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.

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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?

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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




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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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



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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.

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Madness - part of what we are.

You’ll read a lot about “culture” on this blog - usually in the comments section. Much of it concerns a contrived, selective, orthodox brand of official Ireland “culture”, which if we weren’t told about all the time, we’d probably know nothing about. Gaelic, Aran sweaters, tin whistles, Peig, those bagpipe things you play with your armpit. But let’s get on to culture as it really applies in the real world. And Ireland.

I was at Madness in the O2 last night, and was very impressed. Not by the O2 or many of the people present – particularly in the row of seats I was in, hopping up and down like a jack-in-the-box to allow egress to those more interested in the bar and the pop-corn than the band. There are two few aisles, you see, and there’s more legroom in a Ryanair jet than in the O2. Throw in the Irish propensity for face-stuffing and that meant I was paying for a seat I wasn’t actually sitting in most of the time. That’s fine if you’re a dancer, but I’m not.

Back to Madness, though. I know they’ve had 30 years to perfect their set, but they were excellent. The light show was superb too, though sound-wise the bass was a bit muddy - and the bass player had a lovely Stingray, so it wasn’t that. Well-crafted, classic ska and pop hits played excellently - with Suggsy the consummate front-man.

As a bonus, Jerry Dammers was there doing DJ, playing an eclectic selection of Blue Beat, reggae and original ska sounds. Dammers, of course, is the man who set up the Two Tone label in the late seventies, a label that included his band The Specials, The Selector, The Bodysnatchers and (initially), Bad Manners, Madness and The Beat.

And while the punk of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Jam and others had an important message before and during the ska explosion, the practical anti-racist ethos of Two Tone is hard to beat - and is possibly the most durable. This is simply because it united black and white youth around a common culture consisting of a love of music that transcended other so-called cultural divisions. All the more impressive, as it happened just as unemployment, government policy, racism and rioting had indeed transformed some British cities into “ghost towns”.

The open, accessible and inclusive culture of Two Tone is one that’s well worth us all celebrating.

And the music’s not bad either.

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Keep your Christmas Happy... stay away from the Forty Foot

Look at the picture on the left, taken at the Forty-Foot near Sandycove – presumably last year. The Forty Foot Swim is a tradition with some elements of south Dublin on Christmas Day, who congregate at the location to submerge themselves in the freezing drink. It’s something to do with masochism or penance, I think... if you want to make a distinction between the two.

I've been pondering this for some time, and honestly can’t think of a worse thing to do. For my part, I’ll be submerging a few drinks today, but rest assured I won’t be anywhere near the Forty Foot… not even to look and give encouragement to the eejits.

No, things will be a lot more sedate and sensible in the Manor. A bucks fizz breakfast, for instance. Then a search of the TV listings to see if Chitty Bang Bang is on. Maybe a can or two of Newry lager, then a Bernard Matthews synthetic turkey dinner, washed down with bucks fizz and maybe a Guinness just to be patriotic, and a few bags of Tayto for good measure. You get the idea. OK, not very sensible at all - but what other day can you do all this on?

Anyway, it certainly beats splashing around in the Forty Foot, your skin roaring red raw from the bitter cold, doesn’t it?

Happy Christmas.

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Driving in Ireland. R755 - the Green Hell

I went for a spin again the other day towards the Sally Gap and yonder without using the M50, due to an aversion to handing money over to National Toll Roads. I could have just avoided it by cutting around the back of Clonsilla, but decided to see how people managed pre-M50, going via Leixlip, Celbridge, Newcastle and Saggart.

I’m always amazed by the traffic in these commuter towns, and even more amazed that no effort has been made in improving the local roads for the increased population who need their cars to get about.

We’re not talking six-lane dual carriageways here, but simply for the authorities to make the roads safer. For instance, I encountered three busy, narrow bridges with room for only one car in either direction. Head-on collision, anyone? It might have been fine when we went about on donkeys and carts, or when traffic was light - but not now.

