June 29th, 2008

The French haven’t been this exercised about Ireland since the Normans invaded in 1169. Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, will visit us next week to discuss our No vote on the treaty of Lisbon, and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a former French president, has been complaining loudly - and rightly - that his comment about the public being led to accept the treaty by stealth was taken out of context and used unfairly by the No campaign.

It’s a shame that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who is busy with the launch of her third album, can’t accompany her husband. She could have provided a most suitable soundtrack. “Quelqu’un m’a dit,” she crooned on the title song of her first album, “que tu m’aimais encore.” Which translates as “somebody told me that you still loved me”.

How appropriate. Having delivered a stinging rejection to the treaty, the Irish people then informed the rest of Europe that we still loved them. In a Eurobarometer poll, 82% of us said Ireland had benefitted from EU membership, 73% said it was a good thing and 65% had a positive image of the EU.

If the No vote left the EU in “gigantic incomprehension”, to quote France’s foreign minister, this teasing declaration of our abiding affection can only have left them bewildered. No ardent beau courting a reluctant paramour could be as determined as Sarkozy. His credibility and authority as president of the European Council is at stake, as is the future of the treaty, now ratified by almost every other member state.

At last week’s summit in Brussels, Sarkozy promised to “keep the [European] family together”, but once he arrives in Dublin he will be pressing for a second referendum. He will get it, not because of the bullying tactics France might employ, but because Brian Cowen, as the leader of a country that has just tipped into recession, knows Ireland cannot afford to be left behind.

Opponents of the treaty may dislike the idea of a two-tier Europe, but plans were well in train in the early 1990s to sideline Denmark if it did not agree to the Maastricht treaty. Recent reports indicate lawyers are already working on a similar plan to enable the other 26 EU members to carry on without us. If we adhere to our rejection of the treaty, we run a risk of being isolated and ignored in Europe.

Sarkozy and Cowen know the No vote was not a victory for the rabble-rousing, truth-twisting, misinformation-peddling jingoists of the No camp. Nor was it so much a rejection of Europe as a rejection of the way in which the treaty was presented and explained, and an indictment of the maladroit handling of the Yes campaign by the big political parties.

This is obvious from the reasons people voted No, as revealed in a Eurobarometer poll. Many of “hot issues” were red herrings. Just 2% of No voters were concerned about European legislation on gay marriage, abortion or euthanasia. A mere 1% wanted to avoid an influx of immigrants. Concerns about neutrality and our tax system were cited by 6% of No voters, despite Ireland’s triple-lock on one and a veto on the other.

A further 6% were concerned about Ireland’s loss of a permanent commissioner. This will probably be a moot point by the time of a second referendum, as there appears to be increasing support in Europe for the retention of 27 commissioners.

The key reasons for the No vote were that people did not know enough about the treaty (22%) and wanted to protect Irish identity (12%). More than half of those who did not vote said their inaction was due to a lack of understanding. In a second referendum, plenty of No voters would vote No again because of firm convictions about the way the EU is run. Other No voters, those swayed by Coir posters (“People died for your freedom - don’t throw it away”) or who wanted to save Ireland from “godless Brussels”, are a lost cause.

Cowen needs to appeal to rational voters who voted No because they couldn’t understand the treaty and rational abstainers who stayed away for the same reason. Next time he must ensure that every TD has chapter and verse on the ramifications of the treaty and is able to explain them clearly to the electorate.

The taoiseach could also consider an emotive appeal about our future as part of the grand European project. A Frenchman wrote to The Irish Times last week voicing admiration for the dynamism of Dublin, which he witnessed when he visited last year, and contrasting it to what he saw as a student in Trinity College 60 years ago. “I recalled the swarms of barefoot children and the women sitting listless on their doorsteps, with rugs on their shoulders in the way of shawls.” The transformation of Ireland made him proud of Europe, he wrote.

Domestic policy certainly helped to breed the Celtic tiger. But without the €40 billion or more sent our way from European coffers, and without the platform for diplomatic, economic and social co-operation provided by Europe, would we have come so far? No way. There are many benefits, both calculable and intangible, to being part of an organisation of 27 countries with 490m people dedicated to peace, co-operation and prosperity.

On Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s new album, she boasts of 30 previous lovers. It might be stretching an analogy too far to refer to EU counterparts as lovers, but we have 26 good friends in Europe and we can’t risk turning our backs to them again. As Proinsias De Rossa said last week: “Europe can survive without Ireland, but if Ireland loses Europe, we lose everything”.

June 15th, 2008

Copy as filed, not as published

Confuse them, bamboozle them and make them think for themselves. This is the latest bright idea from John Henry, the director of the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO). He wants to perplex drivers by ridding Dublin city centre of footpaths, traffic lights, stop signs, pedestrian crossings and other “clutter”. When drivers aren’t told what to do, he says, they will slow down and take more care, which should result in fewer accidents.

Alright, stop guffawing down the back. Yes, it does seem like a preposterous idea. It’s easy to imagine this plan leading to pandemonium. Think of a “clutter”-free College Green, for example, and the image that springs to mind is one of buses, taxis, vans and cars frozen in chaotic gridlock and engulfed in a cacophony of screeching horns and expletive-laden bellowing from frustrated drivers.

Any pedestrian or cyclist rash enough to try to cross this hellish junction would be lucky to escape with their lives, so we can add the wail of ambulance sirens to the tumultuous din of this imaginary traffic dystopia. It didn’t seem possible that Dublin’s traffic problems could get much worse than they already are, but there’s always room for disimprovement.

