Month: October 2017

First, there were a million false breath tests recorded by An Garda Síochána computer systems, then we learned that a further 500,000 false tests were recorded but not carried out. Assistant Commissioner Michael O’Sullivan reported that a large number of gardaí were just making up figures.

The leader of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), Pat Ennis, said that his association believed that his members were instructed to inflate figures and claimed that pressure was applied on members to do so.

Mr Ó Cualáin, the acting Garda Commissioner, said that his management has asked Assistant Commissioner O’Sullivan to establish if there is evidence of the allegation that management in some way were putting pressure on frontline members.

Nobody seems to be able to explain how it happened but authorities are determined to find out. They have stated that disciplinary action may have to be taken against a number of gardaí. The breath-test report does not specify how many gardaí may face sanction and neither does it directly criticise senior garda management. That is very convenient but not surprising.

Noirin O’Sullivan, the recently retired Garda Commissioner, had previously told the Policing Authority that consequences arising from this scandal, including possible disciplinary action, would be considered.

She said it went all the way down the organisational structure of An Garda Síochána and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Senior management in An Garda Siochana were quick to take the high moral ground.

As far as I am concerned, there is no mystery as to how this happened. It’s highly unlikely that Mr Ó Cualáin will find any culpable senior officer because I don’t believe that there was a deliberate policy to inflate numbers for the simple reason that there is little to be gained from it. The blame for this fiasco is down to a culture that has existed for decades.

Much has been said about this culture but few know what is meant by it. To me, it’s best to think of it in terms of habit. A habit of doing things a certain way because that’s the way they were always done and the expertise wasn’t there to change it. To understand that, you must consider another term used daily by An Garda Siochana. It’s called a ‘Return’ and it involves counting.

A ‘return’ covers a multitude but is mainly used as a form of accountability. Returns measure the number and condition of physical assets in the organisation to help in the preparation of a budget strategy. All very useful stuff.

But there are other returns that simply drive people nuts because they don’t seem to serve any purpose and they take forever to prepare. Nevertheless, they’re required because it’s the habit that has developed over time.

During my thirty-five years in the Force, making returns was, at times, more important than actual police work. When I was responsible for community policing in Cork City I did my share of counting and I spent a vast amount of time drafting useless returns. At times, they were nothing short of ridiculous.

A huge amount of information was collected, collated and calculated that was of little use to anyone. This went on in every garda station all over the country and it took a lot of time and energy to put all this stuff together.

For example, there were thirty-three community gardaí scattered across the length and breadth of Cork from Carrigaline to Ballincollig and from Blarney to Mahon including everything in between. I was regularly asked for returns on how many foot patrols were carried out by these members and how many meetings they attended. Sometimes, these returns were required monthly.

What exactly constitutes a meeting is something that I could never quite figure out. Is it only a meeting if it lasts a certain length of time or is it a requirement that minutes are taken? Or if a community garda met an official from the local authority while walking along the street and they had a chat, should that be recorded as a meeting?

Given that the primary role of a community policing officer is to engage with the community and to meet people, it’s reasonable to assume that over the period of a month, thirty-three gardaí could notch up a fair few meetings. How these were supposed to be recorded in the first place was lost on me but why they needed be counted at all was a complete mystery.

Similarly, recording the number of foot patrols carried out by these officers over a monthly period seemed to be another fruitless exercise. What did it matter whether the figure was twenty or twenty thousand? Nobody could explain to me why it was necessary but it was another required return. It was part of the culture.

I represented only small part of the organisation but I made lots of returns. Thousands of other members did the same thing in other stations. There was no shortage of them and most of us considered them to be a pure nuisance and a waste of time.

Returns generated volumes of paper but they weren’t always taken seriously by those compiling them. They weren’t always accurate either and guesswork played a large part in adding up some of the numbers. Some of these returns were so silly that figures were often plucked out of the sky.

That’s the reality of it and the people who are now looking for scapegoats made these same returns while they worked their way up the ladder of success. They would do well to remember that.