Why, oh why, can’t the local councils or the NRA simply knock down these death traps and replace them with nice, wide, shiny bridges where people don’t have to take their lives in their hands? It would be easy, and would “save lives”. Heritage is the reason, I imagine - “It was on this bridge that Cuchulainn stopped for a pee on his way to fight the Brits at Cooley”, or some such nonsense. Or “It was on this bridge that Gombeen Man had a head-on with an SUV, bad cess to him”.

Then you have the R755 from Laragh to Rathdrum, through the Vale of Clara. Now that is a road on which you need to have all your wits about you. It's very beautiful, granted, but if you spend too long looking at the scenery you'll find yourself in it. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere. The Nordschleife – the German racing circuit known as the Green Hell - is in the ha’penny place by comparison.

You’ll be driving along, minding your own business, and suddenly find yourself in mid-air over the crest of a hill, right on a bend, noting that the road has suddenly shifted twenty feet to your right. And you are heading straight for a tree where the road once was – with not a barrier in sight.

I kid you not. I am sure this has actually happened to people. In fact it’s impossible to imagine it hasn’t. Just go out that way and see for yourself - but be careful, if you don’t want to get too intimate with the green stuff.


Take the M50 though. You might get ripped off crossing the toll bridge, but at least you won't get killed.


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YouGov survey shows the Irish are not happy anymore

Remember all the surveys, not that long ago, finding we were the happiest nation on Earth? That the whole world wanted to live here and that Ireland’s population would be 50 billion by the year 2020? And, accordingly, we’d need tax breaks and shelters in place to build all the apartments required to cater for the coming population explosion? And how there would be a wealthy new Irish landlord class that could sit back and live off the income from their investment properties, funded by the influx of drones, assuming they had bought enough apartments?

Well, all that is no more, it seems. A poll by YouGov featured in today’s Metro now tells us that the Irish are not happy campers at all, with nearly 60% worried about “debt, money and their bank balance” - and negative equity I presume. The corresponding figure in the UK is 48%. Surprisingly, only 28% were worried about “the state of Irish politics”. Maybe that statistic alone says it all.

Another finding, in the land of eternal friendliness and gregariousness, was that loneliness was a big issue – with 17% of 18 to 24-year-olds citing it as a top concern. 32% were worried about health issues: not surprising, as if anything happens to them they will probably find themselves on a hospital trolley in a busy corridor, while the highly paid consultant they need is out playing golf. Ah, it’s a great little land altogether.

First thing to do when you read a survey is find out who commissioned it. If it’s about the demand for houses and the Construction Industry Federation (or Fianna Fail) have paid for it, you need to be sceptical.

If, on the other hand, it was carried out on behalf of the Samaritans – as was this one – it might be worth taking a bit more seriously.

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Anarchy is virtually dead – we've not evolved enough.

If the Internet is an expression of anarchy – no rules, regulation, policing and whatnot - it just affirms the suspicion that anarchy could never work, simply because we are not evolved enough.

You only have to take a look at some of the sites and blogs to see it: Ignorance, racism, prejudice, myths taken for fact, sickos and worse. Not all sites are as informative, authoritative and respectable as Gombeen Nation and the blogs listed to the left, you know.

Being a bit of a petrolhead, I did a search the other day on the subject of the oversteering tendencies of a particular chassis/engine configuration. It lead me to a sick site that gloated about the death of an 18 year-old girl in the US who had taken her parents' Porsche and crashed it.

Not only did it gloat (LOL was the term employed): it featured pictures of the poor kid’s corpse in situ. The pictures were released by some scumbag from the local police department and put up by another (?) scumbag for the entertainment of scumbags the world over, who enjoy such things. The girl’s family were confronted with these pictures, and the other kids had to be taken out of school in order to avoid being goaded by fellow students about their sister’s death.