Amazingly, however, there’s plenty of evidence to show Henry’s counter-intuitive suggestion might just work. The notion of recasting streets as “shared spaces”, where there are no set rules (other than a speed limit of 30km/h), no one has the right of way and pedestrians, cyclists and motor traffic are all given equal priority, is not an idealistic flash-in-the-pan, but one that has been gaining traction with urban planners the world over.

The father of the concept was a Dutch road traffic engineer called Hans Monderman – he died in January – and he used to compare the shared street idea to a skating rink, which is a fantastic analogy, albeit one that doesn’t work that well in Ireland, where not very many of us know how to ice-skate and imagine skating rinks to be far more perilous than they actually are.

From the Netherlands, the shared street idea has spread to communities in America, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Wherever the traffic lights are dismantled and the road markings taken away, fatal accidents are usually reduced by half or more. Often, they fall to zero. In the Dutch town of Haren, the number of accidents at one junction fell from about 200 a year to 10 after a shared street layout was implemented.

Not only are there fewer accidents, but even though the speed limit is lower, traffic moves far more freely so tailbacks are rare and drivers end up reaching their destination more quickly than under the traditional system.

The pat reaction is to assume Irish people would never go for the “Oh no, after you, I insist” school of road use. It’s difficult to picture traffic in Dublin city centre gracefully engaged in an intricate, slow-motion waltz, in which everyone involved neatly and respectfully sidesteps everyone else.
But shared streets work. Why? Because people are cleverer than traffic lights. White lines can’t think. Speed bumps can’t get up and hurry a few yards down the road to slow a driver when necessary. Humans, even frazzled Dublin commuters, can look up and down the street and immediately gauge where it is safe to cross or how much pressure to apply to their brake.

Shared streets also appeal to people’s sense of personal responsibility. Given the opportunity, most people like to do the right thing. Think of the smoking ban and the plastic bag tax. We’re nothing if not adaptable.

And much as bad driving is in evidence anywhere you care to look, Irish drivers are perfectly capable of driving with common sense and courtesy. After all, what do you do when you reach a flashing amber traffic light? Accelerate wildly, frothing at the mouth while howling “I rule the road!”? Of course not. You proceed cautiously, have a good look around in all directions and drive on only when it is safe to do so. The shared street idea works just like that, but on a far grander scale.

There would be drawbacks to Henry’s plan, of course. Jaywalking has long been a national sport and this might take the fun out of it. There’s no adrenaline rush in plunging headlong across the street if the cars you are dodging are also dodging you, but slowly and respectfully, rather than dodging you at the last minute, having barrelled towards you at speed.

Furthermore, shared streets only work in certain urban areas. It would never make sense to remove signage from the M50 or allow pedestrians to wander at will about the Red Cow roundabout. When the environment is appropriate, shared streets only work if each stretch is less than half a mile. Longer than that and even the most patient, community-minded driver starts to get peeved and lose concentration, which causes accidents and defeats the purpose.

Even though the transport supremo’s idea is actually an extremely sensible one, perverse as it might initially seem, it will never be implemented. Any serious attempt to put it into practice would undoubtedly be stonewalled by misguided road safety campaigners, worried politicians, vested interests in the engineering sector and cabals of street sign manufacturers.

Still, Henry should be lauded for stepping out of the rule-bound public servant mindset and having the backbone to champion an innovative idea that would improve Dublin’s mind-blowingly bad traffic and save lives in the process, while also making the city a far more pleasant place.

As it happens, the DTO is currently engaged in a process of public consultation on the future of transport in the greater Dublin area. This is not actually top-secret, despite the lack of any publicity for it. By going to 2030vision.ie before the end of June, anyone can have their say, although you do have to fill out an inane multiple-choice questionnaire in order to be able to submit your ideas.

Whether you want car-pool lanes, more bendy buses or automated real-time bus and train timetables, this is how to request them. Me? I’m going to ask them to take away all the traffic lights. It’s a crazy plan, but it might just work.

June 1st, 2008

The fact that I am a mathematical genius may come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. But by today’s standards, it’s true.

A new report exposing rampant grade inflation in the Leaving Cert shows that anyone who received a C or D grade in the early 1990s could now expect an A or B. So that C3 I scraped in maths in 1994 would probably be an A2 if I were to sit the exam next week. So I’m entitled to regard myself as a maths whizz and, as long as I’m not challenged on the square root of pi, I should be fine.

In 15 years, the number of students awarded an A or B in higher level has doubled in many subjects. In 1991, 19% of honours English students got an A or B. In 2006, that had risen to 38%. In Business, 40% of students obtained As or Bs in 2006, up from 20% in 1991. It’s the same story across most other subjects.

We must assume these soaring grades are not an unexpected side effect of the better standards of living ushered in by the Celtic Tiger. American teenagers may have become taller and healthier as a result of better nutrition after World War II, but I doubt access to Bebo and twice-yearly foreign holidays have magically made intellectual behemoths of the nation’s secondary school students.

The study also found far fewer students are failing Leaving Cert papers even though far more are taking the honours option. The nation’s cosseted kids, it seems, cannot be allowed to endure the pain of failure.

The artificially bloated grades are like those politically correct sports days where everyone gets a medal, because “everyone’s a winner”. Sorry, kids, it’s not true: only the winners are winners.

In exams, as at sports days, the kids should be encouraged to do their best, then commended for doing so and made to understand relative achievement. That C3 I mentioned in maths? It may not seem anything to shout about, but for me it was a good grade. I worked for it, earned it and was proud of it. I’m still proud of it, as you can probably guess.

