Month: August 2018

I wasn’t surprised to hear that a judge recently described as “extraordinary”, that almost two thirds of a Cork seaside town’s raw sewage was being pumped directly into the local harbour. Tom Tuite reported in the Irish Examiner, that Judge John Brennan said he had “grave concerns” and it was “extraordinary” that in 2018 raw sewage was being pumped into the sea there.

That might be news to some people, but not me because I witnessed it for myself many moons ago. Back in the 1970’s, I was working with my father who was in the building game at the time, and we were called out to a house where there was a problem with the sewage system. The owner of the house was a client of his and her system was completely backed up.

It was an old house with a long back garden on the outskirts of Cobh, looking across the river at Passage West. It was a lovely spot, particularly on a sunny day. The garden overlooked the river, or a stony beach, depending on whether the tide was in or out.

Anyway, we set about our task by lifting the manhole cover and we used sewer rods to try to dislodge the blockage. Despite adding more and more rods, we were making very little progress. It was a hot day and all the pushing and pulling was starting to take its toll. The odour wasn’t exactly helping either.

We decided to try another approach, so we poured caustic soda down the drains and into the manhole. Caustic soda is tricky stuff, so we mixed it in a galvanised bucket and handled it carefully because it’s toxic.

We left that to ferment for a few hours before returning for a further assault with the rods. After lots more pushing and pulling, there was a distant rumbling sound as if there was thunder in the air down around Youghal.

The rumbling grew a bit louder and the ground started to vibrate a little underfoot like a mini earthquake. Suddenly there was a whoosh and a ton of raw sewage shot out through a pipe at the end of the garden and sprayed the beach below. It was like a bazooka and if anybody had been in the line of fire that day, they could have been buried under a pile of excrement.

Even though I knew that sewage was going directly into the harbour, it was still a shock to see so much of it in one go and that was just from a few houses. That was 40 years ago, and the population of the town has grown a lot since then.

When you consider the number of coastal villages, towns and cities around our island that are replicating this effluent disposal system and the amount of plastic we’re also adding to the oceans, I’m surprised that we can’t walk to Scotland at this stage.

An Environmental Protection Agency inspector told Judge Brennan that Castletownbere had a population of about 1,300 and 64%, of the waste there was untreated and carried by a pipe and discharged directly into the town’s harbour. When he lifted a manhole, he could see human waste travelling out into the harbour untreated.

Their sewage was discharged directly into the sea at a nearby beach. He showed the judge photos of it including one where children could be seen playing just 50 metres from a culvert carrying the sewage into the sea.

Irish Water said that every day, the equivalent of 20,000 wheelie bins of raw sewage is released into Cork Lower Harbour from the communities living around it. In 2014, there was the equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of sewage every day being dumped into the sea and that has been halved and by the time the main drainage project is completed in 2021, this will be reduced to zero.

I have always admired the Garda Water Unit for the difficult work that they do but they aren’t being paid half enough considering that they spend their time diving into an enormous septic tank.

When I lived in the countryside, I had a septic tank. For city slickers who have no idea what I’m talking about, a septic tank is a concrete container situated in the garden that collects the waste from the toilets. The tank has a drain which allows the liquid to filter into a soakaway, which is basically a huge hole full of stones. The solid waste remains in the tank and is reduced by bacteria. Every few years this tank is emptied, and, in some cases, it may never need to be cleaned out.

Before selling that house, Cork County Council insisted that I had to upgrade my system because it had been in place for over thirty years. So, I hired a guy to dig a new soakaway and some new drains that ran the length of the garden. An engineer passed it as fit, but Cork County Council had other ideas.

They instructed me to replace the tank and more or less start from scratch. So, I had to get the same guys back again to undo all the work they had done previously and put in further drains. It was a big job.

That work cost me a lot of money and aggravation, because Cork County Council were concerned about protecting the environment. Their concern for Mother Earth is admirable but while they were giving me a hard time, they were also allowing the equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of untreated raw sewage to be poured into the harbour every day.

