Month: October 2023

I saw a cartoon recently somewhere which depicted Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly filling a bucket with water. The bucket was full of holes, so the water poured out as fast as he put it in. An advisor looking on suggested it might be advisable to fix the holes first. In other words, deal with the root cause of the problem.

Good advice that could equally apply to Minister of state at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers. He wants to fiddle with the Road Traffic Act again. Not only would he have us driving around our towns at 30kph, but motorists who commit traffic offences such as speeding or not wearing a seatbelt could face higher penalty points on bank holiday weekends.

According to the Irish Examiner, under his proposed new legislation, powers would be granted to vary the number of penalty points during specific times when road safety risks are higher. It is not yet clear what the points would increase by, and the legislation allows just for the variation at this stage.

Data shows there has been a consecutive increase in the number of people caught speeding over the most recent bank holiday weekends, as well as increases in drink and drug-driving arrests.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has defended garda enforcement on the roads, insisting their presence is “strong”. “We will need to do everything we can to make it even stronger,” said Ms McEntee. “I think what we are seeing is changing trends and changing behaviours, and we need to be able to respond to that.”

I have no idea what she means by that, but I think it’s fair to say that enforcement is sadly lacking and that lies at the heart of the matter. Introducing laws that legislate for specific times of the year, like bank holidays, is like trying fill the leaky bucket. It won’t fix the root cause of traffic accidents which is poor driving standards.

The basic issue with the Road Traffic Act is not the quality of the law but the lack of enforcement of it. Minister Helen McEntee and Commissioner Drew Harris can prattle on ad infinitum about having adequate resources to police our small State, but everyone knows that’s a load of nonsense. There is no point in spinning that line anymore because nobody believes it.

It’s very simple. If they have the resources they need, then questions must be asked of garda management about the deployment. Where are they? Gardai are not a visible presence on our streets in 2023 so please stop trying to convince us otherwise because it simply isn’t credible. Let me give you an idea of what a police presence and real enforcement looks like.

I drove down to Paphos Airport in Cyprus last week to collect some family members. It’s a two-hour drive from my place in Paralimni. They were due to arrive at 6pm so I struck off around three in the afternoon. I took my time and because they were slightly delayed, we were back on the road again by 7pm and by then it was dark.

My brother-in-law commented on the number of police cars and speed detection vans he saw on the way home. I’m used to seeing them on a daily basis, so it didn’t surprise me. I didn’t count them because I wasn’t taking too much notice but from then on, I counted three speed vans in operation and five motorists who had been pulled in by the police at different points along the route.

That was just on our side of the motorway and to put that into perspective, the island of Cyprus, is roughly the size of Munster with a population of somewhere in the region of 1.2 million.

The town of Paralimni has an official population of just short of 15,000 people according to the 2022 figures from the Municipality so it would be similar in size to towns like Cobh, in Co. Cork. There is one major difference though; you will not travel any distance here, day or night, without seeing a police car or a speed detection van.

They have a substantial presence and while they may have their critics in terms of efficiency, there is no arguing about their visibility. There are regular speed van checks in the area and the police are constantly out and about with their speed guns. They’re everywhere and that’s what a real police presence looks like.

A couple of days before my brother-in-law came here, he attended an event in the National Concert Hall in Dublin. The following day he had some time to kill so he went for a walk in the city centre. He was strolling around for a couple of hours and didn’t see one member of An Garda Siochana on the streets.

This is something regularly commented on by people living and working in the area. Shop keepers have related horrific stories of their daily interaction with shoplifters, drunks, thieves and troublemakers. Many natives and visitors have also complained of feeling unsafe in our capital city. So, it’s time to stop this ridiculous game of bluff by Harris, McEntee, Chambers and others.

Stop trying to placate us with sound bites and knee jerk responses to road fatalities. Additional pieces of legislation that make no sense and won’t be enforced aren’t fooling anyone.

If you really want to make a difference, take a leaf out of the Cypriots’s book and put boots on the ground. Try calling a spade a spade for a change instead of trying to persuade us it’s a pitchfork. You would earn far more respect from the general public if you told it as it is and maybe once you accept there is a problem, you might even start to fix it.

