How about some instructive Irish road safety adverts, for once?

Had a well-earned day off yesterday, and went for one of my spins through Wicklow, taking in the Pine Forest, The Sally Gap, Roundwood, Glendalough, The Wicklow Gap, Blessington, and back to beautiful Dublin 15.

As you can imagine, the recent spell of snow and ice has done little to enhance the road surfaces in the Wicklow uplands, with a new proliferation of craters and potholes (especially on the road from Sally Gap towards Roundwood and Glendalough). My car has a suspension like a solid block of Ruhr steel and sits around 2 millimetres above the road surface (made for Autobahns, you see), so if you find any of my fillings or lumbar disks lying around on the road out there, please get in touch.

But the really scary bit was the M50, coming home. The good news is that they’ve widened it to three lanes now. The bad news is that if Irish drivers couldn’t use a motorway with two lanes, they haven’t a hope in hell of using one with three.  In fact, I expect Ireland to (again) buck international trends and become the only country with a higher death rate on its motorways than on its single-carriageway roads.

The M50 is a frightening place, with traffic going faster in the inside lane (assuming it's not just left empty) than the overtaking lane (which contains the most traffic). The middle lane changes in tempo, with traffic sometimes travelling faster then either of the other lanes, sometimes slower.  All trucks occupy the middle lane, without fail. The truth of the matter is that most Irish drivers simply have not grasped the principle of the motorway.

Sadly, that’s unlikely to change, as the Government and the RSA don’t seem interested in educating them – opting to go for silly, sensationalist, driver “education” as featured in the ad above, where little Oisin gets flattened in the garden by a mascara-wearing drunk’s somersaulting, ESP bereft,  banger.  “Could you live with the shame?” it says. What, the shame of starring in such an embarrassingly awful advert? No.

How about some ads simply informing Irish motorists how to drive? Especially on those new-fangled three-lane motorways.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Dunnes Stores, The Irish Times, and the worm in Brian Cowen's head.

There is a little worm peeking out of Brian Cowen’s right ear. The next time you see him on telly, have a good look. You can see the head – about the size of a pixel – if you record it and put your DVD player on hold as you play it back. Scientists working for Britain's secret services developed this worm in a very secret laboratory somewhere in Wiltshire, England.

This worm has been created to bring about the downfall of our wonderful little land. It is designed to multiply prolifically and is genetically coded to eat inside the brains of our TDs, implanting them with information to destroy the country. The early stages of infection include talking utter gibberish, a bloated sense of importance, forming unsustainable economic policy based on credit and property tax breaks, and planning to transform the country to an imagined, Gaelic-speaking, paradise.  

Due to clever genetic engineering, and cleverly controlled mutations within the DNA cytosines, each minister is affected to a different extent and may present some, or all, of the above symptoms. So Eamon O’Cuiv might spout a different kind of gibberish to, say, Martin Cullen - but all will speak gibberish of one kind or another. 

When the worms accomplish their task in one TD (as with Charlie McCreevy – their first victim) they crawl to another.   Every Irish government minister is now infected with the worms, and they are crossing the floor to infect the opposition.  George Lee was the first casualty there.

The British will only be content when we are all back living in crannogs, speaking Gaelic, and all the multinationals have left because you cannot get Wi-Fi in crannogs and you can't have a Gaelic-speaking call centre. Or call center.

The only way for us to beat the Brits is to adapt a wholesome diet of cabbage and potatoes, as the worms cannot get the nutrients they require from these. That’s because cabbage and potatoes cannot grow in Britain, and that’s how they never thought of it.

The internet is great, but you don’t half read some rubbish on it. I’m one of the dwindling band of punters who gets a newspaper every day. But it’s getting more and more difficult.

I went to Tescos this morning for the Sunday Times and the Tribune, but for some reason the Tribune wasn’t there, and has not been for some time. I wonder if Tescos have now adapted a similar aggressive policy to stocking newspapers as “The Difference Is We’re Irish” Dunnes Stores?

Dunnes Stores recently changed their industry-standard payment method to newspapers from direct debit to monthy cheque.  As a result, The Irish Times stopped supplying their product, and you can't get it there anymore.