If they want to blame someone for dodgy numbers, then they should include every member of An Garda Siochana, past and present, since 1922. Probably thirty or forty thousand of them, but that’s just a guess.

 

Ophelia paid us a visit last week and left a trail of destruction after her but she’s not the only one causing damage in Cork.

Thousands of euro of damage was done to an all-weather football pitch in Knocknaheeny in Cork city some time ago when a stolen car was driven around it, tearing up the surface. The car burst through the gates causing the damage and was then burnt out and abandoned. It was just left there.

There was another incident a few weeks before that when the gates were rammed by a stolen car but it failed to get through. The second incident occurred while the club was in the process of fixing the gates after the first time. This is a facility that is there for the benefit of the community so why damage it?

Graffiti has been making an unwelcome comeback in the city as well with Evergreen Street and Barrack Street among the latest victims. One of our top tourist areas, Blarney, suffered recently when the local schools and the church were targeted by graffiti vandals.

Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s there was a serious issue in Cork city with vandalism. Schools, sports clubs, cars, trains, bus shelters and even buses were regular targets. It was open season on all property. There was high unemployment, rising crime and stolen cars were a regular feature on the streets at night.

State agencies and community groups helped to improve that situation but it didn’t happen overnight. It probably took closer to twenty years of dedicated effort by many to bring about change.

I had hoped that we had learned something from those dark days but maybe not. Winston Churchill said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Let’s hope that is not the case in Cork but the signs are not encouraging.

Cork City Council have said that there are 172 life buoys in the city and 300 are bought every year to replace those that have been lost or vandalised. I think they are now referred to as ring buoys, but anyway, this means that Cork City Council is spending €15,000 a year on replacements. But it’s not just about the money.

A ring buoy is designed to be used as a life saving device when someone enters the river. It has only one purpose and that is to stop someone from drowning and yet there are plenty of idiots who think it’s entertaining to chuck them into the water on their way home from the local boozer.

It’s not only happening in Cork either. Wexford is now becoming used to finding life buoys floating down the river or dumped somewhere else in a tangled mess. It’s probably happening everywhere and there are other casualties besides the ring buoys.

The city’s first public defibrillator, another valuable life-saving device, was damaged twice in the space of a few hours. It was located on the wall at the entrance to Penneys on Oliver Plunkett Street and it was vandalised at a cost of around €2,500 each time. Recently, the defibrillator was damaged for the seventh time so now it’s being stored inside Penneys, which makes it inaccessible after close of business.

The Mallow Search and Rescue team and the Credit Union installed a defibrillator in the town. Recently, the box containing the equipment was damaged so the defibrillator had to be removed until such as time as the box has been repaired.

Ring buoys and defibrillators are located in public areas for a reason. They are supposed to be easily accessible to the public. There isn’t much point in having these things locked away in a tamper-proof metal cage. They exist for emergency situations when someone’s life is at risk. How is it possible that there are still so many out there who just don’t get that?

A Bill is before the Seanad, which if implemented, would mean that stealing or damaging life-saving equipment, such as life buoys or defibrillators, could incur a jail term or a fine of up of €50,000. That might help to concentrate the minds of the offenders. Or would it?

I saw a photograph in the Irish Examiner of two guys standing side by side on a street in Cork. One had a paint brush in his hand and the other was holding an Irish flag on a small stick. These guys were going around the city painting over the English version of street names and leaving only the Irish name visible.

They described it as “direct action to remove the name of Victoria, the Famine Queen”, from street name signs in Cork. According to them, the Famine was an act of genocide against the Irish people and they intended the direct civil disobedience to continue. They were proud that they were doing it openly and they took full responsibility for their actions and were prepared to face charges if necessary, to highlight their cause.

In my opinion, these two characters committed acts of criminal damage to public property and they should be called to answer for this nonsense. It is an insult to the efforts of all those who strive to make the city a better place.

There is enough damage caused to property from natural events like Hurricane Ophelia, without deliberately adding to the destruction ourselves. But then, there’s no accounting for human nature.

