A: Is it true Mary Lou McDonald has lost the use of her legs?
B: Not as far as I know. Why do you ask?
A: Well I thought maybe she’d had a fit of temporary paralysis yesterday, the way she sat on and on in the Dail.
B: Ah no, that was deliberate.
A: It was?
B: Yes, she claimed that the Tanaiste hadn’t answered her question about water charges.
A: Which of course she had. Right?
B: Well yes and no.
A: You speak in riddles.
B: Yes, she answered Mary Lou but no, she didn’t answer what was asked – would water charges come out of people’s benefits.
A: I gather the Ceann Comhairle isn’t a bit pleased with her.
B: Probably not. He’s even less pleased with her party leader.
A: Speak on.
B: Well, Gerry Adams has said he’s got no confidence in the fairness of the Ceann Comhairle.
A: Woah. That’s fighting talk. Is all this a stunt?
B: It depends on how you see these things. To Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Labour Party, it’s a cheap trick to divert attention from the Mairia Cahill case.
A: And is it?
B: Yes and no.
A: Please don’t say that again.
B: I’m afraid I have to. Yes,it’s a stunt to move public attention away from the Cahill case, but no, it’s not a cheap, that is to say an empty stunt. People really do care about the water charges.
A: With all this rain?
B: Even with all this rain.
A: I’ve just had a thought.
B: That’s nice.
A: Don’t the water charges come under the heading of ‘Bread-and-butter issues’?
B: They certainly do. More crust and margarine at this stage.
A: And isn’t that what the media urge politicians to focus on, in these stretched economic times?
B: That’s true.
A: So in a way, Mary Lou has done people a favour by getting attention back onto the pressing matter of the day?
B: Nearly right.
A: I fail to follow.
B: She’s moved attention back to the pressing matter not of the day but of the coming week. Water charges are going to be stage front and centre all next week. Mary Lou’s sit-in is making sure that’s where they stay. Besides, she’s not fond of the Tanaiste.
A: You amaze me. But listen – tell me the truth. Was it party interest or was it public interest that kept her stuck to her seat for so long?
B: Yes and no.
A: Oh God. Not that again.
B: Yes, she no doubt had an eye to lifting the spotlight (no pun intended) from the Cahill case and the attacks on her party leader Gerry Adams.
A: And no?
B: No it wasn’t a cheap stunt. People seem for some reason to be terribly interested in the payment of these water charges.
A: Can’t pay, won’t pay?
B: Indeed.
A: And does that apply to Gerry Adams and Mary Lou? Surely they could afford to pay?
B: They could but they won’t.
A: Can pay, won’t pay?
B: You got it in one.
A: Will all this end badly for the Fine Gael and Labour party, as the people doing the water charging?
B: Yes and yes.
A: Is it their poll tax moment?
B: It looks more and more like it every day.
B: Should we feel sad that poor Enda and Joan are under such pressure.
A: Oh look – there’s a water buffalo…
Jude, please tell me what the ‘Ceann Comhairle’ is.
I’m a bit unsighted as to the full economic situation in the ROI, but I presume things aren’t good. Is the imposition of water charges not necessary in order to help balance the books? I wouldn’t have thought a. Government fighting for its future would impose an unnecessary tax just for the sake of it.
The “Ceann Comhairle” is the Speaker of the Dail Eireann, William. And no, the people in the south are sick of austerity, these water charges is just another way for the Government to squeeze more cash out of peoples pockets to pay for debt that the Irish people didn’t even run up!
This water tax is necessary to pay off to foreign bond holders for their lost investments. This government were elected on the basis that they were not going to make the taxpayer pay for private investment losses. Its not our dept. They gambled and lost yet our government wants to pay out on their loosing dockets.
Respect to Mary Lou. But mu God, that lady must have a bladder of steel to sit there for four hours like that 🙂
Four hours? That’s not long…I’d give her bladder 6 out of 10 on that showing
Hi William, why not google it rather than display a breathless desire to prove you’re indifference to another language. It doesn’t come across they you intend. Honestly.
Good morning William. The Ceann Comhairle is the chairperson (or speaker) of Dáil Éireann. Regarding the water charges, I am under the impression that many, many, many moons ago the road tax was increased by 5% along with a 2% increase in VAT in order to fully fund the provision of water services. Many people are objecting to what is seen as double taxation, ie, we have already paid for water and once should be enough. I am not an expert in this area so perhaps someone else may be able to enlighten further.