Now, however, grades are losing their meaning and that’s irksome, because the flood of high grades devalues intellectual accomplishment. If A grades reward average rather than exceptional work, than an A doesn’t mean much any more. Gifted students are effectively penalised while the rest are given
unrealistic expectations.

Mind you, in some quarters, this doesn’t particularly matter. Irish people have always been suspicious of intellectualism, although we used to value education as a way out of poverty. How times have changed. Last week, I heard about a Dublin secondary school where students are allegedly dropping out after the Junior Cert simply because their families are so well-off that they don’t see the point in bothering. If the point of getting an education is to become wealthy and envied by landing a great job, it’s easy to understand that if you’re already wealthy, the whole education malarkey might seem like a waste of time.

Academic education isn’t valued for its other benefits – teaching students how to concentrate, think
independently, analyse complex information and understand issues and events within a wider context.
While universities and colleges used to reinforce this sort of intellectual rigour, the boom in high Leaving Cert grades and a simultaneous explosion in the number of third-level places on offer makes it difficult for them to insist on maintaining their standards.

Should they follow the example of the UK - where many colleges are now setting independent entrance exams in a bid to maintain academic standards - or do they also dumb down, lowering grade thresholds to accommodate those students cossetted by the Leaving Cert?

According to the Network for Irish Educational Standards, which produced the report on the burgeoning of As and Bs at Leaving Cert level, the dumbing down is already under way. It says the number of first-class honours degrees awarded in Irish third-level is also increasing exponentially. “Weaker and weaker students have been entering the sector,” it says, “only to receive ever improving grades.”

Ironically, grade inflation is ultimately a disservice to students. In the real world, where people have to work hard, pay taxes and learn that life has a habit of throwing nasty surprises at you, an ability to think critically is worth a lot more than a piece of paper showing you got lots of As and Bs in the Leaving Cert. Without the capacity for independent thought, today’s students will flounder in the future and this will only be exacerbated by the false sense of entitlement they have from being handed a raft of ill-deserved high grades.

It will be sorely disappointing for them to discover that, as adults, things won’t always be handed to them on a plate. They will fail sometimes. Life won’t always go their way and no one will ever ask them how they got on in the Leaving Cert.

Grade inflation has wider implications too. Without high standards in education, how will the bottle-fed brats of the Bebo generation develop intellectually to the point where they might contribute to
technological advancement, make scientific breakthroughs or add to the canon of Irish literature?

More prosaically, can we trust those with diluted qualifications to do their jobs properly? If a patient dies because of a doctor’s misdiagnosis or a bridge falls down because an engineer made a basic mistake with a set-square, will we be able to trace those disasters back to the awarding of inflated grades when they were leaving school?

These are questions I was hoping to answer with the aid of a statistical model of my own devising, but the strange thing is, my mathematical abilities just don’t seem to be up to it. And I thought I was an A-grade student.

Getting a lot of traffic this week from people looking for information in plain English or in layman’s terms on the Lisbon Treaty. It’s a bit late, but not too late, to post this - The Treaty of Lisbon: A Spoofer’s Guide to How Not to Vote No by Jason O’Mahony. (It’s a PDF, by the way, just so you’re warned.)

Fair play to the guy - it’s about the easiest-to-understand guide to the treaty I’ve come across. Unbelievably, it’s actually quite enjoyable to read.

And don’t bother leaving a comment afterwards about how his guide, clear and all as it is, is designed to get you to vote Yes. I know it is. If you’re not already convinced, I hope he convinces you

And if the last page doesn’t give you a lump in your throat, you’re probably dead inside.

May 25th, 2008

Nothing compounds the post-holiday blues quite as much as the realisation that the news rumbled on without you, leaving you frantically scrabbling to catch up. I had one of those post-holiday moments last week when a colleague mentioned that Ciaran Cannon had called for prostitution to be legalised.

“He did?” I responded politely, as my mind whirred into overdrive. Who the hell is Ciaran Cannon? That quiet fella I worked with years ago? My colleague’s mad friend, who calls for all sorts of things after a feed of pints?

“You know. Senator Ciaran Cannon, leader of the Progressive Democrats,” my colleague added helpfully. Now I was shocked: the PDs were still going?

I checked their website, just to be sure. It’s still live and, yup, there’s a picture of a nice young man on the home page. Must be this Cannon chap, although the image is not captioned and sits atop a headline that begins “Minister Harney…”.

Cannon recognises that people may be surprised to realise the PDs are still in business. He has acknowledged that its campaign for a Yes vote on the Lisbon treaty is partly aimed at showing the electorate the party still exists and will have candidates standing in next year’s local elections.

An interview with him in Hot Press, in which he endorsed the legalisation of prostitution, was another effort to garner some publicity. And boy does this party leader need publicity. Just prior to the official announcement of his accession to the leadership, none of the assembled press photographers had any idea what he looked like. Last Wednesday, the Indo referred to him as “Green chief Ciaran Cannon”. At least they spelt his name properly.

Unfortunately, the interview indicates that Ciaran may turn out to be something of a loose Cannon. (Did someone crack that joke while I was on holiday?) He has a predilection for the sort of plain speaking that rarely leads to political advancement.

Cannon was happy, for example, to take a pop at former party grandees. “In the past, we may have sat in our ivory towers here in Dublin and decided what’s best for people without actually consulting them,” he said. By “we”, he meant “they”, of course. Because Cannon used to be a low-ranking party foot-soldier who kept a seat warm on Galway County Council and only got a mention in the national media when he played piano at the post-party conference karaoke session. Daydream Believer was popular back then, but I imagine I Will Survive, Stayin’ Alive and Should I Stay or Should I Go would be more the playlist these days.