If Tescos have done the same with the Tribune - or for any other reason - it is only a matter of time before it becomes so difficult to get the newspaper of your choice that younger generation of waverers just won’t bother. Domestic news feeds will dry up, more journalists will be on the dole, and there will be fewer people to find real, verified, authenticated news items.

Then stories like the one above will be all we have left.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

“Going! Going! ...Erm, not gone". €4 million site “makes” only €0.5 million at auction.

There was a time when any lucky property owner in Ireland – in possession of their own house, their own land, an investment or an accident-of-birth/death inheritance, could have Great Expections when setting off for the auction - hoping each successive bid would be Pipped by another higher offer.  Now it’s more like Hard Times… and it’s not Bounderby any better for some time yet.*

An auctioneer put a 91-acre site in Tipperary up for grabs last Monday, which included included “top-class” land and a substantial range of machinery. The asking price was €4 million. Now, while I don’t know much about agricultural land - except that it sometimes contains cows and sheep – and know even less about this particular site, that kind of asking price does sound sooo 2006 to me.

According to The Irish Times, the auctioneer’s opening four-mill gambit was met with “stony silence” in the bidding room, and attracted only one offer of €500,000 after five minutes of desperate cajoling. The property was withdrawn and the bidder was invited to “private negotiations”.

The auction had, according to the article,  attracted “significant interest, as it was expected to provide an indications of the current state of the property market and to land values.”

Now, how much are we being  made pay for NAMA?

* Two Dickens novels and their characters were grieviously harmed in the writing of this blog.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Tramore rubbish collection for early risers only

You’d want to get up very early in the morning to have your bins collected in Tramore, if the following report from the Munster Express is anything to go by.

It seems that a Fianna Fail councillor has put forward a motion compelling the good burghers of said locality to put their bins out at 6am...  and also be responsible for taking them back in should the refuse-collection people not bother to turn up. Local government Irish-style. 

Even in Fingal we've have had nice pet/seagull-proof (though not skanger-proof) wheelie bins for a couple of years now.  As for asking people to rise with the gulls at 6am in order to get their bins out... I doubt that even Dublin City Council would expect that one to work.

Article below.

Tramore Council wants people up at 6am to put out refuse sacks
By Tom Young.

A Tramore Town Councillor wants householders to get up early and leave out their recycling bags for collection, rather than doing so the previous night.

Cllr Pat Finnerty wants the County Council to adopt a bye-law prohibiting the bags being left out overnight. And furthermore he wants the bags removed again if the service provider fails to collect them on the appointed day.

Proposing a motion to that effect at the Town Council’s February meeting, he said bags left out through the night were being split open, sometimes by roaming pets, and the contents scattered all over the place. The Council then had to expend valuable resources cleaning up the mess.

Cllr Tom Raine enquired of Cllr Finnerty if he really expected people to get up at 6 am to put out their bags for collection. He said he did.

Cllr Lola O’Sullivan agreed that certain areas were awash with litter too much of the time, a contributory factor being that animals were attracted to waste bags containing food containers which were not properly cleaned for disposal.

Cllr Ann Marie Power accused Cllr Finnerty of wanting to punish people who did the right thing, putting the relevant rubbish out for collection rather than disposing of it illegally. She submitted that the measures he was proposing would lead to a mass exodus of customers from the Council service to private operators. “If that happens we are shagged”, she suggested.

Despite that, however, the motion was passed by a majority vote.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Councillor Andrew Montague's 30 km/h speed limit - let's have compulsory helmets for cyclists too.

Let’s face it, the recent 30 km/h speed limit in Dublin – championed by keen cyclist Councillor Andrew Montague – has split opinion into two camps, those who are pro-car and those who are anti-car.

But before the cycling lobby – whose members are perhaps the most lawless and unaccountable of all road users - gets too smug, it might do well to reconsider its actions in invoking the nanny state to frustrate motorists in the city just for the sake of it.

