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There’s been a bit of fuss over the code of ethics for An Garda Siochana that was introduced by the Policing Authority. It was designed to inform and guide the actions of every garda on what is expected of them as police officers. 

It reinforces the need for honesty and integrity, respect and equality, transparency and communication and a duty to speak up and report wrongdoing whenever they encounter it.

In the aftermath of the various controversies in An Garda Siochana, the Government instructed the Policing Authority to come up with guidelines and the code of ethics is the result. Josephine Feehily, the Policing Authority’s chairwoman, said it was vitally important that active steps were taken to ensure the code was embedded into the day-to-day work of gardaí.

My understanding is that gardai of all ranks are to receive training in the new code and are then required to sign up to it, but so far, the uptake by gardai in signing it, has been slow.

The Garda Representative Association doesn’t like it and complains that too much training and money is being spent on it when there is an urgent need for firearms training, driving courses and instruction on all the new pieces of legislation. I’m inclined to agree with them.

I have been retired for the last four years so I’m not in the loop anymore, but I’m not convinced that spending all this time, money and effort on developing a code of ethics is going to make much of a difference to way the men and women in blue, carry out their duty. Just because they sign a piece of paper saying that they have read the code is not going to guarantee the perfect police officer.

If someone is inherently dishonest, racist, corrupt, homophobic, or simply mad, then agreeing to abide by certain ethical standards is not going to cure them. I’m sure they won’t be deterred from taking part in wayward activities, if they are already that way inclined, simply because they’ve signed the dotted line, promising to be good.

In my day, we received instruction during our training in the Garda College on what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn’t. We continued to receive regular in-service training throughout our service after that, but as soon as the crash came, that aspect of training was one of the first casualties.

To the best of my knowledge, most of the guys in my class turned out fine. I met a few bad apples along the way during my 35 years, but the percentage was small, and I can’t imagine that forcing the current members to sign a code of ethics is going to improve the odds that much. The GRA has suggested that this is nothing but window dressing, and I suspect they’re right.

Drew Harris, the garda commissioner, has directed that those who decline to sign will be ineligible for promotion but issuing threats to members isn’t going to work either, particularly as many members would suggest that the promotion system itself is flawed.

There has always been a perception that favouritism and nepotism flourish within the organisation and this has long since been a serious bone of contention.

An editorial in the Garda Review advocated for an independent authority to separate policing from politics. Not to deny our elected political leaders the opportunity to debate and the right to legislate on policing, but so that they were not seen to exert undue influence on appointments and operational matters.

It called for a level playing field for all and a meritocracy based on individual competency and skills, rather than personal connection. Sadly, we have repeated our concerns that nepotism and ‘pull’ are alive and well, despite the buzzwords of ‘accountability’, ‘transparency’ and ‘independence’ that speckle every statement and paid lip service in every round of competition.

The editorial further stated that this culture is near impossible to pin down and provide evidence for but equally, it is hard to refute. We still believe that an open, independent transparent process to establish and appoint the most capable candidates would signal a departure from the perceived cronyism of the past in the promotion system

I remember when lists of those who were “successful in the competition for promotion” were published, there were always nods, winks and heavy sighs when certain names appeared. Many of the “successful candidates” could have been predicted in advance of any list, based on family or political connections.

Patrick Horan, an ex-garda turned solicitor, wrote in the Irish Examiner a couple of years ago that methods of promotion have sullied the honour of the force and suggested that it has always been a truism that progression within the force was dependent on two factors: Patronage and “team spirit”.

He maintained that everyone knew that when a job became vacant it wasn’t really vacant, for it was already destined for some favourite candidate somewhere, a candidate who had shown the requisite degree of slavish obedience and an unthinking determination to follow orders without question.

The dilemma then was to go through with the façade of the promotion process when the chosen ones were already known or not to bother with it and then be accused of not showing enough interest in advancement. The good old Catch 22.

Politics has always played a part in the promotion and movement of members of An Garda Siochana.  I remember back in the eighties, I was advised by an old hand, to be careful when dealing with politicians, or anyone connected to them, or I could find myself on Achill Island counting sheep.

I’m all in favour of providing instruction and training for all ranks regarding standards of behaviour, but simply signing a piece of paper won’t make a blind bit of difference.

Unfortunately, there will be no St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cobh this year. That was the message in the statement issued by the organisers last month. They thanked everyone for helping out in previous years but regrettably they said, mainly due to financial considerations, they had no alternative but to cancel this year’s event.

They cited several reasons for coming to this decision and I suspect that their issues are being experienced by organisers of similar events across the length and breath of the country. Mostly, it came down to lack of funding, but a lack of volunteers and a drop in the number of floats taking part were also factors.

The statement went on to explain that financial projections were showing a potential loss of €5000 this year. Very little fundraising has been done for the event and there was an increase of €1200 in the cost of crowd control barriers to be added to the €2200 that was lost in 2018.