Regarding the economic situation, in Ireland, things would be much better if we did not have to bail out half the banks of Europe due to their crazy policy of shovelling bucket loads of money into private banks here already knowing that it was next to impossible for the private Irish banks to pay the loans back if anything went wrong. Guess what William, the arse fell out of what turned out to be a gigantic Ponzi scheme and here we are, the Irish taxpayers, left holding the can. But you already knew all that William, you are just testing me!!!
https://translate.google.com/
Could it be, Esteemed Blogmeister, that Mary Lou have been too much of late, no, not in the Sun, but rather in the rather more august shade of The Unionist Times? And that she has been a Victim of Unintended Consequences as a result?
One refers specifically to a disinterested portrait of John A. Murphy (87), Professor Emeritus of Procrastination, written in a style of unduly suppressed ecstasy which came as a disappointment to his British Legions of supporters of the move to have him elevated to immediate Sainthood, not least the proud-to-wear-a-p. Perkie.
It transpires that the modest man from Macroom of the clean sweeping Broom has still much to do and many more minutes on the clock to play down and that the A. stands for Augustine, a fine upstanding Imperial name: ‘Lord make me a pure saint, but not just yet’. Among the unifinished business, perchance, is the restoring his beloved UCC to its original name, the Queen’s College. (see below).
The highlight of the portrait refers to the Munster Final 81. That is, 19 and 81. The ‘and’ is not without significance because that was a fav turn of speech of Fat Pat Devlin the former Tonaiste of the S.D.L.P., i.e., the Sit Down Labour Party.
That was the occasion John a. came under the scurrilous provocation of the Disembodied Voice which announced over the P.A. System that the crowd be pleased to be upstanding ‘as a mark of respect to the hunger strikers’. A stubborn John A. stuck to his buns, however, and his reluctant Bostick buttocks stayed where they were. To the accompanying growl of: ‘What about the Protestants who were murdered?’.
In an aside of elegant impartiaitiy for which TUT is legendary: ‘ This was a gesture of enormous ……………….moral……………..courage’.
Another moral hero of enormous fortitude, a close acquaintance of John A, was namechecked when he too did the daring ditch hurler and refused to donate to the oppressive and omnipresent collection box of the times (lower case t) in support of the prisoners, in his delightfully familiar growl:’ The dog car is at the door, sir’. Exit, collection box bully, reeling in shock out the door in double jig time.
That would be the late, great Ciaran Mac Mo Thoin. Both John A and he being numbered among the most devout of Merrimen. The Merriman Summer School was/is the occasion in the County Clare when the sophisticates of TUT and RTE would decamp to the boondocks for a sport of yokel osmosis. Merriman, of course, being the one-line butler in the Importance of Being E: ‘The dog cart is at the door, sir’.
Two further passages of the most subtle discretion must be noted from this restrained portrait before moving on: ‘ I made it my business to learn Irish properly’. Like, in contrast to……..? We are not told. We are left to guess, clever tut, tutting chaps that we are. Note the subtle discreet absence of any naming of names. The S.D.L.P. influence again: The Subtle Discreet LP again.
Which was again to the fore during a forelock-tugging episode of sublime reconciliation as John A. showed Elizabeth Windsor the restored statue of her ancestor Victoria Saxe-Coburg-Gotta on the grounds of U.C.C. (see above).
Note the s.d. lack of a pertinent question apropos bloody Bloody Sunday. Reason being, ca va s.d., of the unfortunate possibility of the the term ‘murdered R’C.s’ being misconstrued as ‘Roman Catholics’ rather than ‘Republican Conspiracy’.
It did not specify whether the contemporaneous Elizabeth W and John A (combined age, a state secret) got to stray on the banks of their own lovely Lee but the prying ears of Perkie got to hear that, erm, ‘a grand total of 174 wild daisies got pressed under the cover of d.’. Say no more.
Moving on from John A. – Perkie freely admits to enormous difficulty in tearing himself away, but staying in Cork, the same city by the Lee and home turf of the compassionate Micheal Martin. A gesture of ginormous empathy occurred during the visit of A Certain Lady (who disdains publicity) during the week when the Leader of Fianna Failsafe Measures shed tears both genuine and sincere, copiously from both ducts, particularly the right one.
Because it happened behind closed doors it did not receive the banner h. it surely merited. We are indebted to A Certain L. for this information.
Perkie’s inner admirer would like at this opportune juncture to propose Micheal M for this year’s ‘The Crying Boy’ award.
Moving on from Old Cork to New York, from the Crying Boy to the Laughing Boy, as it were. It would appear that Michael Collins got namechecked there last week. Of course, MC (no, not a Certain Lady but rather a certain ladies’ man) was also linked with another mass-produced painting.
