Flahed out

So, the local elections are scheduled for next month. I won’t get to vote unfortunately, as my two-week stint back home comes to an end on June 7th. A pity, but this time out I won’t lose any sleep over it. The county councils will get a little shake-up and it’s long overdue. Unfortunately though, while the opposition will gain, it’ll probably be the same tired old Fine Gael and Labour candidates with the same old tired agenda as before.

Damn it people, get a clue! Slagging off the government is NOT a viable political policy! For those who follow the Socialist Worker ethos of “everything the government does is bad, as long as the goverment is not us”, well, you’ll fit in well with Labour or Fine Gael.

Since the 1997 elections, these parties have shown their complete and total incapacity to provide a credible opposition. The purpose of the opposition is to provide an alternative to the government. To do this well, the opposition should be providing rational, well thought out alternatives to government policy.

Current opposition policy for example, seems to be to protect the dual-mandate, allowing TDs (arguably already doing a full-time job) to hold county council seats also, and increasing the potential for corruption. The only reason I can see for this is that, not content with a tax-free allowance of 50% of their overly-inflated salaries, these avaricious excuses for public representatives want to maintain their steady flow of cash.

Let’s talk about something the opposition could do to boost their popularity among the ordinary people, rather than the corporate interests which finance their election campaigns.

In the 1970s, a Fianna Fáil government under Jack Lynch brought forward a proposal allowing TDs to claim 50% of their salaries as their tax-free allowance. At the time, there was a very good reason for this, all TDs were obliged to pay for their own staff. Nearly 30 years later, staff costs are legitimate expenses, and TDs retain their 50% tax-free allowances, while high house prices, inflation, and lack of salary increases mean many of the people TDs represent are effectively earning less than they were 5 years ago.

Come on… pick up the challenge – Do something for the people you represent, make a change.

Let me start with a disclaimer (those of you who know me well will be aware of this already). I do not, never have, and possibly may never support Fine Gael at election time. My reasons are many and varied and for the purposes of this post, largely irrelevant.

In my endearingly opinionated way though I decided I would like to comment on this issue. WHAT THE HELL WAS ENDA KENNY UP TO??? I am a wholehaearted supporter of the smoking ban, but in the Dáil – the home of the parliament that enacted the smoking ban – the least one would expect is the facility to smoke outside. Yes, Mr. Deasy’s act was most likely calculated to provoke a reaction and gain him some sympathy and support from voters, but to sack a competent front-bench spokesman when lesser sanctions could have been imposed, seems a cynical, calculated attempt by Mr. Kenny to curry favour with the more militant elements of the anti-smoking brigade.

I find Mr. Kenny’s lack of judgement and of loyalty both appalling and disgraceful. Surely a man who fails to show loyalty or compassion for his colleagues as Mr. Kenny has done, is destined to become yet another failure in Fine Gael’s litany of failed leaders.

But this isn’t about attacking Mr. Kenny or Fine Gael. What it’s about is this: fanaticism on ANY issue doesn’t help anyone. Smoking is a particularly emotive issue in Ireland at the moment apparently (I’ve been abroad for the past few months, but I can only assume it has become worse with the passage of the smoking ban into law), but for the sake of progress, lets try to be rational, and ignore those who exploit these issues for political capital.

I’m pissed off. Very pissed off. I’ve just been reading an article on teenage drinking on the Irish Independent website. As is fashionable at the moment in some unimaginative elements of the Irish press, all of our problems are blamed on alcohol. Never mind that it was much less of a problem before the advent of “convenience parenting”.

Convenience parenting is a term I coined this morning to describe the phenomenon of irresponsible parents who seem to think it’s a good idea to dump their children in front of the television or computer, and forget about them until meal times. Listen… if you don’t have time to bring up a child properly DON’T BLOODY WELL HAVE CHILDREN!!!

Bringing up children responsibly means spending time with them, teaching them right from wrong, encouraging them to spend time outdoors with friends, engaged in sports or other forms of social activities. Children from a young age tend follow their parents example. Would you like to see your child turn into a lager-lout who spends all his/her time in front of television watching the latest soccer match? Or would you prefer that he/she is out playing football, hurling, camogie, rugby (or any number of other sports) with friends? Or engaging in volunteer activities?

Yes, alcohol is problem. Alcoholism is nothing to be scoffed at. But alcohol is NOT the reason for teenage violence, teenage rape and other aberrant behaviour. Let’s grow up, stop blaming the latest fashionable scapegoat for our problems and look at our own individual lifestyles. Or don’t you care enough about your child’s future?

Before I begin, I apologise in advance to any sensitive little soul who may be offended by anything I write here. It is not my intention to cause offense, just to inflict my opinions on all and sundry

As I came to work on the Arrow this morning I noticed an advertisement for television licenses mounted over the luggage rail. It pictured a nice LCD television (you know, the kind you’d love to have at home but can’t afford because you have to pay for things like the television license, for example), displaying the words “Last of the TV Spongers”, beside text threatening a €635 fine if you haven’t paid for your television license.

It strikes me as ironic that the only state-funded television network in Ireland is accusing others of being spongers. I rarely watch television. I never watch RTE. Why am I paying €150 per annum to support them? I’m already paying Chorus €25.99 per month for the privilege of getting television reception, and I’m informed that Chorus are paying RTE for the right to rebroadcast.

Now, it’s not that I refuse to watch RTE on principle. I’d love to find something on RTE that I couldn’t get better elsewhere. I don’t even watch RTE news anymore as I find TV3 far more impartial.

It’s not as though RTE are incapable of being self-funding. Look at TV3/UTV for example. Or Channel 4. Or the BBC. All of these networks are producing dramas/comedies/news programs of sufficient interest and quality to be syndicated. Ireland is known for it’s artists… writers, actors, singers and dancers all abound in this country. RTE has a vast pool of talent to draw on, and it chooses for the most part to ignore this, unless of course the artist in question has achieved fame or notoriety in his/her own right abroad.

So I say to RTE … people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!