Jeremy Clarkson the former Top Gear presenter once claimed that everyone who bought a bicycle during the COVID-19 pandemic was an idiot. He criticised the government for installing infrastructure that helps people get around on bikes and said cycling was “anti-capitalism with handlebars.”

He also insulted the lycra clothing that cyclists wear, criticised how they behave on roads and suggested that most people cycling in major cities aren’t even going anywhere; they’re only out to annoy motorists.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be completely in the Clarkson camp, but I have to admit that cyclists often drive me nuts. It’s no fun crawling behind them when they’re driving three a breast on a secondary road enjoying a chat while I’m trying to get somewhere.

I drove down a one-way street recently and when I got to the bottom of it, I stopped at the stop line before merging into traffic. There was a cyclist coming from my right, so I stayed where I was to let him pass. He didn’t cross my path though. As he reached my car, he came up beside me and shot the wrong way up the one-way system against the flow of traffic. He didn’t indicate his intention to do so either.

He had a beard, so he wasn’t a child and while these guys regularly moan about the lack of respect shown to them by motorists, many of them believe there is one rule of the road for motorists and another rule for cyclists. They’re not all irresponsible but there is no shortage of bikers out there who don’t make much of an effort to champion their cause.

They regularly weave in and out of traffic, break red lights, cycle on footpaths and other pedestrian areas. They demand that drivers observe a car doors width when overtaking them for safety yet, they have no issue squeezing into tight spaces between cars to get ahead in slow city driving. Their safety concerns can be dispensed with when it suits them.

There is another issue too and that’s visibility of not just cyclists but all vulnerable road users including children. It’s not unusual to encounter cyclists dressed in dark clothing in fading light. Maybe these people don’t drive cars in which case it’s understandable they might have less appreciation of how vulnerable they really are.

Oncoming car headlights often put these unlit cyclists/pedestrians in a driver’s blind spot, making them difficult to see so I was delighted to see the Road Safety Authority issuing advice about vulnerable people wearing high-vis vests when they’re out and about.

They launched its ‘be seen, be safe’ campaign for pedestrians and cyclists to encourage them to wear high-visibility clothing. Makes total sense to me and you would imagine that anything that improves visibility and safety has to be welcomed, especially as we head into the winter. Not so.

High-vis vests worn by cyclists don’t have any impact on the behaviour of motorists according to one Galway City Councillor who called for the notion that hi-vis clothes will keep children safe on roads to be challenged.

He said putting the onus for road safety on young children is ‘misguided’. “I suppose I’d just like to challenge the narrative that high-vis vests save people’s lives,” he said. “The RSA have published a lot of research looking at the efficacy of high-vis vests, I don’t think a lot of it adds up.”

“There’s a lot of research out there that shows that high-vis vests make people more visible, absolutely I’m not going to dispute that. My big concern is that I don’t see how high-vis vests have any impact on the behaviour of motorists. In particular the campaign about dressing five and six-year-olds up like construction workers and putting the onus on them to be responsible for their own safety I think is misguided.”

The RSA responded saying there is no shortage of research to prove that hi-vis clothing is effective and cited several research papers to show that high visibility clothing improved motorists’ ability to see vulnerable road users.

That the RSA should find it necessary to defend this initiative in the first place is baffling. Why would you even need research to demonstrate that it’s easier to see someone in the dark if they’re wearing bright luminous clothing than if they’re dressed all in black? It’s ludicrous but there are others out there too with strange opinions on road safety.

An Garda Siochana tweeted recently on ‘X’, which most of us still call Twitter, and the tweet was accompanied by a photo of a garda in a classroom talking to primary school children. It said “It’s crucial that we spread the road safety message among children from the very first opportunity. Garda Michelle Doherty called in to see them all in Kincora Kids, Killaloe Co. Clare and brought along some high-vis vests for wearing while out on the road.”

One particular reader was incensed and Tweeted; “Stop telling children it’s their job to not get killed by drivers. In 2017/18, 26,000 motorists were caught using a phone at the wheel while driving. You should focus on that.”

Seems to me it’s possible to do both. There are many aspects relating to road safety that need to be addressed and visibility is just one of those.

