Reply to: Irish government of the brink

[Old Greg]

2 Independents agree to support the Finance Bill so they muddle through until the end of the week.

[Old Greg]

Terry Wogan was there in his Ireland program on Sunday evening. He was in a pub where they were singing old songs, perhaps rebel songs, saying it all turns 'a bit maudlin' late in the evening, and at one stage he looked genuinely scared.

Sounds like KK McCool's in Tottenham.

[Mich the Tester]

I have had the pleasure of visiting Stab City.

Terry Wogan was there in his Ireland program on Sunday evening. He was in a pub where they were singing old songs, perhaps rebel songs, saying it all turns 'a bit maudlin' late in the evening, and at one stage he looked genuinely scared.

[Old Greg]

As for Limerick, it's a lawless sh!thole.

I have had the pleasure of visiting Stab City.

[Mich the Tester]

No, because (as you said) companies like Dell will move to Eastern Europe.

Yep, but they´re the companies that make lots of stuff, pile it high and sell it cheap. They need to move to much more specialised smaller scale precision manufacturing where they´ll be competing with Switzerland, Germany and Italy instead of trying to beat the Elbonians at plenty cheapness. They've got the skills to do it.

[Churchill]

Irish manufacturing (and agriculture) is big, particularly electronics, pharmaceuticals, optics. There have been some sad departures recently, such as Dell from Limerick.

Amazing what EU grants will buy you...

As for Limerick, it's a lawless sh!thole.

HUMAN life hasn’t just been cheapened in Limerick, it has lost all value. And, most chillingly of all, there are children in this environment who don’t know – and will never know – that it ever had any worth.

If a human being happens to get in the way of the plans of one of the feuding families that controls the city’s lucrative drugs trade, Shakespeare’s reflections on the quality of mercy won’t feature in their thoughts.

In the face of such extreme lawlessness, mediation was last week proposed as a possible solution. Maybe the solicitor John Devane was genuine in his belief that mediation between these feuding families was the best way forward for Limerick, but listening to him speak on the compellingly awful Liveline show last Tuesday (sadly, I missed him on Morning Ireland), I wasn’t convinced. Less convincing, and more infuriating, however, was the priest who was on the show making a similar offer. His name was Fr Terry O’Connell, and his credentials as a potential ace mediator seemed to be based on the fact that he had done ‘extensive research on the players’ in this dispute and he had spent 18 years going in and out of Limerick prison.

He and the late Michael Kelly (a former alderman in Limerick city, who was shot in his mother’s house two years ago and who had ‘gone straight’ in his later years having spent a large portion of his life as a criminal himself) had previously ‘brokered a deal’ between the warring families in the past, he claimed, but it didn’t succeed because the guards didn’t recognise it. What exactly this was supposed to mean wasn’t clear. Did the Gardaí refuse to give the families impunity from prosecution for past murders if they promised not to kill any more members of each other’s families in the future?

Having literally sniggered several times at the guards’ efforts to deal with the situation, and having opined that they ‘misunderstood’ it and that they were incapable of being discreet in their policing of the afflicted areas in Limerick (he could ‘smell them’ even when they were dressed in plain clothes, he said, prompting the thought in my head that maybe he was in the wrong profession himself), Fr O’Connell finally outdid himself in terms of put-downs when he called the Gardaí ‘brain-dead’. Joe Duffy wasn’t inclined to challenge him, but a few subsequent callers to the show did, remarking that they were incensed and incandescent with rage at what the priest was saying. They got a loud cheer from the single occupant of my car.

Thankfully, the Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, ruled out the possibility of mediation being used as a way of resolving the situation in Limerick, on the grounds that it would give some kind of ‘legitimacy’ to the murderers involved. It would also give further oxygen to the likes of Fr Terry O’Connell and John Devane, a fate we are all blessed to have been spared.

What is happening in Limerick is not a schoolyard squabble or a dispute between stubborn neighbours. It is a vicious cycle of murder into which more and more people are being drawn – and it requires measures that reflect the seriousness of the situation.