The organisers have rightly pointed out that the effort and expense that goes into preparing an event like this is the same, regardless of the number of participants. Providing safe assembly areas, a fully barriered route, a reviewing stand, a PA system and MC, entertainment, bunting, official road closures, fundraising, extended public liability insurance, entry forms etc are all essential requirements whether it’s 10 floats or 100.

And why bother, when a lack of volunteers to assist with organising and stewarding, and the decline in the list of entries from previous years would seem to indicate a general lack of interest in either taking part in the parade or helping to arrange it?

Anybody who has ever been involved in a club or a charity will understand the position that the organisers of the St. Patricks Day Parade found themselves in. My first involvement in committee work came about in the early seventies when, as a young teenager, I found myself on the committee of a tennis club. When I tried, after the first year to get out of it, I suddenly discovered that I was the new secretary.

It proved a lot more difficult to get out of that position than it was getting into it. While there were plenty of people only too willing to point out what was going wrong with the club and quick to apportion blame, they abandoned ship whenever there was a call for new committee members. These were the same people who always had all the answers by the way.

Following the statement concerning the cancellation of the parade, there were many who voiced their opinion on social media. Some said it was a disgrace and blamed the Cork County Council for not providing funding. Some blamed the local business community for their lack of support and some even blamed the organising committee for not highlighting the issue earlier so the community could have had more time to come to their aid.

As far as I can recall, there were regular appeals for help over the years but it’s very convenient to forget that. Pointing the finger of blame somewhere else is something we have become very good at. It makes life easier when we can find a scapegoat and absolve ourselves of all responsibility. Show some indignance and then return to the paper and the cup of coffee. Job done.

But the reality is that if more of us got involved, the parade would be going ahead on March 17^th. OK, so there are other obstacles to be overcome too but while they can be tiresome and expensive, they are not insurmountable.

Our old friend, health and safety, throws up many obstacles and it is more complicated to arrange a public event now than it ever was. Yes, I know, health and safety regulations exist for our protection, but we’ve become slaves to it and the demands imposed by it are often enough to put some people off.

I understand the need for health and safety, but it seems to me that the demands imposed on the village fete are the same as those required for a major national event and when you include the cost of safety barriers, road closures, safety statements, public liability insurance and other associated costs, it can often become prohibitive for a small, local group.

Rural life is taking a battering and we’ve already seen the closure of many rural garda stations, post offices and pubs and when communities try to help themselves, they are met with a barrage of rules and regulations that make life more complicated.

A shortage of volunteers is another serious issue, and we have seen it become increasingly difficult to motivate people to give up some of their spare time. It’s the same old warriors who turn out for every occasion and that’s not sustainable.

For a few years, I was on a committee for ‘The Great Island 10 Mile Road Race’ that was held in Cobh annually. We required many stewards for this event, but we never had enough, so many of them would leap-frog to different locations once the race began. As soon as the runners passed them by, they moved to another area.

Every year it was the same people who turned up to lend a hand and when other events are organised in the town, it’s the same faces that can be seen wearing the hi viz vests. It’s probably a similar story everywhere, but these characters will eventually need to be replaced.

We shouldn’t expect the same people to put themselves forward for every cock fight when there are other able-bodied candidates available. Everyone has something to offer and each of us has a part to play.

Community spirit doesn’t just develop magically, it takes a bit of effort.

My mother-in-law is celebrating her birthday at the weekend and she’s having a party in a local hotel in Cobh. She has been organising it for the last few months and she’s invited around three hundred guests. She’s making a bid deal of it and so she should, because she will be 100 years old.

She’s no ordinary centenarian either. Her eyesight and hearing may not be as good as they once were, but her mind is as sharp as a razor. She has an opinion on everything, and she has no problem letting you know what she thinks, whether you like it or not.

Moyra Swords lives on her own in the family home and she won’t have it any other way. There is always someone staying with her at night and her home help comes a couple of times a day. Then the family take turns to call so that she is rarely left on her own. If she’s left unattended for too long, she has a tendency to get up to mischief.

Last year a stair lift was installed. She was having some mobility issues, and this made it easier for her to get up and down the stairs. She flatly refuses to have a bed brought downstairs. She was told not to use the lift on her own and to wait until someone was with her in case she fell out of it and came tumbling down on her head.

She didn’t know how to operate it anyway so there was no great problem, but of course she figured it out for herself. One day, one of her daughters left the house after giving Moyra her tea and was just getting into her car to go home when she realised she had forgotten something. She returned to the house only to find her mother half way up the stairs in the lift.

She was very sheepish, like a child who had just escaped from her cot or a deer caught in the headlights. She promised not to reoffend but just to be sure, the lift was disabled, and she has no idea how to get it going again. At least, that’s what she’s telling her family.

Now, she is planning her party and she knows exactly what she wants and when she gets involved in a project like this, she can be very demanding. She’s not blessed with patience and tends to be like a dog with a bone. As soon as her invitation cards were printed, she had her daughters pestered to get them sent out as far back as the start of January.