Where am I going here? Well, this is not about class, nationality or any of the rest – it’s about how far we have evolved as a species. Some of the comments on these sites shocked and filled me with a sad unease – and that does not happen very often, I can tell you. It seems there are quite a few of our species who, at best, don’t have any ability to emphasise - the very quality that distinguishes us from the other animals.

You’ll see it here too, in other forms. I don’t post all the comments I get on the blog – some are too vile and some are simply too ignorant – and I suppose that’s the nearest you can come to self-regulation on the Internet. I always publish a certain amount of them, of course, but if I published each and every one it would just get too tedious reading the same mindless drivel, that adds no value to the topic under discussion.

The post here about rug-headed Limerick mayor, Kevin Keily calling for the deportation of non-nationals was one example. “Fair play to Mayor Kiely – send them home” was typical, but sometimes in less civilised terminology. Stunningly, I even had such comments from (presumably) Irish people living abroad asking for deportations... some from the States (I wonder were they legal?). But the Irish capacity for hypocrisy and self-deception is legendary. More legendary than Cuchulainn, in fact.

But that’s what you’ll see here is mild. Search out a “contentious” issue on You Tube and read the comments - you’ll be stunned at the level of debate. Put it this way, it’s not the kind of stuff that would get past the letter’s page editor of The Irish Times, The New York Times, Die Welt, or whatever else.

So despite whatever objectionable content we might occasionally come up against, calls for increased state regulation should be resisted - especially given Irelands record of censorship. After all, what’s out there was always out there.

The only difference is we are all aware of it now.

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Wind up Anglo Irish Bank... save €7 billion?

Interesting idea in the Metro letters page the other day, of all places, from Ken who suggested that the Government could have made all the Budget cuts and more, simply by winding up bad bank Anglo Irish.

"Last week when all the attention was on talks between the Government and unions, the Department of Finance published estimates for 2010, in which €7 billion of taxpayers' money is expected to be spent on Anglo Irish Bank.

Simple solution: wind-up Anglo Irish Bank and transfer the staff not involved in the corrupt practices of the bank to work for Nama. The Government says it needs to save €4 billion, well wind up Anglo and we'll save €7 billion."

I'm no economist - and maybe that's not a bad thing in an Irish context- but does that suggestion not sound quite sensible?

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Compulsory Irish placenames for Dublin - Brabazon and Ni Dhailaigh decree

This is not a joke, right? This is for real.

All future building developments and street names in Dublin will be compelled to have Gaelic names, Dublin City Council has ruled. The council - which obviously has little else to do - supported a motion to that effect proposed by Fianna Fail’s Tom Brabazon and Shinner Criona Ni Dhailaigh.

The move, inspired by Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League), an Irish language lobby group, means it will be illegal for builders to use English when naming new housing or commercial units – whenever they get round to building them again. New estate names will be required to “reflect local history and topography”, but “as Gaeilge” only.

The Gaelic League's chairperson Seán Ó hAdhmaill believes that the edict will “normalise” the use of Gaeilge in Dublin. "I am sure that this initiative will increase the use of the national language in this our capital city".

Maybe someone should point out to these clowns that the extent to which Gaeilge was ever in common usage on the eastern seaboard is highly debatable – certainly in the Viking city of Dublin and surrounding counties (the much-maligned Pale, which I am in favour of reinstating). Indeed, it might be more apt for these jokers to decree that we use Hiberno-Norse, Norman or Anglo-Saxon monikers.

Sure, there may well be an argument for avoiding portentious names such as “Tuscany Downs”, but that does not justify a blanket ban on the use of the city's vernacular. After all, there is a housing estate somewhere in Meath called “Tir na Nog” (The Land of the Young). How embarrassingly, cringingly crap an address is that, then?

If a placename is to reflect “local history” it should be in the local language of Dublin – not Government Gaelic, as Dublin's heritage and influences are far more multifarious than that.

But that would be at odds with the spirit of Official Ireland and our idiot rulers.

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