In my time as a member of An Garda Siochana, there was a structured school’s programme delivered to third class pupils in primary schools over the course of the school year. It covered many topics, and I would be surprised if the subject of wearing hi-vis clothing was delivered in isolation by the garda in Clare.

So, let’s have less of this attention seeking nonsense and support the initiatives that are designed to make everyone a little safer on the road.

Flying isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Many people have a fear of being sealed in a tin can flying at thirty thousand feet at speeds of several hundred miles per hour. That’s completely understandable and even if they conquer their fear of flying, there are other hazards to contend with.

The changing air pressure and oxygen levels in an aeroplane at altitude can do things to the body that won’t agree with everyone. Ringing in the ears, dehydration, jet lag, and motion sickness are common issues. Being in a confined space with others can expose you to germs from those around you who might be under the weather.

A greater risk comes from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from sitting in the one place for too long. It’s described by the HSE as a blood clot in a vein, usually the leg but can occur in the veins of the calf, thigh or pelvis and can be dangerous. They can break loose, travel through your bloodstream and get stuck in your lungs.

These things are largely preventable though. Wearing a face mask and using hand sanitiser will help to protect against germs. Drinking water will prevent dehydration while simply sucking on a sweet can often sort the problem with the ringing ears. Wearing flight socks and keeping the legs moving helps to combat DVT. So, not huge issues after all.

In fact, there is nothing to fear about flying according to the experts who tell us it is still one of the safest modes of transport. According to simpleflying.com, every year, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) releases its global safety report. Its findings showed that, in 2022, the aviation industry saw a 9.8% decrease in accidents compared to 2020.

Interestingly, these numbers have fallen despite an 11% increase in total scheduled flights. The ICAO attributes the improvements in safety to the safety commitments shared across the industry. In fact, the trend across many years of aviation is that, today, it is safer than ever to fly.

There are numerous ingredients that go together to make air travel the safe environment it is now. Flight crew, air traffic controllers and dispatchers all work together to ensure a safe flight so you can be confident you’re flying with highly trained, certified individuals.

That’s good to know and very reassuring, but how safe are we in the airport itself before we even board the plane? Travelling by air isn’t without its difficulties and passengers can often find themselves hanging around departure areas for longer than they anticipated. Flights can be delayed for a variety of reasons so it’s not unusual to have large numbers congregating in these spaces.

I found myself wondering recently about how well airports are prepared for the evacuation of passengers from the terminal building in the event of a catastrophic event. An event that would necessitate their speedy and safe removal from the area. I have a reason for asking this.

I was originally meant to travel to Cyprus on 2nd September but cancelled the flights after my wife broke her collarbone. As soon as she improved, I rebooked for September 27^th. Unfortunately for me, that was the same date Storm Agnes decided to visit.

I arrived in Cork Airport in plenty of time for my 4.50pm Ryanair flight to London Gatwick and I was delighted to see that the flight was still on schedule. The storm was petering out by then, so it all looked very promising, and we were called for boarding on time. I boarded the plane, put my knapsack in the overhead locker and took my seat. Happy days.

However, just as I was searching for the buckle of my seat belt, the captain made an announcement. He told us he had some bad news. Unfortunately, this plane would not now be going to London after all, so we were asked to disembark. There was no explanation given. Bummer.

We were all herded back the way we came to the departure lounge, but we couldn’t access the terminal building. Passengers who arrived at the building first were coming back down the stairs as the rest of us were trying to go up because there was no way out up there. Confusion reigned and the poor lady with the high vis jacket and the walkie talkie didn’t seem to be any wiser than the rest of us.

Eventually we were guided through a different route, back to the departure gate. A large queue of passengers had formed where we had been earlier, and they were preparing to board our flight. We watched jealously as they took our plane and our seats and headed for Lanzarote.

In the meantime, more flights were being cancelled and delayed. Some passengers were collected by bus and transferred to Shannon, some gave up and went home and others held tough hoping for better news. There was a lot of confusion and there didn’t seem to be any figure of authority to provide accurate information.

My flight was delayed a few more times and it got to the stage where I was going to miss my connecting flight in Gatwick, so I threw in the towel and called my son to come and collect me. To get out of the airport, a few of us went back through duty free and returned to the security area, but the security personnel weren’t too sure what to do with us.