But I think they have a secret plan. I reckon they got me to do all that work because they’re going to dump it all in my new tank.

When I was a young lad, we were always complaining that the guys from the Naval Base in Haulbowline were coming to Cobh and taking all our girls. They were worse than pirates.

Many of them weren’t even from Cork. They came from far flung places like Wexford and Clare and some of them were even Dubs. Many of them eventually ended up getting married and settling in the town and we were forced to grant them asylum. Over time, we learned to live with it.

I recently heard some people complaining about foreigners coming over here and taking all our jobs. They were moaning about how these people will chance their arm at anything while they can’t even speak English. Sounded like the Navy was up to its old tricks again, but it wasn’t that. They were talking about the Polish community.

I think that’s unfair, and I want to set the record straight. I have met a lot of Polish people over the last ten or twelve years and my experience has been very positive. I think they are a tremendous asset to our county and I’ll tell you why.

I was in PC World looking for a laptop computer. My knowledge of electronics is fairly limited so I was relying on help from the assistants. I was lucky enough to meet a guy called Pawel, pronounced Pavel I think. As the name suggests, he is from Poland, and he has great command of the English language and he knows his way around a computer.

He told me all about tetra bites, megatrons, Inspiron thingy’s and milky bars and a whole bunch of stuff that went straight over my head. Once he realised what kind of an idiot he was dealing with, he began using baby talk and then he started making sense to me. He was a very good humoured, knowledgeable guy who went out of his way to help me. I followed his advice and everything he told has turned out to be right.

On another occasion, myself and my wife called into in our local bank to check on how our millions were doing. We were dealing with a girl who is very pleasant with a smiley face and she is extremely efficient. Her name is Romana and I asked her about the name. I had heard of Ramona, but I had never heard of Romana and I thought that maybe it was a misprint on her name tag.

She explained that her name is Polish and that she has been living in Cork for the last ten years. I was surprised to hear that because to me, she had a local accent. That shouldn’t have surprised me but it did.

Then I thought of a Polish family who rented our house a few years ago while we were trying to sell it. They were a married couple with a few children and they stayed there for a couple of years. They were great tenants and we never had an ounce of trouble from them. When they left, the house was in better condition than it was when they moved in. It was spotless.

One of the reasons we moved from that house was that there were a lot of trees around the property and a fair amount of hedging and it took a lot of maintenance. Eventually, I had to farm out that work and I came across a couple of guys who looked after it for me and they did a great job and they too were Polish.

I was having trouble with a few windows in my current home for a few years. They weren’t closing properly at the top or the bottom, only in the middle so they were draughty.

I made lots of calls to different window people over the years and I got various answers, but most companies told me they couldn’t do anything. One guy told me he could solve my problem for a zillion Euro while others had no interest and never got back to me.

I rang one company and explained my difficulty to a lady and she told me that somebody would contact me. When a week passed by and I didn’t hear anything, I called her back. She told me that she had passed on my message and she couldn’t do anymore so she advised me to ring this man myself. Needless to say, I didn’t bother.

Then one day out of the blue, an advertisement popped up on the Internet offering a professional service for repairing windows and doors. I sent off an email and the following morning at 7.45am I got a reply offering to call to me the following day at 11am. I wasn’t holding my breath but at the appointed time there was a knock on the door.

This window man introduced himself and as it happens, he is from Poland. He came over here about ten years ago, saw an opening and set up his company. He did a very professional job at a reasonable price and solved my problem.

I can remember, in a previous life, I had responsibility for engaging with members of the new communities in Cork City and at one stage during the 2000’s it was estimated that there were about 30,000 Polish nationals living in the greater Cork area.

While it was always expected that many of them would return to Poland when their economy improved, it was also acknowledged that many of them would stay and make Ireland their home and many did.

I, for one, am delighted they’re here. My experience has been absolutely positive and as far as work ethic and professionalism go, they could teach some of our home grown heroes a thing or two.