At the height of the hurricane there were plenty of people who ignored the advice from the authorities to stay indoors. There were some who went swimming and walking on piers, putting their own lives and the lives of others at risk. So, I suppose there will always be those who just don’t get it.

But then, maybe life would be dull without the village idiots.

 

 

Men don’t like to talk about their health. We are experts at ignoring symptoms just in case there’s something wrong. After all, what’s the point in looking for trouble, it’ll find you soon enough.

We can easily explain away a pain or an ache. It was the food we ate yesterday, the change in the weather or the bad nights’ sleep. It’ll be gone in a few days and we’ll be back to normal.

We have an explanation for everything. When we’re bleeding into the toilet, it’s because we brushed our teeth with too much enthusiasm, that’s all. The excruciating pain in the chest is only a slight touch of indigestion. The football size lump on the side of the head is nothing, probably just a large pimple. Ignore it and it will go away.

Strangely enough, that tactic doesn’t always work. There is no logic to that reasoning because if something is wrong then you need to find out and the earlier you find out, the better. The longer you ignore the symptoms, the harder the solution is going to be, so it makes perfect sense to be proactive with your health.

I get my blood checked annually. It only takes a couple of miniutes to have the sample taken and then it’s sent away to be tested and a week later the results are back. That blood sample can tell a lot about the state of your innards.

That’s what I did recently and I thought no more about it. A week later, I got a phone call from the nurse who told me that PSA reading was high which could indicate a problem with my prostate.

I was surprised because I didn’t have any of the recognised symptoms. But, according to the Irish Cancer Society, early prostate cancer doesn’t normally cause any symptoms. Prostate cancer usually only causes symptoms when it has grown large enough to press on the tube that drains urine. It restricts the flow, a bit like putting your foot on the garden hose.

Having prostate urinary symptoms can be a sign of prostate cancer but more often they are caused by a harmless enlargement of the prostate, which is common as you get older. Some of the signs include, a slow flow of urine, trouble starting or stopping the flow, passing urine more often, especially at night, pain when passing urine, blood in the urine or semen or a feeling of not emptying your bladder fully.

ICS advises you to visit your GP if you have any worries or if you have any of these symptoms so that they can be discussed and assessed. Most prostate cancers are found early, many are slow growing, and symptoms may not happen for many years if they happen at all. Remember that men with early prostate cancer are unlikely to have any symptoms.

I didn’t know that. I thought that there should be some signal if there was a problem so, I was surprised with that news. Usually, the nurse would ring to tell me that the results were back and everything’s fine and see you next year. Now it was starting to look as if somebody had changed the rules here but forgot to tell me. She had forgotten her lines and was introducing something new into the conversation.

She was telling me that I needed to have a further examination of my prostate to see what the issue was. She said the first step in the process would be a DRE and she scheduled that for the following week. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have asked what this DRE business was all about but too late for that now. The cat was well and truly out of that particular bag.

DRE stands for digital rectal examination. In plain English, that means having a finger inserted in a place that wasn’t intended for fingers. This allows for a physical inspection of the infamous prostate gland. It didn’t sound very inviting.

I spent the rest of that week in a state of panic. Worrying about what they were going to find was one thing but the thought of this DRE sent me into a spin. I couldn’t understand how in 2017, surrounded by modern science and technology, we still have this primitive form of examination. I was convinced that there had to be a more humane method.

The other concern I had was that my GP is also a friend of mine. I have been attending his surgery for over forty years. What he was about to do could have drastic implications for our future relationship. How could we ever look each other in the eye again? The only solution would be for me to move to another town or maybe even leave the country.

In any event, the day arrived and I duly presented myself. He’s a knowledgeable guy so I had hoped that he would have a new and less invasive way of carrying out this test. While I was waiting for him to pull a rabbit out of the hat though, I saw him reach for his surgical gloves. There would be no rabbit making an appearance today.

He did what he needed to do and it was over in a couple of miniutes. It was nothing like I had imagined and it was over so quickly that I was giving out to myself for worrying about it. He didn’t find anything to cause any concern and that brought some relief too.