She wasn’t happy until she went to the hotel herself to check out the venue, even though she couldn’t see that much of it, but she wouldn’t rest until she vetted it personally. She had it all worked out in her head how the event was going to pan out, including her “entrance”. There’s a touch of a diva about her.

She’s providing a sit-down meal for everyone, but she lost the run of herself with the invites and now she’s starting to panic that there may not be enough seating for everyone.

Moyra is originally from Kilmore Quay in County Wexford and loves to go back there for visits and she’s planning to spend a week there in July to coincide with the local sea food festival. She has fantastic recall and can still remember stories from her childhood and the names of all the old neighbours and friends.

She’s well able to travel and has been to visit relatives in Australia several times in recent years. She also has some family in Scotland, and she was asking me recently how much a flight to Edinburgh would cost. She loves to travel.

Moyra lived in Liverpool as a teenager during the war and she has lots of stories from that difficult time including some close calls. One night in particular, the air raid sirens sounded but she didn’t have time to get to the shelter before the bombing started. She was sitting in her cousins’ house when she heard a loud whistling sound and she instinctively knew it was a bomb. She held her breath, closed her eyes and offered a prayer.

The bomb landed nearby, and the explosion blew in the doors and windows of her home and Moyra was thrown from the chair as the house filled with soot and dust. It was a terrifying experience and those air raids became almost a nightly occurrence. She’s had many experiences in her lifetime, both good and bad and I suspect she’s not finished yet.

She shares a birth day with some famous names and has outlived them all. People like the singer Nat King Cole, Desmond Doss, the war hero, Eva Peron, Sir Edmund Hillary, the mountain climber, Jon Pertwee the actor and Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian politician.

Life expectancy in 1919 was 53.5 years for men and 56 years for females but obviously, Moyra wasn’t prepared to accept those figures and chose to ignore them.

Also, in 1919, Michael Keogh, an Irishman who had joined the German army, stopped an angry mob of men from killing two right-wing political agents who were stirring up trouble among two hundred soldiers. They were being badly beaten and some knives were being drawn to finish them off when Keogh ordered his men to fire a few shots in the air to disperse the crowd and pulled the two men to safety.

In 1930 in Nuremburg, Keogh recognized one of the agents he had saved, and it was the infamous Adolf Hitler. So, if he hadn’t intervened, life would have been very different for millions of people.

And Moyra wouldn’t have been blown off her chair in Liverpool.

Air traffic controllers in America had their version of a ‘blue flu’ day recently in response to President Donald Trump shutting down the Government. They weren’t getting paid and wanted to make a protest but because they are public servants, they don’t have a formal power to strike so they did the next best thing and went sick instead.

The gardai did the same thing back in 1998 and the term ‘blue flu’ was born. It was a day of protest by the rank and file members of An Garda Siochana when over 5,000 gardaí reported sick and unfit for duty on the same day. We took this unusual step because we were not legally allowed to strike but we felt that we had been pushed to the limit and needed to make a point.

Many of us debated the rights and wrongs of that action at the time and there were plenty who disagreed with it. But at the end of the day, our representative association didn’t have the strength of a trade union, so we felt we really had no other choice.

I’m sure the Air Traffic Controllers wrestled with their conscience too and the decision to call in sick wasn’t an easy one for them either, but the timing of their protest was perfect and while I’m no expert on American politics, the odds of getting the right result were in their favour for two very simple reasons.

Mr. Trump was taking a beating in the opinion polls and we know he lives and breathes by those things, and grounding all flights was not going to gain him any brownie points with the voting public. The other thing was that if there was an incident involving a flight resulting in the loss of life, the finger of blame would have been pointed squarely at him.

These two factors alone were enough to ensure a backdown from the President and that’s exactly what happened. Mr. Trump is adamant that he is going to get the money he needs to build his wall, but he will be reluctant to introduce another shutdown, even though he’s threatening to, because he could face the same problem with the Air Traffic Controllers.

These ATC guys are well trained. They know how to focus, they are determined, and they won’t be easy to beat because they also have a secret weapon. They’re strange creatures with no fear and I know this to be a fact, because my brother, Alex, is one. He worked in Shannon for years but now he is stationed in Cork and moved back to Cobh in recent years.

A few weeks ago, we were up in my late mother’s house, trying to clear it out so it could go on the market for sale. It was a difficult task because we spent so much time going over old photos and other personal items that we were making little headway. We were taking stuff from one place and just putting it somewhere else and we were going around in circles.

We eventually decided that we were just codding ourselves, and my sister, Deb, suggested getting in the professionals, so we contacted JWG Rubbish Removal. These guys would arrive with their skip bags and trailers as soon as we gave them the go ahead and they would clear out the house. All we had to do, was mark whatever we wanted to keep, and then get out of their way.