Cannon’s message is that he may be relatively inexperienced as a politician, having spent five years as a local councillor and less than a year as a senator, but at least he is not part of any tainted old guard. One difficulty, however, is that he worked for over a decade in the planning departments of Dublin and Galway County Councils. “We used to have special ‘Section Four’ meetings where councillors would effectively award planning permission to a plethora of different applicants all over the county,” he told Hot Press. “You did have a sense that something was not quite right.”

Did you indeed. But did you just keep your head down, never reckoning that one day you might become leader of a political party and have your integrity scrutinised from every ?

Cannon has also cheerfully informed us that he is “bordering on the agnostic”. Clearly he’s not worried about upsetting Ireland’s religious rump – mostly elderly rural voters, who would sooner tear up/frame (delete as appropriate) the 1921 Treaty before voting for the PDs. Later in the same interview, he said Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout is God, althought I doubt he meant that literally.

He has spent eight years working for the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, six of those as its chief executive. The Trust takes young people with special needs on pilgrimages to Lourdes. Visitors to its website are greeted with the invocation: “Perhaps through these pages God is calling you through Mary to be part of this work: to be a supporter, a co-worker here in Ireland or a fellow pilgrim to Lourdes.”

Did God call Cannon to the Irish Pilgrimage Trust? Did Mary? It seems odd that an agnostic should be so involved in bringing kids to Lourdes. Why not just bring them to Disneyland? But Cannon is emerging as a man of many contradictions. During his 30 years as church-choir member, he must have been trying to figure out if there is a God. “I have a very logical and analytical mind,” he told Hot Press. [Editing glitch - that line was from an interview with the Irish Times - KF]. “I came to the conclusion that I am not certain whether God exists or not.”

Let’s hope he isn’t conflicted about the party’s central tenets. Not that many people hold out hope for the future of the PDs. Its recent history is a political horror story of horrendous election results and multiple defections. A recent poll reveals the party has the support of only 1% of the electorate.

Cannon has admitted that the PDs may have to be wound up if they don’t put up a decent show at the local elections. The most virulently anti-PD observer would have to wish him well, at least if they believe in diversity in politics. As the cliché goes, we need to move away from civil war politics; to do that we need some smaller parties to thrive.

Can the earnest, well-meaning and rather meek-looking Cannon resurrect the Progressive Democrats? Perhaps, but the party would be better off with a Machiavellian megalomaniac rather than a polite, piano-playing, singing agnostic to lead it forward.

It may seem a tad early and it’s hard to think about winter woollies while the sun is shining gloriously, but I’ve had a sneak preview of the trends for autumn/winter and I just have to share them with you.

The big news? Austerity is the new black. Spending is out. Stinting is in. Who’ll have money for new clothes when Bord Gais is set to raise its prices by 19% and petrol is already costing as much as €1.79 a litre in Dublin? Millilitre for millilitre, that’s almost as pricey as a skinny latte.

Dropping thousands on designer duds may have been all the rage in the past few years, but there is going to be no more “shop till you drop”. Instead, the absolute “in” thing will be to watch as the shops drop. Habitat is gone. Which store will be next? The marvellous truth is that it doesn’t matter. We won’t care, because we won’t be shopping.

Sure, those pointyheads over at the Economic and Social Research Institute may think the economy is going to recover by 2010, but that is seasons away. Countless collections will have come and gone by then. In the meantime, those of us who care about being on-trend are going to have to cut our cloth.

Autumn-winter 2007/8 may have been all about cocoon coats and bright jewel colours, but the only must-have this year will be tightfistedness. Plaids and tartans are completely passé, whereas parsimony and thrift are de rigueur. Remember the utterly gorgeous 1940s glamour-goddess look for which we all went so crazy last winter? Well, that 1940s trend rolls right on through to next season, but the emphasis has shifted. Think rationing. Think clothing coupons. Think make-do-and-mend, ladies.

Fashion-forward style mavens are already getting the sewing kits out, patching and darning their winter wardrobes from years gone by in readiness for next season. If you’re not sure how to turn an old coat into a skirt or the best way of fashioning a new handbag from a threadbare pair of trousers, have a chat to your granny. She did it during the Emergency and can help you hit the right frugal fashion notes heading into 2009.

Before I break down next season’s key looks, just a quick note on wardrobe management. In the past, you may have prepared for a new fashion season by clearing out old clothes and giving them to charity.

Not this year, sweeties. You won’t be buying any new clothes so you’re going to need every last stitch you already own. The Vincent de Paul may have seen a 70% increase in requests for help in recent months, but that’s not your problem.

We all know that the signature piece of any winter collection is the coat. And what is this year’s most covetable winter coat? Silly question. It’s last year’s winter coat, obviously. Whether you plumped for a military-style greatcoat, a sexy belted trench or a to-die-for tulip-shaped wool number, that’s what you’ll be sporting this winter, too. If you’re tempted to splash out on a new coat, think of those soaring gas bills and desist. No matter how fabulous it is, you’ll soon tire of wearing it at home when you can’t afford to put the heating on.

Invited to a winter wedding? The only frocks to be seen in at next season’s nuptials will be recycled from old curtains. If you simply must wear a hat, take inspiration from Philip Treacy’s recent creation for Sarah Jessica Parker. Take a stroll in the woods, gather up acorns, flowers and assorted other bits and bobs, glue them together and attach a length of elastic. Who said millinery was difficult?