Surely if health and safety is the be-all and end-all, and we dumb citizens need to be protected from our own actions, it is now time to make cycling helmets compulsory? Better still, why not also make it compulsory for all self-righteous cyclists to wear the lurid, day-glo, latex gear some of them don voluntarily? At least then we pedestrians (and I am one, as well as an enthusiastic petrolhead, and sometimes walk the 11.2 kilometres  from my house to work) can see them as they scythe through us on the pavements and at traffic lights.

They can’t have it every way. Last year, only 28 cyclists were prosecuted for breaking red lights, whereas 1,847 motorists got penalty points for the same offence – and rightly so, as this is the most dangerous road traffic infringement in my view. And before you say a cyclist breaking the lights won’t kill someone, that is very debatable. A cyclist going  full pelt into someone, particularly an older person, could very easily do so - or at least cause serious injury.

Now it seems that the Labour councillors on Dublin City Council are breaking ranks, after party leader Eamonn Gilmore described the new law as “impractical”. Dermot Lacey is now planning (according to the Sunday Tribune) to scrap the new limit on the quays, and introduce a 40 km/h speed limit in the city centre proper. Lacey originally voted for the proposal but now admits that “I tried driving down the quays [at 30 km/h] along the Liffey and it was nigh on impossible”.

Perhaps the good councillors should have tried driving down the quays before they voted on the matter?

You can contact Councillor Montaque at andrewmontague@eircom.net


Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Dublin City Council 30 km/h speed limit. Know your local muppets.

Dublin City Council's decision to impose a 30 km/h speed limit in the capital has proven to be a controversial one – finally provoking some kind of reaction from the city’s public.

One of the three councillors who voted against it, FG's Gerry Breen, is calling for its reversal and even Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore has been forced to enter the fray by questioning its practicality.

When the 30 km/h limit, championed by Labour’s Andrew Montague, was discussed at the Council meeting on October 5th, 34 of the councillors present voted in favour of it.  Only three, Fine Gael’s Gerry Breen, Fine Gael’s Bill Tormey and Independent Nial Ring voted against.

Counicllor Breen has branded those who voted for the go-slow “a shower of muppets”,  adding “I will not be associated with, or take flak for, this stupidity… Over the past year, I have seen the cycling extremists take centre stage in the traffic affairs of the council.   Their unstated aims seem to be the removal of all traffic from the city. Seemingly everything these days can be run under the guise of health and safety.... It is important councillors take into account all the interested parties and stakeholders in coming to decisions and this speed limit in my opinion is neither fair nor balanced. I will seek to have it reversed.”, he was quoted as saying yesterday.

The issue continues in today’s Metro Herald, with Breen welcoming Gilmore’s intervention in slapping down “cycling cavalcade” upstart Montaque. “I welcome the fact there is some practicality coming back into the argument and not just ego-driven and ideological politics that allow no room for realities”.

A first for Dublin City Council, surely?

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Dublin city 30 km/h speed limit.

Once again, our rulers in Dublin City Council’s bunker have enforced a law, with no cognisance of reality, on the passive citizens of the metropolis. Giddy from their recent decree to ban the use of the English language for future place and road names, they have now enforced a blanket 30 Km/h (18 mph), 24-hour, speed limit on much of the city. 

They say the speed limit is all about “saving lives”, that same supposedly argument-killing mantra used by quota-chasing, laser-wielding coppers on the dual carriageway stretches with inappropriately low speed limits . The fact is, no figures have been complied by Dublin City Council featuring a detailed breakdown of road fatalities in the capital: the number, the type, the locations, and – most importantly – the causes.

All we get from Dublin City Council is that you are more likely to be killed by a car moving at 50 km/h than at 30 km/h. Sure, you can equally say that if you impose a nationwide speed limit of 30 km/h, even on the motorways, the subsequent collisions due to motorists falling asleep at their wheels would also feature fewer fatalities. But every single journey would be an odyssey and each car making it would be on the roads for longer, meaning our highways and byways would be constantly chock-full of crawling traffic, taking forever to go anywhere.

