It All Depends on Which Minority

It is only right that the State, our Government, takes on board the concerns and worries of minorities.
It's what happens in a responsible democracy.
Indeed, the soon-to-be-law Civil Partnership Bill, has been introduced because of a long campaign by Gay and Lesbian organisations and, indeed, by the Irish Human Rights Commission.
We have long since passed laws outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, colour or creed or physical ability or disability. It is right, for example, that young Muslim girls be permitted to wear a hijab to school in much the same way as a young Christian girl may wear a crucifix.
We have made tremendous progress as a society.
But you can’t help feeling, that it is only those minorities which are well organised and well financed, which have slick public relations machines or which are popular band-wagons for politicians, which have their cases heard and action taken.

We still, for example, do little or nothing for the mentally handicapped in our midst, or rather, not in our midst. As long as they are kept out of sight, most people - politicians included or even in particular - seen to be content.
We do little or nothing for the old. Yes, that old rogue Charlie Haughey thankfully introduced free travel and other benefits. But our pensioners are expected to live for a week on a sum equivalent to what a TD receives in (unvouched, untaxed) expenses, for two days.
We certainly don’t do enough for the homeless. If we did, there wouldn’t be homless.
And we don’t do enough for unfortunate drug addicts. We have about one per cent of the beds we need to encourage them to seek treatment.
The point of all this is that maybe we’re spending a little bit too much time arguing about whether gays and lesbians can have civil partnerships or whether they can get married. You probably know my personal view is that they can have partnerships and it’s only right. But marriage is and always has been between men and women.
We spend too much time wondering if travellers are a distinct ethnic group. They are not. And even if it was to be decided they were - after endless blathering and waffling - what difference would it make? It certainly hasn’t helped our Roma visitors.
Personally, I would rather we talked about the mentally handicapped, the old, the poor, the homeless and the addicted and, yes, the traveller and the Roma.
They are issues involving people who have nothing and less than nothing. They are not well financed. They have no slick PR machines. They have little or no influence.
Of course, nothing will change.
The mentally handicapped, the homeless, the addicted and, to a degree, travellers aren’t great for turning up at polling stations.
And as long as that’s the case, they will be allowed to rot.

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Goodbye Bertie. Off To Live in Darndale, then?

And so it's farewell Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland who liked to pocket dosh from whoever game it to him, whenever and in whatever currency.
Soon we expect to see you begging on O'Connell Bridge for funds to help you through this difficult time in your life.
Well, not really.
We reckon the bold Bertie will be busy for some time counting all the spondulecks he has managed to bum off people over the year as he sails off into the sunset or, rather, is driven there in the government car he retains by the government driver he also retains.
He will also have to count all the money he gets from the pensions he has earned - earner? what am I saying - the pensions he and other TDs and Ministers have awarded themselves so they can continue to live in luxury while, it is claimed 750,000 Irish children live in poverty or are on the borderline, while pensioners live on less than €300 a week, while the homeless sleep rough because there is no money to staff the hostels built for them, while geriatric patients are being used as human shields in our hospitals to occupy beds so those who need them are kept on waiting lists and don't add to costs, while criminals are let out of prison early, while prices are going through the roof and while we watch the economy crumbling because, in the heel of the hunt, he was pretty damned useless at his job.


Some people seem to be devastated that Bertie is gone. Then again, even by the worst estimates, more than 40 per cent of Zimbabweans voted for Robert Mugabe. Not that I'm making a comparison. Really.
One of the most extraordinary things about the recent events in Irish politics, is the revelation that Fianna Fail politicians all appear to love Fianna Fail more than they love Ireland.
Bertie was at it again yesterday. "The Party that I love..."
They're all at it.
Like Mugabe, they think the party is more important than anything else.
They welcomed back Beverley Cooper Flynn who a court decided, urged people to dodge their taxes.
Why would any party do that?
Because it's good for the party in Mayo, that's why.
Ministers are appointed, not because they're able (that's pretty apparent) but because of the geographical location of their constituencies. It's good for the party.
Bertie was, is, a party man.
He carefully constructed is 'ordinary bloke' image while, at the same time, sucking up cash from anyone and everyone who offered it to him.
He nurtured the image as an ordinary Dub and gave the impression to those he met, that he was their friend.
Which was bullshit.
It's unlikely, now that's he's no longer Taoiseach, he will move in with 'ordinary people' in somewhere like, say, Darndale.
It was all just a grand act from the man who invented his past and is now faced with inventing a future for himself.
President of Ireland?
He mentioned the job yesterday.
All I can say, is please God no.

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