of notice" to leave under the cost-saving measure.

A similar internal review of exit scheme take-ups in the HSE Mid-West found that one applicant was incorrectly given €10,000 in taxpayers’ money.

The raft of internal audits released under the Freedom of Information Act includes details of:

* How doctors at the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar cost the taxpayer millions of euro by failing to fill out private inpatient paperwork, some from five years ago, and saw costs written off as "bad debt".

* Concerns over how "acting up" payments for staff to cover more senior posts are used for longer periods instead of finding full-time employees to fill the roles...


It really is hard to reconcile all this nonsense with the fact that, but for the bailouts, the country is bankrupt, and recent tax increases are unlikely to see any boost to the exchequer as people have been bled dry at this stage.   23% of nothing is much the same as 21% of nothing, after all.

 No matter what Kenny says - and his record for false promises is second to none - another bailout looks likely, and that is bound to come with conditions... which is probably just as well.

'Tis a great little land.

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Shortall's minimum price booze boost for Newry

You are in a bookshop, you plonk five hefty tomes on the counter and hand over your money. The assistant then gives you your change and receipt before asking  “do you want a bag?”

A few years back, the government of the day introduced the plastic bag levy, and Irish retailers must have been delighted. The levy was ostensibly about saving the planet, but shop owners saw it as a way to save money by not supplying free plastic bags to customers.

Some switched over to paper bags, but were very miserly about handing them out.  So now the country is full of people walking the streets with armfuls of merchandise.  The above is an excellent example of using a worthy goal - saving the planet – to further supplement the greasy till.

And now Labour’s Roisin Shortall wants to pull the same stunt on a larger scale.  She wants to introduce and enforce a minimum price at which alcohol can be sold, under the pretext of combating under-age drinking by preventing the sale of  “cheap” booze to them... and everyone else.

Publicans have been whinging for years about supermarkets and off-licences selling alcohol for lower prices than they charge in their pubs, so they will be pleased with this one.  You would swear Fianna Fail were still in power, with Shortall serving the same old vested interests  –  albeit camouflaged by the supposed noble goal stamping out under-age and problem drinking.  Many a pickled liver will rejoice, no doubt.

A Department of Health spokesperson recently stated that government’s “real concern” prompting  the proposal was the accessibility of alcohol to young people and under-age drinkers. Surely, though, If retailers are selling alcohol to those who are under-age, they should simply be prosecuted?

Ironically, supermarkets - the real target of the vintners' lobby, are perhaps the most stringent in terms of enforcing age legislation, with every item of alochol sold needing "approval".     (As an aside,  how come  “young people”, students and other assorted brats seem to have so much disposable income to piss up the wall in times such as these, anyway?)

And please, let’s explode the “cheap booze” myth.   A couple of years back, the blog mentioned how cheap, compared with Ireland, alcohol was in Spain, with a bottle of vodka to be had for four euro and a half-litre can of San Miguel for just over 50 cent. Yet the streets were not full of pissed-up Spaniards making a nuisance of themselves and clogging the A&E departments.

No, Ireland’s alcohol and anti-social problems need more focused targeting than Shortall’s  proposal, something she herself concedes by acknowledging the need for an "holistic approach"... while taking the blunderbuss approach anyway and raising the price of yet another consumable for the public.  Can't she see that people feel shafted enough as it is?

Should she get away with it,  despite EU competition law, expect the Newry tills to start ringing again and Irish retailers hear the sound of tumbleweed in the aisles .

And the pubs will still be no busier.

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Mary Raftery dies aged 54

Ireland is a country that has never benefited from a surfeit of conscientious, campaigning journalists.  People who dedicate their careers to fighting injustice and speaking out for the most voiceless and vulnerable.

Mary Raftery was one such rarity, however, and her death at the age of 54 signifies a sad loss for journalism and Irish society in general.

The following is taken from  BBC news:

'States of fear' journalist Mary Raftery dies

Journalist Mary Raftery who was instrumental in challenging the Irish state and Catholic Church on clerical child abuse has died.

She was best known for her 1999 ground-breaking "States of Fear" documentaries.

They revealed the extent of abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and institutions managed by religious orders.

It led to taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologising on behalf of the state.

Her work also led to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which reported in May 2009, and to the setting up of a confidential committee which heard the stories of victims of institutional abuse.

Speaking about her findings to the BBC in 2009, Mary Raftery said: "There was widespread sexual abuse, particularly in the boys' institutions.

"Extremely vicious and sadistic physical abuse, way off the scale, and horrific emotional abuse, designed to break the children.

"We had people talk to us about hearing screams... the screams of children in the night coming from these buildings and really not knowing what to do.

"They didn't know to whom they could complain because the power in the town was the religious order running the institution."

