Political Animal sighted in Dublin City Centre
The Bert is back. He was spotted this afternoon glad-handing his way around the shopping districts near O’Connell Street. The spin was back.
His choice of words, as ever, may have let him down slightly….
“I’m delighted with the excellent reaction I’m getting on the streets,†he told the media scrum, “despite the fact that we’re standing on the people.â€
Stamping on them might be more accurate. And things aren’t all rosy…
Pre-Christian equivalent of ‘Bertie Bowl’ to be bulldozed? Surely not?
BreakingNews.ie has the story that the significant Henge structure that may or may not have been uncovered by Minister Martin Cullen earlier this week (the timeline is so hard to figure out) but is apparently the size of 3 football fields (soccer, gaelic, or American we are not told) is at risk of being bulldozed out of existence on the orders of Minister Zapp Brannigan Dick Roche.
The Minister’s spokesperson, (who we’ll call Kif Kroker because we can), has stated that the Minister is in consultation with the National Museum’s director on the matter. Breaking News helpfully points out for us that
The Irish National Monuments Act allows for the partial or complete destruction of national monuments, or finds of significant importance, by the Government if it is deemed to be in the public interest.
The National Museum director is consulted but has no veto over any Government decision
Which effectively means that Kif has told us that Captain Brannigan is having a chat with someone whose opinion he doesn’t have to listen to in order to potentially just put a tick in the box on a process to destroy a find of significant importance. Sweet. That’ all good then right.
The issue has been put in an ethical context by Conor Newman, Professor of Archaeology in NUI Galway.
“The campaign to preserve this site has become a legal battle when in fact it should be an ethical one, whether we value our heritage or not,†he said.
So that’s OK then. The party lead by the man who won’t explain why his partner was paid stamp duty relating to the house he was renting will have no problem grasping the ethical implications here.
RTE also mention this while repeating last night’s news that Zapp Dick Roche had ordered work stopped.
I’m relieved. I thought it would be case of our heritage going from being covered in woad to being coverd by a road.
Nurses – you gotta love ’em
And the nurses have announced a series of work stoppages next week.
At this rate the only thing that will be cluttering up corridors in hospitals will be patients.
GardaÃ
And the Gardaà – specifically the main Representative Association for rank & file gardaà have come out with support for the nurses.
They haven’t actually hinted at or mentioned feeling bunged up in the nose and being a bit scratchy in the throat like they had a flu coming on or something *cough cough*, particularly if the nurses got their way and had their demands met.
But that hasn’t prevented Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice and PD Leader, endorsing their health and fortitude by saying there would be no ‘blue flu’. On the issue of Garda pay, he has said that he will not stand for that kind of thing and he was “not for turning” (unlike sods of earth in Meath that hide massive henge structures). He also said that
An Garda SÃochána was one of the best remunerated police forces in the world, and that any pay issues would have to be dealt with through benchmarking.
(source RTE News)