Month: May 2018

I like to keep up to date with what’s going on in the world, but I sometimes slip up. For example, town councils were abolished in this country in 2014 and that piece of news passed me by. To be fair though, I was living abroad at the time and I offer that as an excuse.

The abolition of town councils was led out by Phil Hogan as part of the Coalition’s political reform programme and it was heralded by him as being the biggest shake-up of local government in the history of the State. There are few who would argue that they needed a shake-up but doing away with them completely was different kettle of fish.

Councils came in for a lot of stick across the country and those of a certain vintage will remember that Frank Hall ran a very popular sketch on his weekly TV programme “Halls Pictorial Weekly.” This was a satirical show that highlighted the strange goings-on in Ballymagash Urban District Council. It presented an exaggerated view of monthly council meetings in Ireland and how various issues were dealt with.

There were some insiders who said that it was very close to the bone and it was rumoured that many politicians wanted the programme to be withdrawn.

Apparently, the plan to abolish the local councils was opposed by councillors themselves, as well as many chamber of commerce groups and others who said it would lead to a weakening of local democracy. In any event, they were replaced with new municipal district councils, which are much larger entities, encompassing both urban and rural areas.

And so it came to pass that, as and from the 1st June 2014, Cobh Town Council was abolished and a new sub county local government structure, in the form of Cobh-Glanmire Municipal District, was established. But where are they?

In Cobh, we have a beautiful building at the entrance to the town, called Carrig House and for years that was the home of the Urban District Council and latterly Cobh Town Council. It was the seat of power, our very own version of the White House.

But since we joined up with Glanmire, I don’t know where the new HQ is. Do we still have part of a council operating from Carrig House or have all the staff just upped sticks and headed for Riverstown? Do they still carry out some functions or does everything have to go through the Cork County Council?

I’m only asking because there is a widely held belief around town, that making contact with someone in the local mortuary would be easier than finding a life source in Carrig House. And that’s a pity because it would be nice to have a chat with them about some of their decisions.

For instance, a new taxi queuing system was created on the Low Road in Cobh last year complete with designated parking bays and signage. The road was nicely painted, marking out about 20 spaces for taxis, and while it all looked very pretty, it was obvious to anyone with the IQ of a log that this was never going to work. And it didn’t.

So, this year, another team of workers removed the signage from the newly erected poles and burned the markings off the roadway. The whole episode was a waste of time and money.

There are other signs visible around the town, warning dog owners not to allow their pets to foul the public areas. The message is clear enough; if you don’t clean up after your dog, you face a fine of up to a maximum of €3000.

The public walkways, from one end of the town to the other, are littered with dog crap. It’s unsightly, it’s unhealthy and it’s unfair to those of us who don’t have dogs. It’s also unfair to those responsible dog owners who clean up after their pets and it’s an insult to the people involved the Tidy Towns initiative.

There is also an abundance of dogs roaming freely around the town and owners of these animals have no fear of being fined and for a very good reason.

It took a considerable effort to get information but when I did, it wasn’t very encouraging. The council informed me that only two fines for dog fouling had been issued in ‘recent years’ and they say that it is impossible to police.

Well what was the point of putting warning notices all over the town if the law is not going to be enforced? Individual councillors have told me that they have been banging this particular drum for years, but they have yet to come up with a solution.

In 2016, I wrote a letter to the Municipal Council to ask about the possibility of getting a disabled parking space outside my mother-in-laws house. She was 97 years old at the time and the parking is chaotic where she lives so it can be difficult to get her into a car.

At this stage, she’s close to getting a cheque from the President for her 100 birthday, but I still haven’t heard from the council. I rang them a few times and I was guaranteed that my message would be passed to the appropriate person. I still haven’t heard anything, which is why I’m wondering if the appropriate person is even there.

Maybe they have all gone to Glanmire or Carrignavar and maybe the poor woman answering the phone is all alone in the building. If that’s the case, then someone should break the news to her, so she can turn out the lights and go home for herself.

Frank Hall was ahead of his time and his take on the Ballymagash Urban District Council is as relevant today as it ever was.