We spent a few days sorting out some bits and pieces until finally, we were ready for the removal guys. On the morning they were due to arrive, we called up to the house early, to have a last look around in case we missed anything.

The house hadn’t been lived in for over a year and it was musty, so we opened the windows to let in some fresh air. The heating hadn’t been on for months either and the house was like an iceberg even before we opened the windows. The new fresh air wasn’t helping.

It had been bitterly cold the night before and my weather app was suggesting that it should now feel like two degrees. As far as I was concerned, it felt a lot lower than that and I was perished. I was beginning to understand what it might be like to live in Siberia. I had a coat, scarf and hat on and that was while I was indoors.

And this leads me to why I think that Trump will never beat the ATC people.

We had our final look around the house and when the removal people arrived, we went outside to let them at it. They didn’t need us looking over their shoulders. We were standing by our cars and I was on the verge of developing hypothermia, when I asked my brother where he was headed. He told me that he was going down to the local beach for a swim.  

That single act of lunacy is why I believe that Air Traffic Controllers won’t be defeated by Mr. Trump. They are not like normal people.

They deal with stress and pressure in their normal every day life. They are highly trained professionals who know how to remain calm in difficult situations. They are responsible for thousands of lives on a daily basis and they are trained to cope with all kinds of emergencies. They must deal with whatever is thrown at them. 

Then, in their spare time, when they want to unwind, they go swimming in the open sea in Baltic conditions.

If I was Donald Trump, I would just give these people what they want. I would apologise sincerely for any upset caused and I would promise not to irritate them again.

I’ve never had a dog. Never really had any interest in having one.  Taking it for walks, cleaning up after it or trying to find a home for it while I went on holidays wasn’t my cup of tea. But lots of people do and I can understand that. But there are two types of dog owner. There’s the one who looks after the dog responsibly and then there’s the other type.

I could never understand why someone would want to have a pet and then let it run wild around the neighbourhood and roam freely. Many are released early in the morning by their owners and allowed to run riot until they are locked up again for the night.

Dogs aren’t the least bit embarrassed about fouling the public street, any garden they can get in to or the common green areas where many children play and their owners couldn’t care less either.

So, what’s the story with these irresponsible dog owners? They are plainly flouting the law for one. The law states that dogs are not to be out in public without a leash. It also states that it is an offence for the owner not to clean up after their dog.

But whatever about the law, they obviously have no regard for their neighbours or for the public generally. They are completely thoughtless about the impact their darling pets are having on their community. In short, they are selfish and inconsiderate.

I remember as a youngster watching people toilet training their dogs. They used to shove the dogs nose into the mess and then give them a smack. Apparently, this made the dogs realise that they should go to the toilet somewhere else other than the kitchen floor. Maybe we should start using that technique on these carefree owners.

As an alternative, there is also the legal route because there is a serious side to this dog fouling business. It can be especially dangerous for anyone with small children.

According to Cork City Council, under Section 22 (of the Litter Pollution Act, 1997) , it is not an offence to allow a dog under your control to foul in a public place, however it is an offence to let your dog foul and fail to remove and dispose of the foul subsequently. This means that you or the person in charge of your dog is required under this law to remove dog faeces and dispose of it in a suitable and sanitary way.

An on-the-spot fine of €150 can be imposed on the owner of a dog who fails to remove dog faeces from a public place, with the maximum fine for this offence being €3,000.

Failure to clean up after your dog can result in humans, particularly children, becoming infected by a dog parasite that can cause blindness.  The parasite is a worm called Toxocara canis that passes its eggs in the dogs’ stools. Toxocara is a roundworm which infects dogs in Ireland.  It is rare for a dog, especially a young pup, not to be troubled by worms at some stage.  Even in dogs that are regularly wormed can still carry some of these worms. The worm lives in the dog’s intestine and its eggs are passed in the dog’s stools.

Toxocariasis is an infection which humans can pick up as a result of coming into contact with the eggs contained in the dog’s stools. Although usually a mild infection in humans, Toxocariasis can have potentially serious health effects such as blindness. This is rare BUT it can and does happen.

The Toxocarra eggs have to be ingested (i.e. taken into the mouth and swallowed) before someone can catch the infection. This could happen if a person handles soil, sand or any other material that is contaminated with dog stools and subsequently has direct contact with the mouth before hand-washing. Gardens, play areas and public parks are likely sites for contamination with dog stools.

So, there is a genuine cause for concern apart from the fact that it is particularly unpleasant to look at. The Control of Dogs Act 1986 requires owners tobe over the age of sixteen years, they must licence the animal every year, keep them under control in public places, accompany their dogs at all times and prevent the nuisance of excessive barking. That’s not happening.

In short, we seem to have lots of rules and regulations governing the control of dogs in public places. Rules about pooping, barking, cleaning poop and not being allowed to run wild in public. On the other hand, we have an abundance of dogs roaming freely all across the land, pooping and barking at will and nobody seems to care.

Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I set about doing a simple job, things usually take a turn for the worse. Something that should only take half an hour invariably becomes the job from hell and gets very complicated.

When my wife went back to work after Christmas, I decided to take down the Christmas tree and the decorations and earn myself a few brownie points. My wife would be impressed when she came home. So, I got the boxes down from the attic and lined them up in the front room and, even though I had no idea where stuff went, I was determined to do my best.

I removed the baubles, put them in various boxes and I was going along nicely. The radio was on in the background, I wasn’t anticipating any difficulties and the artificial tree was clean and easy to dismantle. That’s why we got it in the first place.

There was a time when we had a real tree at Christmas and I loved the smell but there was a bit of effort involved in collecting it, transporting it, skinning your knuckles on the door frame getting it into the house, cutting the end off when it wouldn’t fit properly, putting it in a bucket and trying to prevent it from toppling over. It was a lot of work.

The kids loved to get involved in picking the tree but that wasn’t always straightforward either. One time we went into town looking for the perfect specimen, but the pickings were slim. The good one’s were all reserved and had labels attached to them with the names of their new owners, while the rest looked sad and miserable.

The children were getting impatient and I was getting desperate, so to my eternal shame, I removed a label from a lovely looking tree and tied it to a branch of a poor neglected twig that looked like it had just about survived a horticultural famine. It was a wretched looking thing.

My daughter realised what I had done, and she was giving out to me that I had stolen the tree. I was trying to get her to keep her voice down and I explained that I had actually paid for it, but she was having none of it. When we got home, she immediately told her mother that I was a robber. So, the following year, for an easier life, we bought an artificial tree.

Anyway, I continued with my work and the next job was to take off the lights. There were about five sets and they went on without any drama, so taking them off should be a doddle.

But of course, it wasn’t. They didn’t want to let go and put up quite a struggle. I reckon they must have been trying to mate with each other because they got themselves into an enormous tangle.

They were twisted and knotted but they weren’t going to get the better of me. I began by pulling gently on the wires but as my patience waned, I introduced a little violence into the operation and eventually the tree fell over. I was sweating profusely.

By the time I was finished, there was as much of a mess on the floor as there would have been if we had used a real tree. There were bits and pieces of it all over the place. I got the hoover out and that’s when things took a downward turn.

While I was hoovering, the smoke alarm in the hall started to beep. It was only an occasional beep and I ignored it for a bit, but it soon got to me. So, I climbed up on a stool and changed the battery and returned to the hoovering.

Then I heard it again. This time it was the alarm upstairs that was beeping so I got my stool and changed the battery in that one too. Then the one in the kitchen started so I did the same thing there. The alarm in the hall that started all the trouble, began beeping again and soon there was a beeping contest going on all over the house because they’re all linked to each other.

I went up to the attic and changed that battery too just in case that was somehow responsible for upsetting the others, even though there wasn’t a sound out of it. As soon as I put in the new battery though, the thing went ballistic. I pushed the reset button and it stopped but as I was coming down the stairs, it gave a single beep as if it was laughing at me.

A few minutes later, they were all at it. Every miniute or so, each of them beeped in turn. I checked them again just in case I had put the battery in the wrong way or something and when I thought I had them sorted, off they went again.

At this stage I was getting fed up of carting my stool around the house and the beeping was getting on my nerves. I was losing patience and I managed to pull one of them from the ceiling. I could feel my blood pressure increasing and I was starting to sweat again.

When my wife came home from work, the house looked like a bomb had hit it. There were alarms going off all over the place and the floor was covered in bits of ceiling and broken Christmas tree and I looked completely demented. She decided it was time to take control to prevent further carnage.Her nephew, an electrician, arrived to stop the beeping while she looked after the decorations and put everything into the right boxes. I did my bit by staying out of the way.

They say it is inevitable that robots are going to replace a sizeable chunk of our workforce in the not too distant future. Technology will perform many tasks that are currently being carried out manually whether we like it or not. I have already had a taste of it.

A few months ago, I had surgery in the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, and it was performed by a robot. It was controlled by a surgeon sitting at a console in the corner of the operating theatre, like a guy playing a game of FIFA or Space Invaders. Thankfully, both of them sorted me out.

I was told that the outcome of robotic surgery is no better, or no worse, than the traditional method using a scalpel, but it is easier on the patient. It’s not as invasive as a knife, so there is less pain associated with it. There is also less scarring, and the recovery time is quicker so that’s all good. But that kind of progress comes with a cost.

Leo Varadkar has warned that developments in artificial intelligence will force people across the economy out of work unless they are retrained. He says the government is acutely aware of the risks to employment at all levels, posed by advances in AI and robotics and jobs at all levels can be affected, so people need to be ready for it.

He’s right of course and technology is changing at an amazing pace. Just look at how far we’ve come with the mobile phone for example, in a mere twenty years. We’ve moved on from the black household phone that weighed a ton, to a small device that we can fit in our pocket to provide us with global connectivity. It also doubles as a computer.