They eventually allowed us out but now we were in the lanes outside security, walking against the passengers heading in the opposite direction. It was far from ideal. Progress was slow and that got me wondering how a large volume of passengers would be evacuated from that part of the terminal if the need arose? Hopefully there’s a plan.

As I sat at my laptop on Sunday morning 24^th September 2023, I received a message from Blarney that an old colleague of mine had passed away. John Finnerty, originally from Mayo, was retired from An Garda Siochana for almost forty years and had reached the ripe old age of ninety-one. His death wasn’t unexpected, but it was still a jolt to the system.

I had four years’ service in An Garda Siochana when I was transferred from Blackrock in Dublin to Blarney Garda Station in Cork in 1983. It seems like a lifetime ago now, but I still remember how strange it felt arriving in the village for the first time having grown used to the hectic life in the capital city. It required a re-set, and I was still very green.

John was one of the first guys I got to work with. He was close to retirement age by then, so we only served together for a couple of years, but I learned a lot from him in that short period of time.

I had heard he wasn’t too well recently, so I went to see him at his home in Blarney. It was a house I was very familiar with once upon a time because himself and his wife Margaret fed me on many occasions. There was always tea on the go.

I hadn’t seen him for a few years, so it was great to catch up with him again. Both of them looked the same as they did all those years ago. Margaret was as glamorous as ever and John was still a fine figure of a man with a full head of hair. It may have been a little greyer but there was plenty of it there.

When I first met him, I knew immediately this guy was the real deal. If you wanted to learn how to police a small community, you couldn’t find a better tutor than John. He was an absolute gentleman, and he had a great way with people. He was as cool as a breeze with an abundance of common sense and experience.

He had plenty of ability too and would have made a fine officer if he had been interested in promotion, but John was a family man and wanted to stay close to home. Forty years later, as I sat beside him at the kitchen table it brought me back to our days sharing a patrol car when we spent many hours side by side. We just needed the uniforms to complete the scene.

We remembered some old colleagues no longer with us and recalled some funny stories. We had fun back then and talking to John, I was reminded how much An Garda Siochana has changed. Policing in those days was much simpler, and I think more enjoyable too, but it was a strange world when it came to administration in local stations. An Garda Siochana had a ferocious appetite for paper.

It was a paper-based system because there were no computers, so when a garda received a complaint from a member of the public or investigated an incident he sent a written report to the sergeant. The sergeant recorded the report and then either returned it to the garda for further attention or sent it up the line to the superintendent. The superintendent then sent it further up the chain of command or back to the sergeant.

With every garda in the Force constantly sending in written reports, there was always a huge volume of paperwork flying about the place. The handwriting wasn’t always the best either so reading some of those took a mixture of detective work and guesswork and it wasn’t unusual for some reports to pass through several hands to be deciphered.

There were many records to be maintained too and there was a register for everything. They were all hard covered books that took up a lot of space. They recorded details of stolen cars, passport applications, traffic accidents, gun-licences and much more.

Young people would be surprised to learn that before mobiles, all phone calls coming into and going out of the station had to be recorded in a register. All personal calls were recorded separately and had to be paid for at the end of the month.

Everyone complained about paperwork back then and it remains one of the major bug bears in the organisation today. Members are still unhappy about the amount of time they are tied to their desks dealing with administration and with the technology available now you would imagine that should be less of a burden, but not so.

Rank and file members complain of being stifled with bureaucracy and oversight and remain opposed to the introduction of the four-shift system. In the meantime, the public are unhappy with the lack of garda visibility and the increasing violence on the streets, so something is amiss.

The commissioner and Minister McEntee deny there is a crisis in the organisation but the recent vote of no confidence in the commissioner has shown a major disconnect between Drew Harris and his frontline officers particularly in relation to the proposal to return to a pre-pandemic roster.

The old three shift system worked fine for eighty years and since they started fiddling with it in the late noughties there has been nothing but problems. Community policing units were depleted to make up the numbers required to support the extra shift and now they are facing even further depletion and I fear it is the end of an era for community engagement.

The death of John Finnerty is a sad loss for his family, friends and all who knew him. The demise of his style of policing is a loss that will be felt by a far larger group. 