There was a story in the Echo recently about how a former Cork City Lord Mayor, Des Cahill, had a moment of enlightenment on his way to work one morning. While entering the city hall through the car park, he spotted a guy on the stairwell who appeared to be acting suspiciously.

As he got closer, he realised that it was a guy preparing to inject himself with heroin. He was surprised, especially as it was only 11am but he called security and they dealt with the issue. He said it is regrettable that drug use is creeping into daily life in Cork and presenting a public hazard.

While he felt sorry for the guy, he also had a responsibility to the public who are being put at risk. He said that drug use has become part of modern life in Cork and the resulting hazardous waste is posing a threat to the public.

He was worried about the damage open drug use could be having on our city’s image. On another occasion, he spotted a couple preparing heroin close to Oliver Plunkett Street at the very moment some tourists walked by.

Mr. Cahill is worried. So am I, but the most worrying aspect of this story for me is that he’s only becoming aware of this issue now. This is 2018 and addicts shooting up heroin on the streets of Cork has been going on for a long time.
Drug use in public spaces around the city has been an issue for many years and finding discarded needles and other drug paraphernalia in the streets, parks and playgrounds has been highlighted regularly for more than ten years at least.

In 2010, while I was responsible for community policing in Cork City, I approached the main stake holders working with those with addiction issues. I set up a group with representatives from An Garda Siochana, Cork Simon, HSE, Cork Drugs Task Force and Cork City Council. I had hoped that with the knowledge and expertise available around the table that we might formulate a plan to provide a safe injecting centre with the necessary support services available to the users.

This group was very positive and met monthly for a couple of years. I retired since, so I have no idea if this group is still in existence, but I doubt it, given the current state of community policing nationally. The initiative was started because of the obvious need but maybe Cllr. Cahill was never informed. The fact that he is shocked at the current state of drug use in Cork doesn’t fill me with hope for the future.

Another issue that was highlighted recently was the rise in anti-social behaviour. Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan insisted An Garda Siochana was tackling the issue “head-on”. The Department of Justice said addressing the concerns of communities was a key focus for the Garda. He said that the Government remained committed to ensuring gardai have the necessary resources to tackle “all forms of criminality in our communities”.

Bus Eireann has expressed concern about stone throwing incidents at buses in Munster which can lead to services being suspended or diverted. Shane Ross said that the “safety and security of passengers and staff is of paramount importance”. He has asked officials to engage with transport companies to combat anti-social behaviour and he will be discussing the matter with Mr Flanagan.

These concerned politicians are outraged and promising to make things better but unfortunately, it amounts to nothing more than hot air and a few fancy sound bites for the media.

Even though I’m now retired, it still frustrates me to hear the likes of Charlie Flanagan and Shane Ross spouting nonsense about resourcing and supporting the gardai. It infuriates me when I hear the Department of Justice suggesting that addressing the concerns of communities is a key focus for the Garda and promising that all resources will be made available to them. That’s what they said when they disbanded community policing.

Community policing had many strands to it, but primarily it was about engaging with the public and developing relationships within the various communities. Many of us spent 20 years fostering these relationships, creating trust and trying to resolve the issues affecting their daily lives.

One of these strands was the Garda Schools Programme, which introduced community gardai to primary school students. It took away the mystery of the uniform and educated them on the value and importance of the work done by gardai and the other emergency services.

We pointed out the negative aspects of damaging public transport and having buses removed from service because of broken windows caused by stone throwing and the consequences of that behaviour for their families and neighbours. They were told about looking out for the elderly, the importance of road safety and the importance of having respect for others.

This was just one small approach, but it was where relationships began with the youth in the community and as they developed into young adults, we got to know each other. When we met on street corners, we could talk to each other and it made a difference.

All that work and so much more was discarded by Martin Callinan, Noirin O’Sullivan and Francis Fitzgerald and other politicians like Charlie Flanagan who endorsed it. They decimated community policing while pretending that the community was still receiving a quality service when everyone knew that wasn’t the case.

Now Des Cahill is surprised that we have a serious addiction problem in our city and Charlie Flanagan can’t figure out why the young people are running out of control. They took away the very people who were trying to keep a lid on these issues but now they’re at a loss to figure out where it all went wrong.