When I was a young garda walking the streets of Blackrock in Dublin, I had no interest in promotion and I knew very little about how that system even worked. I was more interested in trying to survive my daily routine without making a complete idiot of myself – and there were plenty of opportunities for that.

There was one story doing the rounds at the time, which also featured on the national media, about a man who had been arrested for drink driving. The young garda making a name for himself was, at the time, carrying out a check point in my neck of the woods.

The car approached the check point and the garda got a strong smell of alcohol from the guy. It soon became obvious that this man was in no condition to drive so he duly removed him from the car and arrested him. Only then did it become apparent to the garda that the car was in fact a left-hand drive and he had arrested the passenger.

No young garda wanted to end up with a mistake like that hanging over him. It tended to draw a huge amount of slagging and also followed the member concerned no matter what part of the country he or she happened to end up. So, the plan was generally to keep the head down and your eyes and ears open.

The competition for promotion came about once a year and for those in contention it became a hot topic of conversation. It was hard to avoid the subject around that time and even those who were not in the competition had an opinion on who the deserving candidates were. It was also regularly suggested that ability had little to do with the selection process.

In those days I often heard predictions from colleagues about who was going to be promoted and who was going to lose out. They very often turned out to be spot on and many based their assessments on what political party was in power at the time or who had the most influential connections.

It wasn’t unusual to hear that while a particular candidate was thought to be deserving of promotion, he would have to wait for a change of government. There always seemed to be a less competent guy who was being touted as a banker for promotion because of who he was connected to. I wasn’t cynical enough at the time to believe that this was how the system worked but these prophets were right too many times. That was nearly forty years ago.

More recently, we have just had the launch of an audit of An Garda Siochana carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The independent cultural audit survey of 6,560 staff and focus groups is the first of its kind.

It identified an apparent “significant disconnect” between senior gardaí and lower ranks and that senior leadership was “not visible” to members. I would suggest that this was particularly obvious during the difficult times when we were in the middle of the recession and struggling to cope, senior management was conspicuous by its absence at the very time leadership was needed most.

The report said one of the biggest reasons for a disconnect between senior leadership and frontline ranks was the belief that promotions, access to training, and transfers were down to “who you know.”

It said this belief came through “particularly vociferously” and “has caused disillusionment and resentment across the organisation.” The report also said that it was the “overwhelming view” of members that there are “large swathes of promotions” where the ‘names are known’ beforehand.

The fact that senior managers have disputed this doesn’t surprise me. It’s what they’ve always done and that’s why nothing has changed. Even the introduction of the Garda Inspectorate and the Policing Authority hasn’t managed to put a dent in the culture of cronyism. The audit said the promotion system was “one of the very important symbols of change within the organisation that needs to be addressed.”

It also found that gardaí are unwilling to speak out about issues because of a “fear of repercussions or due to a sense of futility.” In other words, they felt it would be a waste of time because nobody would listen.

Members wanted the leadership to “speak up and stand up” for the organisation. It was always a particular gripe of mine that senior management automatically just followed the party line. For example, the last two commissioners, Martin Callinan and Noirin O’Sullivan, regularly insisted that An Garda Siochana had all the resources it required when it was obvious that the opposite was true.

The report suggested there were “high levels of scepticism and even cynicism across the organisation as to whether there is a genuine and meaningful commitment” to change. That is very understandable because it’s the way the organisation has behaved for decades and there has never been an appetite for change. And the future looks bleak.

Acting Commissioner Dónall O’Cualáin said the audit reinforced the belief that culture needed to be reformed. He said there needed to be “greater engagement” with staff. “For example, as managers, there needs to be greater engagement with the people working for us, so they can have a clear understanding of what is expected from them in delivering a professional policing service.”

This kind of thinking demonstrates why changing the culture in An Garda Siochana will be difficult. The ordinary, everyday rank and file member knows only too well what is required of them to provide a professional service to the public. They do it every day Mr. O’Cualain, without much support.

The real problem lies further up the line. What’s needed is strong, professional and independent leadership and that has been lacking for far too long.