I’ve come to the conclusion after sixty-five years on this planet, that life is not supposed to be enjoyed. We all have to deal with the ups and downs of daily living, and some get more than their fair share of bad luck but perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe we’re meant to be miserable.

Take eating for example. Treating ourselves to a nice meal when we feel down can sometimes help lift the spirits and it should be a pleasant experience but even choosing from the menu now is stressful and could give you a guilt complex.

When I was young, you could eat what you liked without worrying about the consequences. Now it seems if you choose anything more than a piece of lettuce, you could be placing your life in danger. Experts tell us almost everything else will either raise your cholesterol level, give you heart disease, induce diabetes or just make you fat.

If you want to wash down the leaves with something, better stick to water. Not from the tap though, too risky. Stay away from beer too because the pints are full of calories and will give you a big belly. Avoid wine because that contains too much sugar and rots your teeth and stay clear of coffee because that contains caffeine which can affect the nervous system and make you twitch. It can keep you awake too.

On the other hand, that might be OK because too much sleep can be a bad thing. Between seven and nine hours is considered normal and anything more than that, according to WebMD, can make your brain feel foggy. It could also result in headaches, body pain, fatigue, memory loss and weight gain.

Sleeping too little isn’t great either and could be a sign of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or metabolic problems such as cognitive issues including difficulty with memory. That’s bad news for me. I make do with six hours so maybe I should be worried but worrying is stressful and that’s also bad.

We’re told to exercise regularly. It’s good for the body and the mind they say but that’s not without drawbacks either. Playing a game of tennis, golf, snooker or even visiting an art gallery these days could get you covered in yellow paint from protestors trying to ban oil production. Even getting there might be difficult while these characters keep letting the air out of the tyres of our SUVs.

I drive one of those because I have a dodgy back and I prefer to sit up into it as opposed to getting into low seats and I would advise any would be protestor contemplating an assault on my wheels to think again.

I do exercise though. I had back surgery last February and as part of my recovery I was advised to go swimming three times a week for thirty miniute sessions. That sounded OK. to me. I swim a lot when I’m away and I enjoy it, so it was no big deal.

There is a 25-metre pool in Cobh that opens at 6.30am three mornings a week and it suits me to head up there early. I started in April when the weather wasn’t the best so getting out of bed at 6.30am wasn’t easy but once I was in the car and on my way, I was fine.

I was a little self-conscious making my debut because I wasn’t very mobile. I didn’t want to appear as if I needed medical intervention, but I needn’t have worried. I was among similarly afflicted souls with various body parts in need of repair. We wouldn’t look out of place in Lourdes.

I didn’t know it at the time, but a swimming pool is the place to go if you want to surround yourself with the walking wounded and swimming is good exercise for many ailments apparently. At least that’s what I was told and then I made the mistake of reading up about it.

According to Livestrong.com, the pool season isn’t complete without the scent of disinfectant. Chlorine is added to pools to kill germs and that’s essential because there’s a lot of stuff that can come off and out of the human body in a pool. A strong scent of chlorine probably isn’t from the chlorine itself but from chloramine, which is a reaction between chlorine and amines.

If you didn’t already know, amines are compounds that can occur in sweat, urine and stool. This reaction kills bacteria and causes that ‘chlorine’ smell. I didn’t need to know that and from now on I won’t be able to get in there without looking for floating bits.

On the other hand, chlorine kills off bacteria like salmonella and E. coli, parasites like giardia and viruses that cause diarrhoea and swimmer’s ear so that’s good but too much of it can cause stinging and irritation of the eyes. Other symptoms to look out for include nasal irritation, coughing and wheezing.

It’s not all bad news though and according to medicalnewstoday.com swimming can help a person to manage or lose weight, build strength, and improve breathing control. The benefits of swimming can also extend to mental health and better overall health and fitness so there are some plusses.

Walking is another form of exercise that I thought was good for the health but according to Anil Ramsey, an expert in back and muscular health, physical dangers from walking every day include foot and leg problems such as plantar fasciitis, which is when inflammation in the heel and the arch of your foot causes pain. The bigger risk is long term he says.

So, there you have it. If you’re sore or miserable, don’t worry about it, it’s normal. That’s how life is supposed to be.