I work in town and see potentially fatal road situations every day. The most common would be:  Ignorant motorists breaking red traffic lights when lines of pedestrians are stepping out to cross the road, enticed by the green man.  People walking out, lemming-like, in front of oncoming traffic in places where it is madness to do so. Trucks with blind-spots turning left, oblivious to adjacent cyclists. Other cyclists who consider breaking lights and carving through the crossing pedestrians, and racing along crowded pedestrian streets, a right conferred on them for "saving the planet".   I was out walking at lunch yesterday, and witnessed three of the above scenarios in half-an-hour… I kid you not.

Let Dublin City Council take the trouble to identify the specific causes of road deaths in our city. Perhaps the odd councilor might emerge from the Bunker now and again to witness the all-too-regular wreath on a pedestrian crossing?   Then let them do what needs to be done, but not this half-arsed, lazy, tokenistic nonsense they do so well.

Whenever I work on a Sunday, I take the car, as there are no trains when I finish up. Driving home in the evening along Aston Quay and Wellington Quay - past Temple Bar - there is no way I would contemplate exceeding 30 km/h, as there are too many unpredictable (and drunk) pedestrians spilling from the footpaths. I never have - regardless of speed limit.   But I know the next time I'm up the other end of the quays, with not a soul in sight, I'll be watching my speedo more than the road in case some sneaky copper is hiding up ahead waiting for a chance to hit their monthly target.

It is only the application of roadcraft and common sense to take it easy around the busy streets where there is a high degree of pedestrian activity.  But Merchants or Inn’s Quay in the early morning, or late at night? That’s another matter.

And that's where you will find our friends hiding with the laser guns, out “saving lives”.

And if you believe that...

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Road gritters and the unappreciative Irish motorist

A couple of months back, The Sunday Times described this blog as “satirical”. Mark Keenan referred to it as such in his excellent column when writing about “Comical Ken” McDonald’s (once plentiful) upbeat pronouncements on the moribund property market.

Now, while it was great to get a mention in the paper, the sad thing is that the blog is perfectly serious, not satirical. All the stories on Gombeen Nation – mad and all as they might be - are frighteningly real. Or what passes for reality in Ireland. Here’s an example, inspired by the return of the cold weather.

You know the poor buggers who drive the gritting trucks, and get up at all hours of the night/morning to make the roads as safe as they can, given the limitations of our Keystone councils? It seems that they have been on the receiving end of motorists’ bile while gritting the roads to keep the very same bilants out of the ditches/shrubbery/lamposts.

Irish drivers - possibly the worst in the world - don’t like it when confronted with a road gritter up ahead as they blithtely skim along the icy motorway, in the overtaking lane, on their mobiles, smoking a fag, stuffing a breakfast roll into their faces. No, they get quite abusive, in fact.

The Tribune recently quoted one such grit truck driver and supervisor, Lucas Swiatek, saying “I get an awful lot of abuse from motorists… I would see them sticking their fingers up at me and swearing at the top of their lungs, or beeping their horns because they have been hit by some of the salt." On one occasion the man was surrounded by five motorists, all shouting at him.

Things are so bad, that the company he works for, M50 Concessions, has had to advise its staff how best to deal with ignorant motorists who plainly don’t know what’s good for them.

Maybe the gritters should just pull over and let them race ahead into the next very hard, unyielding object, via a patch of black ice? 

We can just call it natural selection.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Knock down ghost estates, says IAVI head.

It’s a question often asked on Gombeen Nation: “Where else would you get it?”. 

The head of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institution has suggested that the only thing for some of the nation’s empty housing developments and apartment complexes might be to knock them down.

While the blog is not critical of the notion of flattening the “Celtic Tiger” follies dotting our lovely little Gombeen land, it is critical of the Government and local councils for actively encouraging their construction in the first place. 

Some estimates put the number of empty dwelling units in Ireland at 300,000 –  in no small measure thanks to the Government’s property-based tax incentives which whipped up an investor frenzy, where budding tycoons bought houses and apartments off  the plans in godforsaken shitholes where nobody would ever want to live.  Ever.

According to the Sunday Independent,  the IAVI head spoke to  reporters at that organisation’s annual conference last Friday, saying that as a result of poor planning and a lack of infrastructure some of the country’s newer housing stock may never be required.

