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In the Dáil
a box would have done it Yer
man extends the hand of sympathy across
the continent to Silvio Berlusconi, Europe’s
most cosmetically dynamic and artfully-
coiffed premier on the occasion of the
breaking of his expensive nose by a statuette
in Milan. At least he can always buy a
new one. Our fine-boned, budget-cutting
ministers are said to be strengthening their
security details and avoiding the vicinity of
Irish Gift shops. Come to think of it most
of them look as though they’ve already had
their noses broken.
bertie: wrong man for sport
tears It was bad enough that Ireland’s
exit from Paris sparked memories of the
bad old days of the s when Paddy
routinely ended up sitting on his arse
swearing at some referee on some jinxed
foreign shore after some dodgy referee has
robbed another world cup out of our grasp.
Inevitably, the mood deteriorated even
further when Bertie, the sports columnist,
got into the act. Still at least we did laugh
when the adjunct professor noted that after
the match he had wandered around on his
own with, “so many emotions going on. I
was angry, sad, fed up and felt cheated”.
Outside of noting that the Bert certainly
hasn’t lost the complex emotional range
or the hard old neck we can console the
former Taoiseach with the certain fact
that he is not alone. These days every time
your image flashes up, Bertie, there are five
million cheated Irish people who experience
precisely the same emotions.
auditing the budget The news
that the price of a pint of porter would
be reduced by twelve cents did raise one
dusty cheer during the budget. Sadly, even
this did not erase the current high levels
of cynicism within the house which was
epitomised by the comment of one cruel
soul that this would be thoroughly “audited
by certain members of this cabinet”.
just where we/they want
them/us Few people would be clever
enough to summarise the entire NAMA
debacle in a sentence. The feisty Kathleen
Lynch came pretty close, however, when
after yet another debacle she cheered
our stumblebum of a Taoiseach on with a
chuckle of, “Good man Brian we have the
banks just where they want us now”.
garret gets it wrong Interesting
to see Garret Fitzgerald’s clarion call not
to reduce social welfare in Ireland as: “It
is hard to see how, in what I have recently
shown to be the most under-taxed country
in the developed world, the Government
can justify taking € million from social
welfare recipients”. The most recent data
on the size of the Irish tax burden are from
Eurostat () - and that’s before our recent
budget! The definition of taxation employed
by Eurostat incorporates all compulsory
payments to central government (direct
and indirect) alongside social security
contributions (employee and employer)
and the tax receipts of local authorities.
Of the EU- states, the highest tax revenue
to national income ratios can be found in
Scandinavia and France nd the lowest in
Eastern Europe. Overall, Ireland had the
seventh lowest tax burden at . per cent,
some . per cent below the EU average.
He knows Sir Garret has been around a long
time but wonders how recent is recent.
aosdána risks blow-out Yer man
was fascinated to see broadcaster Theo
Dorgan - former director of Poetry Ireland,
comparing the catholic church to Soviet
Russia: “The essential tension at the heart
of the Soviet state was between communism
as a moral and social proposition, on the
one hand, and the apparatus of power on
the other hand. When this tension, this
contradiction, became unbearable, in a
number of senses, the whole thing blew
apart”. Dorgan is a member not just tof he
Arts Council but also of our own cultural
politbureau, Aosdána, so he should know a
little about the Soviet way of dealing with
things. Could a similar contradiction ever
blow our self-elected artistic élite apart?
‘abby where it is So Martin Cullen
thinks moving the Abbey to O’Connell St will
be at half the cost of the move to George’s
Dock initially so heartily-promoted by
Ireland’s cultural altruist-in-chief, and last
standing Haugheyite, Dermot Desmond.
Why not save nearly %? How about
leaving it on Abbey St whose name it bears
and which has the advantage of being where
its illustrious history evolved? It’s not as if
that part of town is so coming down with
cultural institutions that it can afford to
lose a world-class one. A bit (actually a fair
bit) of refacing, a rejigging of some props,
a few licks of paint and the nearby posher
Gate will be green with envy. It also has the
advantage of avoiding any possible symbolic
linking of culture with er warfare.
stop-go-garty. For your man it was
the first time he can remember actually
understanding what Paul Gogarty was
saying.
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phOTOs: geTTy iMages