Simply can’t think what to wear to the office? Don’t worry too much about it. The way things are going, you may not even have a job by Christmas, particularly if you work in construction, manufacturing or farming. The number of people signing on for unemployment benefit has risen by 42,000 in the past 12 months. They could soon be joined by 1,000 HSE employees destined for the chop. If you do cling to your job, the only appropriate garb to be seen in from 9am to 5pm is dull and drab. Pile on the grey. Frivolity gives out the entirely wrong message during a downturn.

You won’t be going out, so there is no real need to worry about evening wear. If you receive an invitation you simply can’t turn down, wear a figure-hugging number with no pockets and don’t bring a handbag, so others know immediately that you are working the penny-pinch look. If they know you have no money with you, you’ll get away without standing your round.

Nowhere is the new minimalism more apparent than in the beachwear collections for the upcoming winter: there aren’t any. Who could possibly afford a winter sun holiday, with the way fuel surcharges and baggage fees are skyrocketing? When the only beach you’ll be going to this December is Dollymount Strand, or maybe Courttown on a Sunday afternoon, you’re not going to need bikinis, tankinis, one-pieces or sarongs. Style on the sand this winter comes right back to last year’s winter coat — all you’ll need to cut a dash by the sea.

No matter what styles of shoes and bags are in next season, you probably already have something appropriate lurking in your wardrobe, if you’re as over-equipped in this department as most Irish women. If you do find the soles of your favourite shoes start to wear through, slip some folded cardboard inside them and keep on walking - it worked during the Great Depression.

Forget bracelets, necklaces, belts and scarves. You read it here first, fashion fans. There will be only one accessory that counts next season and that is money in the bank.

April 6th, 2008

Were you caught rotten on Tuesday? Sent out by the boss to get tartan paint or a left-handed hammer or discovered your stapler suspended in a block of jelly?

Maybe you were lucky enough not to suffer any April Fool’s jokes, but thousands of motorists in Mayo were nicely pranked by the county council this April 1st, when it left a cardboard cut-out of a garda car at the side of the N5 Castlebar to Dublin road.

The cut-out was remarkably convincing and appeared to have a guard poking a speed gun out the driver’s window. The council said its plan was to highlight the dangers of speeding and remind drivers “the only ones they are fooling when they are speeding are themselves”.

Cardboard cop cars have long been used in many other countries, but while they can be an effective deterrent for a while, motorists soon wise up to them and there’s always the chance the “cars” might blow away.

In parts of America, local police forces have overcome this issue by using real police cars, but equipping them with decoy cops.

Coming just after John Leamy, the most senior civilian employed by the garda, issued a dire warning that the force’s €107m overtime budget for this year would run out by August, the introduction of pretend policemen would be a realistic and practical way for the guards to rein in their spending. They only have €1.6 billion at their disposal this year, they clearly have to cut their cloth accordingly.

The advantage of decoy gardai is that they work 24/7 and don’t need so much as a cup of coffee, let alone mileage, subsistence payments, accommodation allowances or overtime. Neither are they likely to get “blue flu”.

Fewer overtime hours worked by gardai would also lead to marked savings on the administration front. As it stands, the force requires a large cadre of specially trained crack accountants to calculate overtime pay – it works out at anything between time and a sixth for working between 6pm and 8pm on a weekday and 2/41sts of basic weekly pay per hour worked, if they have to work on a Sunday that is a rostered rest day.

I think the calculation may be different for Sundays that fall during months with an R in them or if there is a full moon that week. It’s all rather complicated, anyway.

Admittedly, housing the decoy cops in real cars would be slightly pricier than the cardboard cutout scheme (that cost just €200, according to the very pleased-with-itself Mayo County Council), but all that’s really needed are retired garda cars and some life-size fake gardai.

The government wouldn’t need to splash out millions on state-of-the-art animatronic models – any dummy would do. Apparently, it’s possible to purchase life-size blow-up people very cheaply on the
internet – I think the polite term for them is “Inflate-A-Dates”.

Commissioner Murphy could buy a gross of those (he’d have to get somebody else to do it - just look at the trouble that F1 fellow Mosley got into), kit them out in old garda caps and high-viz jackets, sit them in decommissioned garda cars at the side of busy roads and, hey presto, one cheap and cheerful
Traffic Corps that might not be much less effective than the one we already have.

If the decoy traffic guards prove effective they could be deployed in other areas. Police forces in
Britain have used cardboard cutout bobbies to great effect in shops, on petrol station forecourts and in the waiting rooms of hospital casualty departments.

Our inflatable friends could be similarly deployed here and could also be put to use on match days, guarding the homes of ex-taoisigh and filling in any other roles that require guards to stand around looking bored.

Clearly, they couldn’t be used in certain situations – you need a real guard to arrest someone or to give evidence at a trial – but they could be sent out to accompany real guards on the beat or on patrol in cars, just to give the illusion of a show of strength.

The commissioner could have an inflatable stand-in for civic events, awards ceremonies and passing out parades. The Garda Siochana is forever complaining of a lack of manpower, so let’s not rule anything out.

Decoy guards would be more advantageous than the real thing in many ways. They could never be accused of brutality and they would have no fear of hardened criminals. If they were shot or stabbed, they would just deflate. And they would never abuse their position of power to get free burgers in fast food restaurants or free bus journeys, as callers to Liveline last week alleged the real-life versions have been doing.

Best of all, they would never complain. A quick trawl of an online discussion board used by members of the force throws up a staggering list of complaints. Apparently, it’s almost impossible to engage in a
high-speed pursuit while driving a standard issue 1.4l Ford Focus.