Who knew that it would happen in such a short space of time? Certainly not me. Back when mobile phones were in their infancy, my buddy John O’Connor got one. We were up in Mosney in County Meath helping out with the Community Games at the time and I was queueing up to use one of the public phones to ring home when John showed me his brick of a mobile.

In those days, coverage was scarce, and it very much depended where you were whether you had a signal or not. So, you might have to walk around for a bit before you could make a call and even at that, calls were expensive, so conversations were kept to a minimum. I remember telling him that they would never catch on which is something he doesn’t let me forget.

But they did catch on and now they play a considerable part in all our lives. Ironically, we criticise phones and social media at times for ruining the art of conversation but at the same time they keep us in contact with friends and relatives all over the world. Whether mobile phones are a good thing or not is debatable but they’re here to stay.

Watches have changed too, and I remember the first one I ever had. I was five years old and it was given to me by my parents when I was in hospital in Cork. It was my pride and joy. Years later I got my first battery operated watch which was an amazing leap in technology at the time. There was no more winding and surely it couldn’t get any better than that.

But it did, and now I have a watch that lets me know when I get a text message or if someone has contacted me on social media. It counts how many steps I take every day and sets targets for me to reach to improve my wellbeing. It measures my stress levels, my heart rate, the amount of sleep I get and the number of calories I take on board. It even records how many times I go up and down the stairs.

Not so very long ago, we had a TV at home with just two channels. If you wanted to change from one to the other or adjust the volume, you had to get out of your chair and do it manually. My new watch would have had lots of fun counting all that movement back then.

My current TV is bigger than any of those old sets we had, but it only takes up a fraction of the space thanks to modern technology. It can access hundreds of channels, it’s interactive and completely controlled remotely. I don’t understand all the features on the thing because some of the functions are just too complicated for me, but I suspect it might be able to make my dinner or take me for a drive.

All this happened in the blink of an eye so maybe Leo is right to be concerned about the future. There’s no point in trying to deny progress. The modern workforce must be ready to embrace it and be able to adapt to change because it’s coming. It’s not all bad news though because the robotic age will bring benefits too.

I had surgery as a child back in the sixties and it left me with a prominent scar going from my belly button to my breast bone. It remains with me to this day, fifty-five years later, as a reminder of the event. Last year I had my prostate removed by a robot and you’d struggle to find the excavation site a mere five months after, so I know where my loyalty lies.

Bring on the robots I say, so they can look after our health. But Leo is right to be concerned though because some efficient robots in the Dail might just be more productive than what’s there at the moment.

There’s a very catchy statement on the Cork County Council sponsored website for Spike Island which tells you that in the last 1300 years, Spike Island has been home to heroes and villains, captains and convicts, red coats and rioters, sinners and saints. 

The islands impressive 104 acres have at one time or another hosted an Island monastery, an Island prison, an Island fortress and an Island home. If that doesn’t peak your interest, then nothing will. Fortunately, I have been aware of this little island all my life because my mother was born and raised there.

She was born on Spike Island in 1934 and her mother was well known around the locality of Cobh and The Great Island because she was the local midwife. She travelled in a launch from Spike, in all types of weather, to get to Cobh to deliver babies. She was known to most people as Nurse Carson and she delivered around two thousand babies during her lifetime.

The family moved to Cobh when my mother was still a young girl and they lived on East Hill overlooking Cork Harbour. For the rest of her life she had an unrestricted view of Spike from her sitting room window and she always retained a special love for the place. I grew up looking at that little island and often heard her telling stories of her childhood there.

We were chatting one day, and she was lamenting the fact that she hadn’t been back there in such a long time, so in 2006, I arranged for a launch to take us over for the day. As it happened, the guy driving the launch was also born and raised on Spike, so when we got there, the two of them walked ahead and talked about days gone by and remembered their old neighbours while myself and my father brought up the rear.

Many of the buildings were in a dilapidated state with windows broken, roofs falling in and the entire area was generally overgrown. But as bad as it was, she got a great kick out of retracing her childhood steps. She had a great day and that’s why I was delighted to see the fantastic work that has taken place there in recent years and it’s great to see it open to the public as a major tourist attraction.

David Linnane reported in this paper some time ago that Spike Island beat the Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace in the race to be named Europe’s leading tourist attraction at the 2017 World Travel Awards. Stiff competition also came from the Acropolis in Greece and the Coliseum in Rome, but the former prison and fortress came out on top.

More than 45,000 visitors went there in 2017 and they hope to raise that to 100,000 by 2020. About €6 million, partly funded by Fáilte Ireland has been poured into the refurbishment of Spike and its success puts it right up there with Titanic Belfast and the Guinness Storehouse.

I have no doubt that if my mother was still alive, she’d be a regular visitor too because there’s a lot to see and the place is steeped in history. I remember looking over at Spike Island in 1985 when it was a prison and the prisoners had rioted, and the place was on fire.