As a new expert in the field of DRE, I have some advice for anyone worrying about their prostate. Go and have it checked. If you’re putting it off because of a fear of having this procedure carried out, then you’re as foolish as I was.

 

 

 

There was a story circulating last week about a restaurant using a sign referencing domestic violence to promote their lunchtime menu. Ribs and Bibs in Belfast, had a sandwich board outside their restaurant which read “Ya can beat the wife, but ya can’t beat a 5 pound lunch.”

Not in the best of taste but the restaurant removed the sign and apologised after a customer brought it to their attention. They said they didn’t condone abuse on men or women and the member of staff responsible had only been working with them for a couple of weeks.

Ok, so whatever about blaming the new guy, the fact remains that they realised their mistake, took it down straight away and apologised. That didn’t stop the abuse though.

The owner of the restaurant received a lot of nasty comments on social media because of the incident and that seems to be the way of things these days. Keyboard terrorists can spit out vitriol, anonymously, from the comfort of their darkened closet and get their kicks from being abusive and insulting. It’s very easy to do and there is no skill required.

Trolling snipers hide in the long grass and take pot shots at those who make mistakes and then slink back into whatever crevice they inhabit and lay in wait for their next victim.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term ‘troll’ it refers to someone who makes nasty comments on social media. I came across a description of a “troll” that compared it to the mythical creature from Scandinavian folklore. The mythological troll is known to be an ugly, dirty, angry creature that lives in dark places, like caves or underneath bridges, waiting to snatch up anything that passes by for a quick meal.

That is a great way to describe the activities of the internet troll who hides behind his computer screen and actively goes out of his way to cause trouble on the Internet. Like the mythological creature, the Internet troll is angry and disruptive, often for no real reason at all.

Social media can be great fun. I’m no expert on modern technology but I am familiar with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I enjoy clever, informative or humorous posts and it can be enjoyable and entertaining most of the time.
The down side is that any moron with a single active brain cell can access the Internet and poison the ether with nonsense and so we have little choice but to take the rough with the smooth.

I wrote an article online last year and one guy responded with an insulting comment. Another guy told him that his comment didn’t make sense and asked him if he had even read the article. His reply says a lot about the mentality of these electronic assassins. He said that he never reads the articles, he just makes his mind up from reading the headlines.

So, this guy was attacking the article from a position of complete ignorance and even admitted that he had no idea what he was talking about. This is one of the reasons we shouldn’t be taking these people seriously. They’re a joke.

Domestic violence however, is not a joke and I imagine the restaurant is aware of that and didn’t mean to cause offence. There are many women who are subjected to abuse on a regular basis and I dealt with many of them in my previous life.
Calling the police is usually the last resort for the victim and it signifies that the situation has reached crisis point in the relationship. It takes a lot of courage for a woman to take that first step.

It means that she will finally have to tell a story that she has probably been keeping secret for a long time, even from other family members. She has to overcome the fear of potential reprisal from her partner when he finds out what she has done. It is a huge step to take and it is a difficult journey to make but the upside is that life gets does get better.

I knew women who were afraid to leave the house to have a cup of coffee with a friend in case their partner found out. They rarely left the house unaccompanied and when they did they just went to the shop to get a few things and rushed straight back home again for fear of annoying him and triggering an abusive episode. It’s difficult for people in a normal relationship to grasp the kind of life that those in abusive situations have to endure.

It’s not only women that suffer in bad relationships either. A considerable number of victims of domestic violence are men, contradicting the widespread impression that it is only women who are left battered and bruised. Male victims have some strange tales to tell of what they suffer.

One long-distance lorry driver told of how when he arrived home from a trip his wife wouldn’t let him sleep. She wanted him to be so tired going back to work that he would crash his truck.

Nobody should have to suffer the indignity of having their lives controlled by somebody else. Nobody should have to endure a life of violence and misery at the hands of a partner who is a domineering control freak, using secrecy and fear to maintain a stranglehold on the family.

Secrecy is the biggest weapon an abuser or a bully has in his armoury. Once the secret is out, the power of the abuser is diminished. Anybody who finds themselves in this situation should speak to someone and take away the power so they can start to reclaim their lives.