Scuppering hopes of the Government buying the ghost estates from their builder buddies for use as social housing, she said:   “… that housing might be in locations where it’s not required.  Is it fair to ship people out to that location just because there happens to be an empty house there?.........I haven’t heard any viable proposals about what to do other than to potentially knock down some of these developments”. 

After the Irish economic miracle that never was, maybe we can now save face and create the world’s first-ever deconstruction boom?

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Always Look on the Bright Side of Lies - Gerry Adams' funny relationship with the truth

It’s funny how Gerry Adam’s ratings went up slightly in the last Irish Times/MRBI poll, despite his recent contradictory statements about his knowledge/non-knowledge of allegations of child abuse in the 80s against his brother, Liam, who subsequently worked on youth projects for the Shinners in Belfast and Dundalk.

According to Liam Clarke in the Sunday Times, Adams told a conference in Dublin that “rich lawyers” with whom he consulted advised him that the press “can publish anything, [including] total untruths” with impunity, and that the only thing that stopped him from suing them after some reports on the scandal was the prospect of legal costs.

Journalists might disagree. In fact libel laws in the Republic are particularly stringent, with certain colourful businessmen just waiting to pounce and shut down any newspaper or media outlet that slips up and falls foul of them. And then there’s Martin Cullen, of course. So it would be interesting to hear the full Sinn Fein position on freedom of the press.

Perhaps any prospective prosecution by Adams might be made more difficult given the fact that no one can seriously believe a word the man says? He says he was never in the IRA, for example. Now, years ago, when the “troubles” were in full swing, that was a necessary tactical denial - but is there a need for him to keep it up now? Also, when Jean McConville was kidnapped and murdered by the IRA, Adams said he was in prison - a claim disputed by commentators.

Then there’s the behaviour of the Sinn Fein leadership during the hunger strikes, as alleged in a book by a former IRA member, who says that they let their own members die even after Thatcher had conceded on key points. If that's the case, some of them died soley in pursuance of the Shinners “ballot box in one hand, Armalite in the other” electoral strategy.

A more harmless porky, in the scheme of things, is that Adams cites Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life as one of his iconic prison memories, which he and other inmates/POWs sang after being beaten by prison guards.

Trouble is - the song was not written until after his release.

Gerry Adams "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" video




Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Developers' Special Incentive Tax Rate costs €800 million.

Bertie Ahern, Eamon O’Cuiv, Bono and Charlie McCreevy are the four apocalyptic horsemen of the blog, galloping ahead of the plentiful field in the Featuring on Gombeen Nation Stakes.

One of them, Ahern, today defended a Fianna Fail tax dodge introduced on his watch for the party’s developer buddies: the Special Incentive Tax Rate. The break allowed developers to pay tax of 20% on their landbanks, rather than the previously applicable rate of 42%.

The move was ostensibly intended to “encourage” developers to release their landbanks for building. Nonsense of course, as with any of the other property tax measures, the builders/developers simply waited and sold their assets at whatever inflated amount the banks were prepared to recklessly advance to buyers, then pocketed the extra profit.

Ahern is quoted defending the squalid scam to RTE by saying that “the place was disastrous” when the tax incentives were introduced. Well it's a lot more "disastrous" now, Bertie, isn't it?

What he also neglects to acknowledge is that this particular measure was introduced in 2000 (it may even have been 2001) when the property bubble was already inflating alarmingly. All in all, the Special Incentive Tax Rate cost the exchequer €800 million by the time it was finally scrapped in 2009, while also contributing to unsustainable asset price inflation.

And which finance minister introduced it? Yes, fellow horseman Charlie McCreevy. He, along with Ahern, of course, recently denied they had any part in creating the current economic mess.

And I thought the horse wore the blinkers.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

No money for road repairs.

Have you seen the state of the roads? Ever since last year’s biblical floods, and the mini ice age that gripped us as we saw in the New Year, they are like something from the Somme. There are potholes deep enough to swallow a whole party of spelologists, never mind banjax your tyres/wheels/suspension/spine.

Not very encouraging then to hear, in a country with woeful – or none in some places - public transport, that no extra money is being allotted for necessary road repairs.