The Gardaí there are neither brain-dead nor lacking in understanding; they are hamstrung by the normal laws of the land that were not written with people like the Collopy/Keanes and the McCarthy/Dundons in mind. The Minister faces a difficult task in choosing how to deal with this unparalleled problem. He must ensure that, legally, these criminals can be dealt with as effectively as possible, while at the same time not making a special case out of Limerick and not setting an overly-heavy-handed policing precedent.

Whatever course he chooses, there is no doubt that the legal route is the best one. Mediation works effectively in many instances, as does appealing to the decency of people, but when children as young as 12 are being groomed as thugs and killers, the point where dialogue and diplomacy hold any currency has long since been passed.

[Old Greg]

So actually, if they just stick at producing high quality goods, both high-tech and low-tech, they'll be alright in the long run.

No, because (as you said) companies like Dell will move to Eastern Europe.

[Mich the Tester]

Irish manufacturing (and agriculture) is big, particularly electronics, pharmaceuticals, optics. There have been some sad departures recently, such as Dell from Limerick.

So actually, if they just stick at producing high quality goods, both high-tech and low-tech, they'll be alright in the long run.

[Old Greg]

Oi tink the Oirish made the same mistake as the Brits in thinking that you can carry on making loads of money out of financial services without actually getting mucky fingers from making stuff. Look at anything Irish you might want to buy, except for food products. Waterford crystal had the genius idea of outsourcing production to Elbonia or some other Eastern European country. Magee tweed have moved production of clothing to Asia and only source some of the tweed in Ireland, but do the clean fingered design work in Ireland. I'm sure there are other examples of premium brand products being devalued this way; you can't keep charging top dollar for this stuff if it isn't made by craftspeople in the place it's meant to come from. You could sell Donegal tweed for twice the price and the demand would probably rise, like a Bevlen good, bringing in more revenues. Likewise Waterford crystal. But it only works if you can keep the story alive of skilled, perfectionist craftspeople working away at it. Some brainboxes with MBAs got all greedy and destroyed what were fine manufacturing industries. Small scale, but high margins is the way to go; Europe can't compete by doing things on the cheap.

They've still got the world's best oysters in Galway though.

Irish manufacturing (and agriculture) is big, particularly electronics, pharmaceuticals, optics. There have been some sad departures recently, such as Dell from Limerick.

[Mich the Tester]

Oi tink the Oirish made the same mistake as the Brits in thinking that you can carry on making loads of money out of financial services without actually getting mucky fingers from making stuff. Look at anything Irish you might want to buy, except for food products. Waterford crystal had the genius idea of outsourcing production to Elbonia or some other Eastern European country. Magee tweed have moved production of clothing to Asia and only source some of the tweed in Ireland, but do the clean fingered design work in Ireland. I'm sure there are other examples of premium brand products being devalued this way; you can't keep charging top dollar for this stuff if it isn't made by craftspeople in the place it's meant to come from. You could sell Donegal tweed for twice the price and the demand would probably rise, like a Bevlen good, bringing in more revenues. Likewise Waterford crystal. But it only works if you can keep the story alive of skilled, perfectionist craftspeople working away at it. Some brainboxes with MBAs got all greedy and destroyed what were fine manufacturing industries. Small scale, but high margins is the way to go; Europe can't compete by doing things on the cheap.

They've still got the world's best oysters in Galway though.

[Old Greg]

I think I'd prefer anyone else over Adams.

I'd choose Adams over Cowen.

[Paddy]

Join the Euro, rely on the strength of the currency to borrow money and gamble it on the stock market. F’up the country for the next 30 years. They should hang the politicians .

[The_Equalizer]

I prefer Joe Higgins MEP myself.

I think I'd prefer anyone else over Adams.

[Old Greg]

I think you'll find that Gerry Adams said pretty much that yesterday. Go Shinners!

I prefer Joe Higgins MEP myself.

[The_Equalizer]

Renege on all national debt.
Renege on all nationalised bank debt.
Pursue property developers' wealth, including retrospective legislation and international arrest warrants for those who've disposed of assets to the missus.
Disband and hold an election.

I think you'll find that is what Gerry Adams pretty much said yesterday. Go Shinners!