Easier said than done, I know, but there is help out there.

 

Many years ago, there was an ad on the television warning householders to pay their TV licence. It was made in black and white and it showed some footage of a large van driving slowly around an estate with a satellite-dish on the roof, spinning slowly while trying to pick out the house that didn’t have a licence. It would show people hiding behind doors and peeping out through the curtains.

The TV Licence Inspectors had clip boards and trench coats and they moved from door to door with the stealth of CIA operatives searching for Islamic State terrorists. There would be panic in the street until these guys moved out and then everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Nosey neighbours squinting through the letter boxes were disappointed when there wasn’t a capture.

Those days have gone but a new terror has emerged and it is something that strikes fear into the fearless. It comes through the letter box with the impact of a scud missile and leaves householders trembling. Some have been known to lose control of their bodily functions at the sight of it lying there on the mat in the hallway. At first glance, it looks pretty and harmless but there is nothing innocent about it.

It is of course, the dreaded wedding invitation. It brings with it a whole heap of trouble and it signals the beginning of a process that is going to tear a large hole in your pocket. It is an order to prepare for stag nights, hen nights, new outfits, presents and overnight stays. For the “happy couple” it marks the start of a huge amount of organising, planning, stress and expense and all for the sake of a day out.

As a guest or family member attending a wedding, you can expect to pay over €800 when all the associated expenses are taken into consideration. The biggest single cost associated with attending a wedding is the amount of money spent on the gift and the accommodation. There is a new trend whereby the wedding is extended into the next day so that means an extra night in the hotel.

There is also the hen night and the stag night and it’s normal now for many of these to take place abroad so that will be an additional cost. Why it is necessary to travel to somewhere like Prague or Amsterdam just to have a few pints is lost on me.

Some unfortunate souls will have to attend more than one in a year and on those occasions, it might be worth putting your death notice in the paper and laying low for a while.

weddingsonline, a popular wedding website, announced the findings of their annual wedding survey. They have revealed that while the average total budget for a wedding including the honeymoon is €22,531, a considerable number of couples go over budget, 38% in fact. So, this means that there are some of them who are hitting close to €30,000 to have their day in a white dress with a fancy cake.

When you consider what a young couple could do for themselves with €30,000, you have to question the sanity of splashing out this amount cash on a glorified fancy dress party. Wanting to say ’I do’ in front of a large gathering of family and friends is all very well but it doesn’t come cheap. It is an expensive tradition that brings good fortune for some but not necessarily the wedding party.

Taking each other for richer or for poorer sounds great but the reality is that ‘poorer’ is probably the most likely outcome. Up to €30,000 poorer.

This survey, based on over 2,000 participants in 2016, captures the current trends towards weddings in Ireland. The survey shows that 28% of couples take out a loan to help cover the cost and 22% share the costs with their parents. When asked what their preference would be when it comes to wedding gifts, 77% said they would prefer cash.

It seems to me to be a little worrying that 28% take out a loan to help cover the cost of their wedding. That is a significant number and for a young couple starting out in life it represents a sizeable debt before they even take a single step on an already expensive journey through life.

It’s also worth remembering that no matter how much money is spent on the wedding, there is still no guarantee that everything will run smoothly. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Take this tale about a wedding that took place in the States.

The bride’s family was rich and money was no object and the wedding was going to cost a fortune with no expense spared. The happy couple arranged to meet the wedding planner for the first time in a bar early in the morning. By the time she got there it was obvious that they were already after having a few. They didn’t seem to be too pushed about the details and that made her a little suspicious.

On the day of the wedding, the bride and groom and all their guests started drinking early and everyone got loaded. The wedding planner got a bad feeling. When the time came to cut the cake, she couldn’t find the bride. They looked everywhere but she was nowhere to be found so the groom decided to cut the cake by himself. He was completely wasted.

As the night wore on, the bride was still missing but nobody seemed to be bothered. A few days later the wedding planner discovered that the bride and the groomsman left the wedding early and had run off together.

Proof that no amount of money can guarantee a happy ending.