I say necessary, as they are. Such roads not only represent a danger to your vehicle’s integrity, but also to your life – and this applies particularly to those on two wheels, whose stability and safety can be severely compromised by even minor surface imperfections.

It’s particularly galling when you consider how much we pay for road tax in Ireland compared with our nearest neighbour. In the UK, a road tax disk will set you back £405 at the very most, while vehicles in the lowest band are exempt. In Ireland you’ll still pay €104 for the humblest of runabouts, right up to €2,100 at the other end of the range.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, we pay way more for our cars in the shape of excise duty – also known as Vehicle Registration Tax – in some cases nearly twice as much as UK motorists. In addition to all of this, we also pay road tolls. Which prompts the question, where do our motoring related taxes go?

Surely if this Government and our local councils can waste money on countless frivolous projects (lots on this topic elsewhere on the blog), they can at least honour the vast sums they extract from motorists with safe roads. But the truth is, motor tax is not ring-fenced, it can go anywhere. Motorists who live in isolated areas, who are dependent on their own transport, will increasingly experience this in the years ahead.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Blanchardstown Shopping Centre - Buggy Wonderland.

I’ve just come back from the nearby Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, and the place was heaving. Whatever about consumer spending being down, there’s still a heavy footfall – and Liffey Valley was the same yesterday.

What’s really remarkable though, is the number of buggies in these places. Bloody hell, both the Blanchardstown Centre and Liffey Valley were like two massive crèches, with a plague of screaming brats pushed along by battalions of aggressive, shellsuit-clad mothers (always the mothers). My heels still bear the bruises as a result of not getting out of their way quickly enough. Next time I’m taking the hiking boots, or I might don a priest's attire in order to keep them away from me.

You might have guessed by now that I’m not exactly the paternal sort: the pitter-patter of tiny feet and the thought of spending my hard-earned on packets of Pampers (when I could be spending it on beer) are things that never attracted me – but that’s just me, right? And let’s face it, when it comes to popping them out there are no shortage of volunteers in Ireland.

So, given that a recession is possibly the best time to start a business - with lower rents, cheaper premises, and reduced start-up costs - here’s a top tip for you. Get yourself a Mothercare or Mamas & Papas franchise, and remember me kindly when you really start coining it in when the economy improves in 2020.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Dublin City Council - Irish only placenames.

Dublin is a city renowned for its writers. The likes of Joyce, Swift, O’Casey, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, Stoker and Synge have been massively influential in shaping the canon of English literature, and their works are famous the world over.

More recently, and up to the present, Dublin can still boast of Murdoch, Binchy, Doyle, O’Connor, Connelly and more. It is a cultural heritage of which the city can be truly proud.

Now, however, Dublin City Council wants to ban the English language – our proud and unique version of it – from future placenames in the city. Up until now, Dublin’s street names have been bilingual, but if those in the Wood Quay Bunker have their way all new streets will be in Gaelic only. English will be forbidden...

Likewise, the naming of future developments, estates and buildings has been a matter of choice up until now. In Dublin City Council’s brave new world it will be forbidden to refer to them in the vernacular of the city.

I, for one, am sick and tired of being ruled over by a gombeen political “elite” who ride roughshod over us with impunity. They only do it, of course, because they consistently get away with it. Let’s make a start and don’t let them get away with this nonsense.

Please read the relevant section from the notice below and tell them where to go before March 12th. E-mail them at development.plan@dublincity.ie (submissions MUST include your full name and address).

DUBLIN DRAFT DEVELOPMENT PLAN (Section 17.9.2 Names of Residential Estates)
"All new street and development names shall reflect local historical, heritage or cultural associations and the basic generic description (i.e. Court, Quay, Road etc.) must be appropriate.

The Planning Authority will approve the naming of residential developments in order to avoid confusion in regard to similar names in other locations. Street signs must be bilingual, and all house numbers must be visible.

Developers shall agree estate names with the Planning Authority prior to the commencement of development. Such estate names shall be in the Irish language only and shall reflect the history and topography of the area in which they are located. The names of public roads shall be in the Irish language only." DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Forget Sherry Fitz - get a St Joseph home selling kit

Trying to sell your house? Coming to the conclusion that selling snowballs to the Eskimos might be an easier option? Worry not, for divine help is at hand.