Those guards who do somehow manage to apprehend criminals are very unhappy that their cars don’t have cages, restraints and soilproof seats in the back, meaning all they can do is put on the child lock
and sit on the prisoner if necessary.

They also grumble about not having onboard computers in squad cars that could run checks on individuals and car registrations; not having email; the snail’s pace at which the Pulse system operates; not having the right software to view CCTV footage; the shortage of computers, desks and lockers in
stations; and the difficulty in getting hold of a speed gun or fully functioning individual radio when they need one. They also maintain it’s really annoying having to ring their station from their mobiles to request backup and then not being able to get through.

Uniforms are another bone of contention with “collar burn”, chafing, split trousers and the emblems
wearing off their vests.

Others have loftier concerns; one poster on the discussion board called for an end to nepotism within the force and wished for a fair and merit-based promotions system.

Garda Inflate-A-Date would never be so demanding.

March 30th, 2008

The mandarins of the French foreign ministry in Paris have one overweening preoccupation these days, apparently. According to a ministry adviser quoted in the Irish Times, “they talk of little else at the Quai d’Orsay”.

What do you think this obsession might be? Go on, have a guess. A possible French boycott of the Olympic Games because of the unrest in Tibet? No. President Sarkozy’s visit to London or his new wife’s
decision to wear flat pumps when meeting the Queen? No and no.

It transpires that the issue that has caused much grimacing, gesticulating and exclamations of “quel horreur!”, is the sale of the French embassy in Ireland. France is verging on bankruptcy and its gaff in Dublin is being flogged for €60m as part of a global fire sale to raise some much-needed argent.

Other diplomats stationed in Dublin reportedly “feel sorry” for their French counterparts. The whole episode, apparently, represents a horribleloss of face for the French on the cocktails-and-canapés circuit.

Yvon Roe d’Albert, the French ambassador, has had previous postings in Cuba and Cambodia, but any travails he may have endured in the past can scarcely have prepared him for life as a homeless person on the mean streets of Dublin. Fingers crossed, the French government will be able to stump up for a bedsit in Phibsborough or perhaps Rathmines, which would be much more convenient to the embassy belt of Dublin 4.

Digs could also be a cut-price option for the French: “Right, Mr Ambassador, I do the dinner at six o’clock every day. It’s a cold plate on Sunday, stew on Monday, mince on Tuesday, a pork chop on
Wednesday and sausages on Thursday. I only do five days so you’ll have to go home at weekends.

“And whoever she is, she’s not staying over. First secretary? I don’t care if she’s the 21st secretary, no guests allowed. Can you hold receptions? I’ll give you a reception if I come home to find parties
on here. There’s your key. The front door is double-locked at 10 o’clock. And one more thing…I don’t know what you’re planning on doing with that crate of Ferraro Rocher out in the driveway, but you’re not bringing it into the house. I’m allergic to nuts.”

Monsieur Roe d’Albert will be joining a growing cadre of ambassadors on their uppers in Dublin. The Canadian ambassador’s residence, a mansion in Killiney, was recently sold for €17m, leaving him to suffer the privations of life in an apartment in the Four Seasons in Ballsbridge, while the British ambassador is merely renting his former residence, which was sold for €35.6m in 1999. Three or four other countries are also planning to sell off their ambassadorial residences, according to Dublin estate agents.

The transformation of Ireland from what must have been one of the cushiest numbers in international diplomacy into a hardship posting can only be causing consternation in ex-pat haunts around the world. Imagine the scene: ceiling fans whirring above and ice clinking in gin and tonics while seasoned attachés blanch at the latest coded missive from the diplomatic bag:
“The new embassy in Dublin is a two-up, two-down former council house. There hasn’t been an hors d’oeuvre served there in months. And worse again, there are roving bands of clampers who couldn’t give a toss about diplomatic immunity.”

There might seem to be worse fates for a diplomat than to be shipped off to Ireland — it’s not like those posted in Dublin have to deal with oppressive heat, dodgy plumbing and malaria, but at least posts like Kabul, Karachi and Khartoum carry a certain frisson. Those national representatives sent to Dublin won’t be able to boast of having survived coups, civil wars and marauding militias (unless you
count the clampers).

That said, life as a Dublin-based diplomat has other challenges besides the possible lack of a swanky embassy. The report on diplomatic living conditions in Ireland on eDiplomat.com pulls no punches. Transport and motoring are proving to be a particular bugbear.

Traffic here is heavy, it says, and Irish people drive aggressively and too quickly on “a road network system that is out of date”.

“Buses and trains are usually crowded,” it adds. “Taxis are expensive and may be difficult to obtain.”

Diplomats are also warned not to get sick in Ireland if at all possible: “Competent specialists in all fields of medicine and dentistry provide satisfactory services, but their equipment is not always as modern as in the U.S. [...] Obtain special medical or dental treatment before coming to post.”

And Irish houses are small, with small rooms, small appliances and inadequate wiring systems. They are also “frequently cold”; the report counsels diplomats to bring flannel pyjamas and bed socks.

There are other bombshells awaiting any diplomat posted here. It is difficult to track down both fat-free food and narrow shoes in this country, apparently, and finding “competent and dependable servants” is nigh on impossible.

The report saves the worst blow for last:
“The Dublin Grand Opera Society and Dublin City Ballet are not world-class companies,” it says, adding by way of consolation that the outfits concerned “do provide appealing entertainment”.

Of course, the main reason to be a diplomat, or a diplomat’s spouse, is that once you retire, you get to write a heartwarming, if patronising, account of your years on the front line. Typical existing examples include Cocktails, Crises and Cockroaches, Journeying Far and Wide, and Bush Hat, Black Tie.