Following the documentaries, the government set up the Residential Institutions Redress Board which has compensated about 14,000 people to date.

And her 2002 documentary "Cardinal Secrets" with Mick Peelo for RTE led to the setting up of the Murphy Commission into clerical abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.

Ms Raftery worked for RTE from 1984 to 2002.

She wrote a column for the Irish Times and taught at the Centre of Centre of Media Studies at NUI Maynooth.

RTÉ Director General Noel Curran said her journalism was defined by determination and fearlessness, and that she had left an important legacy for Irish society.

Seamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said her death was a "significant loss".

"She will be mourned by all who knew and respected her as a fearless journalist who was always willing to ask awkward questions, to seek out uncomfortable facts and to shine a light in the darkest corners of Irish society," he said.

"Mary will be best remembered for her ground breaking documentaries, 'States of Fear' and 'Cardinal Secrets', but her contribution to Irish journalism was multi-faceted.

"Her passion for social justice informed Mary's journalism at In Dublin, in Magill and in RTÉ. Her work was always challenging, always provocative yet always sensitive."

Summing up her work in a newspaper interview last September, she said: "The most important thing you can do is to give a voice to people who have been silenced. And …what else would I be doing?"

Mary Raftery is survived by her husband, David Waddell and their son, Ben.

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Water sign of the times

We all know there's a recession on, and the present government is nearly as inept as the last one with its 2% VAT hike, but are things really so bad that supermarkets have to put security tags on an 85c (or €1.10 for two) bottle of water?

Spotted in Tescos, Tallaght.

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Irish education system - must do better

There has been some talk recently of reforming the education system in Ireland – something that is long overdue.

As far back as the 1920s, the fledgling State’s rulers were more taken with the idea of using the education system as an instrument of Gaelic revivalism, promoting a spurious homogeneous Gaelic, Catholic identity. Then, at some point, it was decided to teach all primary school children through Gaelic… a language the majority did not speak nor understand.

Those who controlled the education system, the politicians, the Catholic Church and the Gaelic League did not care that such a policy would result in children leaving school early with no education, other than a cowed deference to authority – which had been beaten into them.

I  remember people going on about how great the Irish education system was when I was part of it in the 1980s… when even to a young participant it was anything but.   Our school had a sizeable complement of incompetent teachers: some violent, some clueless, some psychotic, and some plain mad.

But whatever about the past, an article on the subject of schooling in Ireland by Emer O’Kelly in the most recent Sindo made some pertinent contemporary observations, such as  these below:

"Those who didn't actually leave the education system without being able even to read and write (23 per cent of the adult population) were, apart from the very few of exceptional ability, products of a numbing system of rote learning which prevented provocative thought, intellectual exploration and critical analysis. They were uneducated, taught what to think, not how to think."

"Early retirement packages have been offered to teachers, allowing them to live extremely comfortably from their mid-50s onwards. And quite a lot of our "dedicated" teachers -- whose unions spend their time telling us of teacher selflessness, commitment, and risibly low salaries -- rushed to apply for the package.  (By the way, how is €69,500 for a job that ends at four in the afternoon and has three months' holidays "risible"?)."

"As things stand, a teacher aged 54 with 34 years' service, based on 2009 arrangements, will receive a pension of €28,322. It will be accompanied by a gratuity of €88,655. That's if the teacher goes in February."

Interesting stuff, eh?

Now look at the following equation, ye at the back!  

23% illiteracy +   €69,500  teachers' salaries = Teachers fail miserably. 

Think about that near ninety-grand retirees will receive.    The very time-servers who have done our children such a disservice should be seen off by means of a size-12 foot up the collective hole, rather than through a golden handshake.  That won't happen though, as they are unaccountable, so we just have to be happy we are getting rid of them at last - albeit at great expense.

To replace them, restrictions on foreign teachers working here – and many indigenous ones -  through a Gaelic proficiency requirement, should be ended.  Even as things stand, and ignoring the qualified-elsewhere teachers barred from employment in education, there are 2,000 non-permanent teachers to replace the 1,000 expected to take the money (according to O'Kelly). So let's re-educate them in any putative shake-up. 

And then let's slaughter some Dev-inspired sacred cows.  Compulsory Gaeilge and extra payments for teachers teaching it,  must end immediately.  As should extra points for students sitting exams as Gaeilge.  Both help to perpetuate the industry within education around the subject, and the latter distorts students' results as well as causing resentment.

Teachers should be made accountable - their jobs should be seen as responsible ones and treated as such. 

Finally, rote learning and regurgitation of facts should be replaced by an approach which enables pupils to actually understand the subjects they are being taught.

It might mean that, a few generations down the line, we would eventually have a populace capable of rational and critical thinking.

But then again, do our authorities really want such a thing?

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