Today’s Sunday Times reports that would-be Irish sellers are resorting to religion in an attempt to shift their overpriced shoeboxes, and are enlisting the services of no less a deity than Saint Joseph, Jesus' stepdad.

It seems that as well as being the patron saint of carpenters, Saint Joseph also represents the home and, by extension (sorry), estate agents. So what you do is buy a statue of Saint Joe and bury him head-first in your front garden, facing away from your house, preferably near your “For Sale” sign. I kid you not, this is what I am reading. Either that, or somebody slipped some LSD into that last coffee.

A spokesperson for Veritas, the religious store based on Abbey Street, is quoted as saying that sales of St Joseph statues are booming in the bust, increasing by 500% over the past year. The practice is popular in the United States too – unsurprisingly – with dedicated home-selling kits that include special prayers, St Joseph oil (?), a St Joseph print and, of course, a statue of the man himself. See St Joseph home selling kits

For those who want that extra bit of shove from above, a deluxe kit is available which features a statue of St Jude for good measure. The more devout among you will recognise straight away that St Jude is the patron Saint of lost causes, which is especially apt.

If none of the above works for you, it might be time to drop your asking price...

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

The Cold "Snap" - Don't wait for Dublin City Council to get a grip

Right, this is out of civic-mindedness and humanitarian priniciples. I'm not making any money for advertising these, nor am I expecting any sneaky brown envelopes to pass through the Gombeen Manor letterbox. No personal gain, right?

I had to traverse 100 metres from my workplace to the train today in Dublin city centre and nearly broke my pert little bottom on at least two occasions during the odyessy. So bad were things, indeed, that people abandoned the paths to share roadspace with skidding traffic in a vain attempt to remain perpendicular.

All this was after Michael Phillips, chief engineer with the the society of clowns otherwise known as Dublin City Council (the same lot inflicting Gaeilge-only placenames on us see here) was on radio saying they were not going to be gritted, as "resources were not available". And we still have another ten days of freezing weather to come.

I'm trying not to curse, as I'm determined not to let the high standards drop on Gombeen Nation. I'm trying, trying hard not to curse. Really. If you'll excuse me, I'll just pop outside for a minute.

Where was I? Look, if we wait any longer for these complete and utter incompetents to sort out the paths and roads we'll all be lying on trollies in the grounds of the local A&E, roaring with hip fractures and broken arses, as there won't even be enough room in the corridors.

So if you do any amount of walking at all on our treacherous footpaths, get yourself a set of these Yaktrax. It looks like they fit around your existing shoes, boots, trainers or slippers, as the case may be.

Then let me know if they work, as I'm very curious.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Bertie autobiography gets tax exemption

Readers of the blog will be heartened to hear that, even in these cash-strapped times, the Revenue Commisioners have granted Bertie Ahern tax exemption for his autobiography.

The artists' tax exemption scheme was introduced by Ahern's Mentor, Charlie Haughey, in 1969 – ostensibly to provide encouragement to struggling artists working away in their dingy garrets.

Predictably, it ended up being used as a vehicle for multi-billionaires U2 and their rock-star friends to avoid paying income tax. One unnamed beneficiary pocketed €10 million in one year without paying a cent on it, just before it was capped in 2006, according to today's Irish Times.

In order for a work to be granted exemption status by Revenue, it must be “original and creative” and “generally recognised as having cultural or artistic merit”.

While we doubt that Bertie’s account of his life in and out of politics contains much cultural merit, we are sure our erstwhile leader will give Stephen King a run for his money in the creativity stakes.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

A sprinkling of snow and the place seizes up.

I was one of the unlucky souls who had to work on New Year’s Day. Usually I take the train, but on Sundays or bank holidays that’s not possible as the “service” is too infrequent to deserve such a description. As for gettting back home, the last train out of town to my place on such days is 8.48pm.

So I drove in with the other half and left the car in the Phoenix Park, and we walked/slid our way along the quays to get the benefit of a bit of exercise. The plan was that I’d go in, do my shift and get picked up when I had finished.