Give it 10 or 20 years and there’ll be a raft of memoirs from diplomats who survived being posted to Dublin. Likely titles should include Cruel Landladies, Crowded Buses and Chilly Houses, Journeying
Nowhere Much in Terrible Traffic and Bed Socks, Bad Opera. Bestsellers all, I’m sure.

March 23rd, 2008

Copy as filed, not as published

Suffering from the perennial complaint of having hundreds of TV
channels but finding there’s nothing on? You could soon have something
new to watch, if a senior garda gets his way. Paschal Feeney, the
president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI)
wants murder and kidnapping trials to be televised. It is, he says,
“high time that the general public became more fully aware of the
carry-on” in Irish courts.

Unfortunately - because it would have made for truly entertaining
television - Feeney didn’t mean there is carry on in the courts in a
Carry On Judging sort of way, with lusty old judges, skimpily dressed
stenographers and a steady flow of ooh-err missus double entendres
from senior counsels.

Instead, he seems to think day-to-day goings-on in the Four Courts are
more like scenes from Chicago, with guilty-as-sin defendants skipping
free from justice, having given ‘em the old razzle dazzle in the court
room. Irish trials should be televised, he said, so the rest of us
could see “the histrionics, the antics and the showmanship and they
should also see the venality and, where it exists, the nobility.”

His idea is laudable, in a way. Most people rarely experience the
rarified and arcane environment of the courts and are even less likely
to encounter a gangland thug at close quarters so would welcome an
insight into this world. But while Feeney seems to think that a
certain class of lowlifes and scumbags will put on a good show, I’m
concerned that most Irish trials are just not going to make good
telly.

As a wet-behind-the-ears cub reporter, I spent time in the courts
(mainly to practice my shorthand, I have to admit) and the reality,
even of a murder trial, proved to be a bit of a let-down. Nobody once
shouted “Objection!” or “Out of order!” or “You can’t handle the
truth” and I didn’t see a single impassioned address to the jury.
Instead, legal argument about seemingly inconsequential scraps of
evidence dragged on for hours, if argument is the right word for
lengthy, lifeless exchanges between droning barristers and mumbling
witnesses.

I certainly wouldn’t have watched any of the cases I attended had they
been broadcast. Compelling courtroom dramas they were not. Televised
toenail clipping contests would have made for racier viewing.

Without question, some drastic improvements are needed before Feeney’s
idea would work in practice. Our judges, for example, are woefully
lacking in razzmatazz, with the possible exception of Judge John
Neilan, who is given to making bizarre sweeping statements about the
dangers posed by women, the likelihood of “coloured people” being
banned from shopping centres and, most recently, the incompetence of
Courts Service staff.

He’s pretty much guaranteed to deliver one wildly controversial rant
per court case so I know I’d happily settle on the couch, glass of
wine in hand, to enjoy my weekly fix of Neilan Dispenses Justice.

Mostly, though, Irish judges are a ponderous old bunch and I’m not
sure their windy pontificating will really hold viewers’ attention. I
wonder if we could invite Judge Judy, the caustic queen of American
court reality shows, to show our men and women in black how to turn in
a ratings-grabbing performance. She wouldn’t have too much patience
for the time-wasting dissembling favoured by Irish defendents.

“So you shot and killed the victim on December 3rd last?”
“Jaysus no. Nuttin’ to do wit’ me.”
“Baloney! I can clearly see you holding the gun in this image from a
CCTV camera at the scene.”
“Ah yeah. Well, yeh see the ting is dat I was just holdin’ the gun for
me mate while he went into de shop. He was after sayin’ to me it was a
toy belonged to one of the chisellers.”
“Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining! You shot the guy!
Twenty years in Mountjoy. Get outta my court.”

Irish judges will have to wise up and realise that’s the sort of
rat-a-tat judging they’ll have to engage in if Court TV Ireland is
going to be a hit.

Any teenager who dreams of making it onto You’re A Star knows they
need to put in the hours at home singing into hairbrushes and prancing
through dance routines of their own devising. Our senior judicial
figures might want to follow that lead and spend some time in front of
the mirror, practising stern looks and gavel banging.

Our barristers, too, are lacking a bit in the star quality department.
Audiences who tune in for televised trials expecting to swoon over
dashing, idealistic lawyers like Matthew McConaughey in A Time To Kill
are going to be sorely disappointed when they find they’re stuck with
lingering closeups of Michael McDowell.

There’s hope in that department, however. They’ve been moaning down
the Law Library recently about the number of new entrants to the
profession - numbers have quadrupled from 600 in 1998 to a projected
2,400 by the end of 2009. But while the Bar Council has been bleating
on about the threat this explosion in numbers poses to the
independence of the Irish bar, it’s failing to see the upside. An
influx of attractive young barristers is exactly what the profession
needs to sex it up in advance of trials being televised.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter how many telegenic barristers
emerge from Kings Inns. Court cases need defendants and witnesses to
proceed and, once the cameras are in situ, that could be a problem.
Martin Cahill was memorable among crime lords for actively seeking
infamy, but plenty of gangland figures won’t be so keen to have it
thrust upon them. They’ll resort to every blocking tactic possible to
make sure they can keep their histrionics, antics and showmanship off
the TV screens.

Furthermore, numerous trials have already become mired in difficulty
or even collapsed because witnesses were too scared to testify, either
refusing to appear or staying schtum on the stand. It’s not going to
improve matters if wary witnesses have to deliver their testimony
under the unrelenting glare of the television cameras. Not everyone
wants to be a reality TV star.