When the prison closed, there was little activity on the island until the Cork County Council took it over and it’s great to see some life there again. The large number of visitors flocking there during the summer months are very welcome. But not every island serves up a warm welcome to strangers.

Take the story of an American tourist who tried to land on a small island off India recently. North Sentinel Island is part of the Andaman Islands, deep in the Indian Ocean and the Sentinelese tribe, believed to be only 150 in number, doesn’t want to have any contact with the outside world and is openly hostile to anyone who tries to get too close.

Outsiders are officially banned from going within three miles of the island to protect the way of life of the natives and to safeguard them from 21st century diseases but there is a suggestion that this particular tourist was a missionary and was trying to make contact with the tribe to convert them to Christianity.

He ignored instructions from the authorities, and advice from locals, to stay away from the place. According to police, he had tried to reach Sentinel island previously but failed so this time he got a boat to bring him in close to the island and went the rest of the way on his own in a canoe but instead of being met with a holiday brochure and the offer of a tour, he was hit by a hail of arrows and he was killed.

The warning signs were there because in 2006, two Indian fishermen moored their boat near the island while they went for a sleep but the little boat broke loose and drifted onto the island. The fishermen were never seen again, and their bodies were never recovered. 

The Sentinelese tribe is one of the last groups in the world to be untouched by modern civilisation and they should be left that way. It’s supremely arrogant for someone to think they can improve the lives of any tribe by introducing them to religion. The authorities there respect their privacy and only observe them from a distance. The Indian Coast Guard flew over the island one time and the tribesmen tried to shoot down the helicopter with bows and arrows.

Spike Island on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. You’ll have a great experience and you won’t be attacked by the natives.

It’s that time of the year again when diets feature regularly in conversations along with thoughts of new body shapes for 2019. If everyone loses the pounds they are hoping to lose in the coming months, Ireland will rise a few centimetres above sea level. But that probably won’t happen.

Jeremy Clarkson, the previous star of Top Gear, gave up cigarettes some time ago and as a result, he put on two stone in weight. His said his belt started screaming at him and his legs and ankles began to hurt, so he decided to try and lose some weight.

He drank lots of water that he describes as tasting like liquid lettuce and he ate small quantities of slimming food for ten days but was surprised to find that when he stood on the weighing scales, he had gained two pounds. That brought him to the conclusion that water is fattening and I have a certain amount of sympathy for Jeremy because I have had a similar experience.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I got one of these Garmin watches for Christmas. The kind that tells you to get off the couch and walk. Since I got it, I have made a big effort at the walking and the watch tells me that I have walked 95 miles in the last two weeks. But when I stood on the scales after all that exercise, the needle was going in the wrong direction.

Normally, dieting is not an issue I need to concern myself with. I’m lucky to have the body of Adonis, or whoever that guy with the good physique was, or Ronaldo if you want a modern-day comparison.

I’m always reminding my wife how lucky she is to have the perfect husband, but she doesn’t say very much. She usually throws her eyes skyward whenever I mention it and I suppose she’s quietly giving thanks for being so fortunate. I reckon she’s just overwhelmed and that’s understandable.

In the meantime, other mere mortals will be testing out diets of all kinds and setting various targets for the rest of the year. It’s big business and there is plenty of money to be made from it and no shortage of people willing to fork out for the opportunity to lose a few kilos.

Many of the weight loss programmes promote the fact that they are scientifically proven to work and guarantee a successful outcome. Really though, it isn’t rocket science at all and if you eat less and move more, you will lose weight and that’s the reality of it. So, you might well ask, if it’s that simple why are we heading for a problem in this country with obesity?

The main issue is that we lack discipline. We eat and drink too many of the wrong things because we’re human and we like nice stuff. It’s also far easier to sit down and watch the telly than it is to move outside, especially when there’s a chance we could get wet or cold.

We spend more time sitting down than our parents did and we have a more sedentary lifestyle. For those who are desk bound at work, they can leave their job, drive home and sit in front of the TV without taking too many steps during the entire day. Because of this, we are getting fatter.

This is bad news because obesity can cause a number of health problems, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease which can reduce your life expectancy.

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, Ireland has the highest cases of obesity and excess weight in the whole of Europe. The research involved 53 countries from the WHO European region and compared recorded figures of 2010 and projected ones for the year 2030. If this trend in Ireland continues, experts are of the opinion that by the year 2030, we may have to deal with a big obesity crisis.

Anyone who has ever struggled with being overweight will tell you it’s not easy to lose a few pounds. And it takes a lot of effort and can be a constant battle. If you’re struggling, you should take some encouragement from the story of Juan Pedro Franco, a 33-year-old Mexican man.

At one point he topped the weighing scales at 93 stone, almost 600kg and the Guinness World Records named him the heaviest person alive in 2017.

He was involved in a car accident at the age of 17, and the injuries he sustained meant he was confined to bed, so the pounds piled on. He really wanted to be able to go for a walk outside and breathe fresh air and not to be trapped in his house, but it wasn’t possible. He was simply too heavy.