When I got into work I heard that all the buses had been cancelled - just like that - and there were poor sods waiting at bus stops for buses that were never going to come. I can’t verify this, but people on the Boards forum claim that Dublin Bus had nothing about the sudden cancellations on their website.

Later on I heard that the Phoenix Park gates were closed due to icy conditions on the park’s main road, which is an important artery running out of town to Castleknock, Blanchardstown, Clonsilla and beyond. Many of the roads around Chapelizod were closed too, so bang went the idea of getting a lift back home. The only thing for it was to take an early cut and get the (early) last train. At least I had that option - those living in places served only by Dublin Bus were well and truly snookered.

Even last Saturday, when we headed into town again (we had to), the Phoenix Park was like an ice rink. What’s more, the place was jammers with people who evidently had no idea how to drive in such conditions. That same evening, the park gates were shut again.

Question: Why did the Powers-That-Be find it necessary to shut the park? Haven’t they heard of grit?

Bloody hell. A couple of centimetres of snow and the whole country literally seizes up.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Man Utd 0, Leeds Utd 1. FA Cup 3rd round

It's got nothing to do with the blog really, but...



Back to Gombeen Nation main page

Have a happy (as possible) new year.

Look, let’s be realistic.

There’s no point in saying “happy new year” because it’s not going to be, is it? It’s going to be more of the same, and possibly worse, if you live in our little gombeen land.

So it's probably best if you get your slippers on, don your fleecy pyjamas (unless you have them on already, as day wear) and go to bed at 11pm tonight. That way at least you'll be starting 2010 with a clear head.

Let’s start the new year by looking back at how our spendthrift rulers wasted our money in 2009 - at least as it came to light in 2009 - culled from last Sunday's Tribune.

• Average salary at Udaras Na Gaeltachta, the regional authority for promoting the Gaeltacht, was €75,893. The body’s wage bill for just 112 people is €8.5 annually. It spent €170,000 of taxpayers’ money on overseas travel in just two years, and its job creation policies have shown a recent bias towards call centres. Call centres? What language do they use then? English I presume - and I thought it was forbidden?



• Senior and junior ministers employ over 300 public servants to assist them in their private Dail and constituency offices at a cost of over €16m a year. The Tribune article states that “…while 5,000 public servants have been cut from the payroll this year, many in frontline services, most ministers have failed to cut back on their private backroom staff.”
  
  Mary Coughlan’s 18 private and constituency staff alone cost the exchequer over €1 million, while Mary Harney’s Department of Health weighs in at €2 million a year on 40 public servants for her and four junior ministers.
  
  And all this despite requests from Cowen for ministers to cut down on such expenditure.



• Mountjoy prison received a €400 million refit to improve conditions in the Victorian jail. Fair enough. But how come Thornton Hall, which should provide humane conditions for those incarcerated by the State, is taking so long to build? Especially considering how much was paid for the site.



• The Central Statistics Office – the people who now tell us how deep in the shit we are – spent €29,075 on sending 10 of its officials to a conference in Durban in 2008, this year's accounts show. An exhibition stand used by the government body at the conference cost €6,720 to fit out.
  
  Note to CSO accountants: Give me a shout next time, I’ll get some B&Q chipboard and do it for €6,000.



• Our old friend John O’Donughue spent €126,000 on expenses in less than two years, including €180 on hat hire for a race meeting, €250 for water taxis in Vienna (should that be Venice?) and an €80 tip to “the Indians moving the luggage”. Generous John, eh? But not with his own money I imagine.



• And, of course, we all know that taxpayers paid out €54 billion to buy the banks’ bad loan book of €77 billion, even though the current market value of the properties underpinned by the loans was estimated at €47 billion.
  
  You can be sure it’s even less now.

Regular readers will know there were lots more examples of waste and Official Ireland stupidity that came to light last year, but it’s been a long year and I don’t have the energy to list them all here now. If you’re still up to it, you’ve always got the archive on the left. Anyway, we’ll have plenty of fresh material in 2010.

In the meantime, if you're a supporter of the blog, I hope your personal new year is as happy as it possibly can be.

At least you know what you're up against.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page