March 16th, 2008

Copy as filed, not as published

Did you hear the one about the man in a straitjacket who wouldn’t get
into a taxi outside the Central Mental Hospital? It’s a corker.

A couple of comedians thought it would be funny to dress up as a nurse
and a patient from the hospital and prank an unsuspecting taxi driver.
They stood outside the hospital in Dundrum, the “nurse” called a taxi
on a mobile phone and, when the taxi arrived, the “patient” in the
straitjacket refused to get into it, ran away, hid behind a small tree
and lay on the ground refusing to get up.

Alright, so it’s not likely to win a major comedy award. But when this
skit aired on the I Dare Ya programme on RTE 2, members of the public
complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC). The BCC
upheld the complaint, ruling that RTE had breached broadcasting code
stipulations against stereotyping or stigmatising people with mental
disability.

What a shame the BCC didn’t tell the humourless complainants to take a
hike. The sketch mightn’t have been in the best taste, but it was
funny. Why? Because there is no way this situation could actually
arise. Certainly, there was a time when the mentally ill were
restrained in straitjackets, but not any more. Remember the old adage
– tragedy plus time equals comedy.

I’m just sorry there isn’t a commission to which I can go to complain
about complaints upheld by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.
One of the complaints about the I Dare Ya sketch, as summarised by the
BCC, ran as follows:
“The joke is based on the preconception that
mentally ill people are running around in straight jackets [sic]
afraid to get into taxies [also sic]. This portrayal has a big impact
on the general public’s view of mental illness and contributes to the
unfair stigmatisation of people with mental health problems in our
society. This affects their right to social inclusion and has
devastating consequences like suicide.”

Laugh? I nearly cried. Absurd, reductionist logic like this is far
more offensive than the original sketch could ever have been. Anyone
with a shred of sense knows that those suffering from mental illness
are unlikely to be running around Dundrum in straitjackets. A viewer
who happened to flick over to RTE2 during that scene would have
quickly deduced that it was part of a comedy programme.

To argue there could be a link, however tenuous, between a sketch like
this and suicide is grossly objectionable. If anything, the I Dare Ya
crew neatly skewered popular prejudices about the mentally ill.
But that’s beyond the ken of the bad taste vigilantes, who rally
together with the catchcry of “It’s absolutely disgraceful!”. These
joyless curmudgeons are quick to take offence on behalf of others and
love nothing more than writing to the BCC or the letters pages of
newspapers, or ringing Joe Duffy or berating anyone who’ll entertain
their self-righteous bellyaching. Where there is a comedian telling
jokes about bodily functions or minorities or paedophile priests, the
kneejerk outrage is never too far behind. It’s so tiresome.

You just know the people who complain to the BCC are exactly the sort
of people who would have been horrified at Jonathan Swift’s modest
proposal to sell poor children as food for rich people. Not, I hasten
to add, that I Dare Ya is remotely Swiftian in its scope or execution.

The point is that humour in bad taste can not only be uproariously
funny – admit you’ve laughed at whoopee cushions – but can also be
scabrous in its exposure of popular prejudices and misconceptions.

At least the BCC doesn’t always buckle before the persnickety
guardians of political correctness. It recently rejected a complaint
that it was inappropriate for the Late Late Toy Show to include June
Rodgers singing a pantomime song about stealing another girl’s
boyfriend. I can only concur with the complainant, although on the
grounds that June Rodgers is deeply unfunny and should be kept off the
telly whenever possible.

In recent months, the BCC has also rejected complaints regarding Ardal
O’Hanlon, who told a story on Tubridy Tonight about his wife arriving
home to find him in that characteristic male slob-out pose – sprawled
on the couch watching TV, with one hand down his trousers; the use of
the word ‘ride’ by Podge and Rodge in reference to Glenda Gilson; and
the broadcasting by Galway Bay FM of a song entitled Horse it into ya
Cynthia.

Who makes these complaints? If they insist on writing querulous
missives, couldn’t they do so on behalf of Amnesty International or to
raise funds for homeless shelters, rather than acting as
self-appointed moral guardians for the rest of us?

It’s such a pity the BCC’s remit stops at upholding or rejecting
complaints. It would be so much more useful if it could remonstrate
forcefully with complainants for wasting the commission’s time and
taxpayers’ money with their Pooterish whinging, before dispatching
them to find better uses of their time than squawking outrage about
weak jokes in dubious taste.

Defending its broadcast of the straitjacket sketch, RTE put up a
pretty lousy defence, albeit one with the unintended benefit of
reminding us what passes for comedy around at the state broadcaster
these days: “Comedy pokes fun at everybody, whether it is Catholic
priests, bald men, fat people, Kerry people, librarians, women
drivers, taxi drivers etc.”

RTE could have added that if comedy gives offence, it usually says
more about the offended than the comedy and a double standard almost
always applies. Bald men may laugh uproariously at jokes about women
drivers, but can struggle to smile at jokes in similarly bad taste
about bald men.

Or as the frequently risqué comedian Jimmy Carr once put it: “One
person came up to me after a show and said that they really liked the
stuff about retarded children, they loved the stuff about gypsies,
that was fine but they had a child with ADD [attention deficit
disorder], so the joke about that wasn’t funny.”

The best bad taste jokes are iconoclastic, smashing taboos and forcing
us to examine our own preconceptions. And the worst? Those gags that
are crass, vulgar and lacking in all subtlety or intellectual nous?
They should be allowed too. Better that than the alternative –
po-faced, right-on attempts at humour that don’t amuse anyone.