According to my birth certificate, I was born in 1958. I was never good at maths but by my calculation I should be 60 years old this year. That doesn’t make sense though because I only feel about twenty-five. I am regularly told that I behave like a child too, so something is wrong.

It doesn’t seem that long ago since I was a kid, but I’ve been looking back at the fifties and sixties and I’ve discovered that quite a lot has changed.

I can remember, for instance, the bread being delivered by horse drawn carriage and, in the mornings, being woken up by the rattling of the glass bottles as the milk man made his deliveries along the street. If you didn’t bring the milk indoors quickly enough, the birds would pierce the foil on top of the bottle and drink the cream.

In those days, my father had a cream Ford Consul. I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but looking back on it now, it was a beautiful car. It had a bench seat in the front, an ivory steering wheel with a chrome horn in the centre of it. The bench seat was a complete unit so there was no gap between the driver and the passenger.

One of the neighbours had a black car, I think it was a Ford, and it was like something you’d see in an old gangster movie in 1930’s America, complete with running boards.

Not that we saw too many movies back then. I remember the TV set coming into the house for the first time. It took up a huge amount of space because it was so big. There were no slim sets back then, so they were enormous and weighed a ton.

There was a waiting list to get an aerial up on the roof, but it was important to have one so that everyone knew you had a TV set. Putting up the aerial usually involved a lot of shouting. There would be one guy up on the roof moving the aerial so that it pointed in the right direction.

There would be a second person standing in front of the TV and his job was to give directions as to whether the aerial should be turned left or right depending on the quality of the picture. And a third person was required to stand at the front door to relay the instructions to the guy on the roof from the quality control officer in the sitting room.

The alternative was to have an indoor aerial, called a rabbits’ ears and this was perched on top of the TV. It was like an upside-down bowl with two shiny arms coming out of it and it just sat there on the set like an alien. A variety of insults and abuse would be hurled at anybody who interfered with the rabbit’s ears and distorted the picture.

In the real world, there were some notable events in 1958 apart from my birth and one in particular that shook the world, was the Munich Air Disaster. A British European Airways flight carrying 44 people crashed at Munich Airport shortly after take-off.

Many of those on board were sports journalists and members of the Manchester United football team who were on their way home to the UK having qualified for the semi-finals of the European Cup. A total of 23 people died and 8 of them were members of the Manchester United team.

On a lighter note, someone else was introduced to the public that year apart from myself. Michael Bond was a cameraman working with the BBC in London, but he also wrote a number of short stories for children. On Christmas Eve 1956, he was out doing some last miniute shopping when he spotted a teddy bear sitting on a shelf. He took a shine to it and decided to bring it home to give to his wife.

He got the Tube home from Paddington Street Station and decided to name the bear Paddington. He wrote a few stories about the adventures of this toy bear and put them into a book which he called, ‘A Bear Called Paddington.’ He was turned down by a few publishers in the beginning, but he eventually got lucky and in 1958 his book went on sale.

60 years later and the bear is still hugely popular, and the stories have been translated into more than forty languages. So, myself and Paddington Bear share a birthday, but that’s where the similarities end because he hasn’t changed a bit and he’s also worth considerably more than I am.

Also, in 1958, there was a case in the district court in Cork before District Justice D. P. O’Donovan. The defendant was summoned for stealing £1 – 2s. – 6d from a gas meter in the house of his parents. He was also charged with causing £1 damage to the gas meter, the property of the Gas Company. He pleaded guilty to both charges.

The court records sergeant revealed that the defendant, who lived with his parents, had previous convictions and had served 23 terms of imprisonment. When asked by the judge if he had anything to say for himself, the defendant said; “It’s all through the drink, and I am going straight now. I will pay back the money.”

Inspector M. Enright, who prosecuted said the man was a nuisance to his parents and they wanted him out of the house. He was sent to prison for two months with hard labour.

So, sixty years later it seems that some things haven’t changed at all and the bad guys are still using the same old excuses; “It was the drink judge, but I’m all better now.”