Two years ago, he was removed from his bedroom for the first time in seven years to undergo life-saving treatment in hospital. He was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, hypertension and liquid in his lungs. His future was looking bleak unless he shed the weight.

By May 2017, Franco had lost 170 kg (26 st. 10 lb) and was able to have gastric bypass surgery. After the surgery, he started a supervised dietary programme and a new exercise regime which saw him lose a third of his body weight by the time he appeared in the pages of Guinness World Records 2019. By November last year he had reduced his weight even further and reached 304 kg. So far, he has lost a staggering 45 stone or 291 kg.

The next time you complain about being a bit roundy, think about this guy. So far, he has lost somewhere in the region of the combined weight of four average sized men.

Now that’s dieting.

A friend of mine isn’t too well at the moment and is in need of a new heart. His own one has let him down so he is now depending on a transplant to literally save his life. That’s a tough challenge to be facing, not only for him, but also for the family of the donor. A family somewhere has to suffer a great loss before he can begin his recovery.

Whenever we see our friends and family in trouble like that, we want to do whatever we can to make things right. We want to make them better. In this case though, I’ve told him that as much as I like him, I’m not giving him mine.

On a more serious note though, I want to do the next best thing and highlight the need for organ donation and try to encourage as many as possible to consider signing up for it. The provisional figures for 2018 show that there were 231 transplants performed in Ireland last year compared with 308 in 2017. This lower figure is mainly because organs are in short supply.

There are those who don’t like the idea of passing on their bits and pieces to be used by others when they finally depart planet Earth and that’s fair enough. Whether they make that choice because of religious beliefs or for personal reasons is neither here nor there. That’s their decision and they’re perfectly entitled to it.

But I’m sure there are many who are not aware of the serious shortage of organs or have never considered donation simply because it hasn’t been brought to their attention. It is a subject that often only comes up when someone has just died but it’s not a discussion to be had while a family is grieving. That needs to happen when everyone is in the fullness of health so that all involved are prepared for the next step if and when the time comes.

Minister for Health, Simon Harris wants to introduce an opt-out system of consent for organ donation which would mean that we all consent to have our organs harvested for donation unless we specifically take the decision to withdraw that consent.

Under this system when a person dies, consent would be deemed to have been granted unless the person, while alive, registered their wish not to become an organ donor.

According to Mr. Harris, 83% of those who were asked, said that the proposed opt-out system would encourage them to discuss their intentions regarding organ donation with their next-of-kin. These conversations need to happen and it’s important that we all consider our position on organ donation and that we make our views known to our loved ones.

This makes great sense to me. There are too many healthy organs currently being cremated or buried in the ground when they could be used to give a great gift to someone in need.

Strange Boat is a group representing the organ donation community and they say that for many people who are awaiting organ transplants, it can be a very long wait. It can be a time of great physical suffering, worry and anxiety, and only those in this situation can truly understand.

In 2015, Organ Donation and Transplant Ireland (ODTI) was established as the national service and they operate around the clock for 365 days a year. 

Professor Jim Egan, Director of Organ Donation and Transplant Ireland says that the message is a simple one, organ donation saves lives. Thanks to the generosity of 98 families donating the organs of their loved ones, 308 people have received the gift of life through transplant surgery in 2017 and he acknowledges the courage and generosity of families who have donated their loved one’s organs. 

Awareness is a major factor in promoting organ donation and the proof of that can be seen in the huge rise in interest following a documentary on TV about Orla Tinsley and her double lung transplant. In the following ten days after that was shown, over 9,000 people registered to become organ donors in Ireland.

Orla Tinsley had been a long-time sufferer of cystic fibrosis. She became a well-known campaigner for improved services for people living with the disease. Her health deteriorated when she suffered a bilateral lung collapse and her condition worsened throughout 2017 and by December, she was on life support. Since her transplant, she has continued to make a remarkable recovery.

Larry Gogan was also in the news recently when it was announced he was leaving 2fm after 40 years, and during an interview, he revealed that he is receiving kidney dialysis. He spends four hours a day, three days a week in hospital, where his blood is removed, washed and then returned to his body.

That prompted other callers to contact the Joe Duffy Show the following day, to give their accounts of dealing with the same thing and this led to a conversation about organ donation. There were stories of long-suffering patients in dire need of replacement organs and there were positive stories about life after transplants.

One caller told of being at deaths door with a failing heart, but he got a second chance of life after he received a heart from a young 15-year-old girl who had been killed in a car accident.

That was obviously a tragic and traumatic experience for the little girl’s family at the time, but they must get some comfort from the fact that another person is living a normal healthy life thanks to their bravery and generosity.

It makes sense to become an organ donor and that decision could save many lives. You can apply for an Organ Donor Card online or free text the word ‘Donor’ to 50050 or Lo-call 1890 543 639.