Unlike ‘The Crying Boy’ it is not filed away under K for Kitsch but rather under L for Leonardo da V. The painting being ‘The Last Supper’ which features the Twelve Apostles and of course, Judas A. Iscariot, Professor Emeritus of Stool Pigeon Studies in the University of Jerusalem.
Coincidentally, Michael Collins, aka The Laughing Boy, had a squad of special advisers and other spin doctors whom he laughingly called ‘The Twelve Apostles’. Known (allegedly) to have mounted verbal ambushes from Mount Street to Boherlahan, County Tipperary. Boherlahan is, coincidentally, the leprechaun for Broadway.
Coincidentally, Enda Endgame was in New York yesterday, delivering his one-size-Fitt-all-occasions scripted speech. In his inimitable hiss-prissy manner, as it he is engaged in some endgame of, erm, Enda Bending. (Can this be another Cause of Unintended Consequences?).
Coincidentally, never less than wunnerul Woody Allen, the core poet laureate of the the Big Apple, (before the Dworkin Class got him Section 31ed) located his best movie (according to Perkie’s inner fillum buff) in this city which never sleeps though on occasion it has been known to emulate the yawning movement of Calamity Joan: ‘Bullets over Broadway’.
But then, Perkie might have a certain bias with regard to this particular work of genius. And so, as is the Warbeckian way, declares his interest. It does contain the following one-line:
‘She’s perkie alright. She makes you want to sneak up behind her with a pillow and suffocate her’.
It is unclear if the Enda to end all Endas removed the Bullets from over Broadway.
.
Scientists have the ability to communicate with the Philae spacecraft based on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko millions of miles in outer space, unlike the Ceann Comhairle, who demonstrated a complete disregard for a T.D. who was simply trying to get a rational response to a legitimate question about water taxes.
It was interesting to listen to the Ceann Comhairle on 13 Novermber 2014, not just what he said but the way he spoke to Ms McDonald. I cannot recall any other T.D. being treated with such a lack of courtesy. Ms McDonald had the right to demand an answer to a legitimate question about water taxes. The Tánaiste waffled. The Ceann Comhairle should remember who gave Ms McDonald a mandate to ask such a question. He may have the power to suspend Ms McDonald, however, the electorate will note the contempt shown for their mandate in Dáil Éireann.
That was something I noticed Iolar. It wouldn’t have mattered the context. The discourtesy and ill-humour was very apparent in the body -language on show .. I should say the downright bad-temper of a very grumpy old curmudgeon..maybe he’d forgotten his Alka Seltzer. again …
Speaking of Enda and water charges,a young female protester recently confronted him on the issue and summed the taoiseach brilliantly.She called him a name which I will not repeat here as I dont want to lower the tone of Jude’s site.The word would be heard routinely in my workplace to cover all sorts of people and situations.( I first heard the noun used more than 50 years ago when my uncle used it to describe a bullock that had just stood on his foot! )Those of a not too sensitive disposition can view the entire eposide on “the journal ie” on a clip entitled “protester removed from 1916 event after she called Enda Kenny the #### word “
I expect the FG/Labour government will have a number of ‘Poll Tax moments’ between now and when they eventually fall. Irish Water is obviously the big one – Donegal County Council are the latest to vote in favour of a motion calling on the abolition of residential water charges.
http://www.thejournal.ie/water-charges-donegal-county-council-1781124-Nov2014/
Another, slightly more comical ‘Poll Tax moment’ is the promotional video for the 2016 celebrations which has to be seen to be believed. The comments below this Irish Times piece on it are worth a read –
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/don-t-mention-the-war-1916-video-fails-to-mention-rising-1.1999460
This government are sleepwalking into oblivion, and seem at the point where they can do nothing right. Sean Barrett has brought the office of Ceann Comhairle into disrepute owing to his obvious bias, and if the man had any dignity he would stand down now. If Fine Gael/Labour and Fianna Fáil were hoping to keep the 2016 celebrations out of the hands of Sinn Féin they certainly have a funny way of going about it…
The real question is why would they persist in trying to impose a tax that seems to be threatening their very survival? The cynical amongst us would say that they are trying to appease their real paymasters : Corporate Ireland before they get kicked out of government. Did you know that our previous Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, now has a lovely job as Director of Topaz Oil, a company owned by the bold Denis O’Brien (aka the richest man in Erin)?
This is the beginning of, finally, the start of the democracy we have missed so long in our country.
Thank you, Sinn Fein/Ms. McDonald.