When it comes to bugs, creepy crawlies and other creatures that we don’t like the look of, we all have our pet hates. For some it’s spiders or wasps, while for others it might be something bigger like rats or mice.

My preferred object of hate is probably one of the smallest creatures on the Planet. The mosquito.

To be fair, I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual because they go to great lengths to find me and they regularly ignore other potential candidates to search me out. They obviously have a massive spy network and a great communication system because the miniute I land in a foreign country, they know about it.

They always send a welcoming committee to let me know that they will be watching me for the duration of my visit. Sometimes, it’s just me and there have been occasions when I have been out with friends and targeted for an assault and the only one to wake up the next day full of lumps.

I suffer at home too. In Ireland, we are probably more familiar with the horse fly than the mosquito. They must be related though because they have a lot of the same characteristics. They are fast, strong fliers and are usually found around streams, marshes, and wooded areas.

After the bite from these, a lump appears just like the mozzie and it gets just as itchy. They’re more determined than the mosquito though because once a horse fly decides you’re on his lunch menu, he will be persistent. No amount of swatting or waving at it will get him to leave you alone and he will fight to the death.

I lived out in the countryside for many years and my neighbour loved being out in the garden in the summer. He would often be out there from early morning till late in the evening, in a t-shirt, doing various bits and pieces. I would go out for an hour to cut the grass in a long sleeve shirt, buttoned up to the neck, long pants, helmet, goggles and gloves, and I would be bitten while Frank wouldn’t have a mark on him.

I have heard many different explanations about why these insects chose one person over another. Some say it has to do with body heat or the scent of sweat or they are attracted to a blood type. Whatever the reason is, they are attracted to me.

I have tried everything over the years to keep them at bay including sprays, creams, wrist bands, scented candles, garlic and seances with limited success.
When I’m on holidays I get fanatical about keeping doors and windows closed in the evening. My blood pressure goes through the roof at a time when I’m supposed to be relaxed and chilling out. They just drive me insane.

It’s not that they’re vicious. They won’t kill you and in fact you probably won’t even know you’ve been bitten by one until the following day when the lumps arrive. Then you start to feel the itch and it’s that itch that drives some people to distraction.

The worst thing is lying in bed at night and just as you’re about to head off to sleep, you hear that high-pitched whine of the mozzie in your ear. You know the miniute you hear it that it’s time to go to war. There’s nothing else for it.

There’s no point in pretending that you didn’t hear it or just hoping that it will go away. No chance, because that creature has only one thing on his mind. He’s hungry and whether you like it or not, he is planning to gorge himself on your body during the night until he is so full he can hardly move.

So, there’s only one thing for it, time to hop out of bed, find the enemy and eliminate him. But that’s easier said than done though because they’re difficult to find. They’re sneaky buggers. Every now and then they’ll buzz in your ear just to taunt you before disappearing again.

A little trick I picked up in Cyprus a few years ago is to turn off the lights in the room and just turn on your phone. They will be attracted to that and then you can sneak up and ambush them. Another thing I discovered is that Tiger Balm, which is available in all pharmacies, can often be effective at keeping them at bay.

It’s used mainly for sore muscles I think, so it heats your skin a little when you apply it first but it’s a small price to pay for a mozzie free evening. It has a fairly pungent odour as well, so you might smell like a post-match rugby locker room but it’s worth it.

According to National Geographic, few creatures evoke the hatred that mosquitoes do, and the bad news is that there are more than 3,000 species of them. The other piece of bad news is that global efforts to stop the spread of mosquitoes are having little effect, and many scientists think global warming will increase their number.

Mosquitoes breed in standing water, so properties near ponds, marshes, and depressions that collect rainwater are at risk. Some mosquito species are active at different times of the day, but most emerge just before dusk and are active at night. Researchers have found that one solution for those plagued by mosquitoes is to thrash about, and the insects learn to give you a wide berth.

If that’s the best advice these researchers can come up with, then they need to go back to the drawing board and make a better effort. “Thrashing about” isn’t very scientific and that suggestion is unlikely to win them the ‘Brainwave of the year’ award.