Later in the year, myself and my buddy John O’Connor, will be heading off to Cyprus for a break. We both love the place and have been returning there for years since we worked in that part of the world with the United Nations.

We’ll travel light. A small hold all each, with a few bits and pieces to keep us going. We’ll chuck the dirty stuff into the washing machine every couple of days and hang them on a clothes horse on the balcony for a day and we’re good to go again. Ironing isn’t included because we feel it adds character to the clothes. It also uses up valuable drinking time. So off we go with the minimum of fuss and just chill out.

On the other hand, I am now preparing for a holiday to Portugal with my wife Gaye. I have my usual trusty hold all and she has one as well. But then we have something else. It is loosely called a suitcase but is in fact something that has been designed by a structural engineer and is heavily reinforced.

It needs to be built like this because of what goes into it. There will be at least six pairs of shoes. She is like most other people in so far as she has only two feet, so she can only wear one pair at a time. After 35 years, I know that there is no point asking her why they all need to come for the spin so it’s easier, and wiser, just to say nothing.

There will be some coats and jackets in case it gets cold. The reason we’re going to Portugal in August is because it is reasonable to assume that it will be warm. It might get a little cool some evenings but not enough to warrant bringing a fur lined ski jacket.

There will be casual clothes for just hanging around in, beach clothes for obvious reasons and good clothes for going out in the evening. Heaven forbid that casual clothes would make an appearance after 6pm in the evening while fine dining at a table on a footpath outside a glorified fish and chip shop.

There will be a bag of assorted goods like toiletries, sun creams and a ton of make-up. I haven’t been to Portugal for about twenty years but even back then they had supermarkets where you could buy pretty much anything you needed. They are not short of sun cream on the Algarve or anything else for that matter.

Another item that will have to travel will be the dreaded hair straightener. This piece of equipment might not bother many people, but it strikes fear into me and I don’t want to be looking at it while I’m trying to relax, and I’ll tell you why.

A few weeks ago, my GP decided that I needed to have a biopsy on my prostate, so I was sent to the Cork University Hospital. I was, naturally, a little apprehensive because I’m not particularly fond of people interfering with that part of my anatomy. It had been explained to me that the procedure would involve taking some samples from the prostate and the prostate would be accessed from the rear. My rear.

I sat in the waiting area for a bit trying to figure out how uncomfortable this process was likely to be, and I had convinced myself that on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most painful, it was likely to be a one. A two at the most. I mean, how bad could this thing really be? It’s 2018 after all and we have all this technology, so I decided to relax and not think about it.

My name was called and suddenly my palms got sweaty, but I was doing ok. I was putting on a brave show for the other guys who were waiting and watching to see if I would live through the experience. A nurse walked slowly beside me and I was reminded of the film ‘The Green Mile’. Dead man walking.

I was taken into a little room and I was being prepped for what was coming when I spotted this piece of equipment standing upright in a holder next to the bed that I was to lie on. It reminded me of a hair straightener and I was suddenly filled with fear as I began to appreciate where this thing would soon be going. A doctor came into the room and sat behind me and told me to relax. Yeah, right!

It was oven and done with, in about twenty minutes and as I walked back to the waiting area I was conscious of the other eyes watching me trying to figure out if I had been scarred for life or if I had suffered only mild discomfort. I was doing my best for them, trying to offer some hope, but I felt as if I was walking like John Wayne after spending a week in the saddle.

I had some discomfort for a few days afterwards but gradually everything returned to normal but it’s not an experience I would volunteer for again in a hurry. I don’t have happy memories of that day which is why I have an issue with the packing.

By the time she’s finished filling the case, I will probably have to hire a couple of body builders from the local gym to carry it down stairs. The weighing scales at the check-in at the airport will probably groan under the strain and insist that I pay a thousand Euro extra for being over-weight.

But I don’t care. I’ll gladly pay whatever it takes just as long as the hair straightener isn’t inside it.