Thankfully.

No excuse, pols. We can't keep going to the courts every time a situation like this comes up. We have had several referenda on the subject of abortion.

Legislate, and be done with it.

I was 17 when the abortion referendum was passed in 1983. Obviously, I didn't have a vote, but I still vehemently opposed the amendment to the Constitution.

Today, another 17-year-old is having to live with the nonsense of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Miss D, who was herself born six years after its passing, is being prevented from leaving the State in order to procure a termination of pregnancy. The foetus she is carrying has a condition that means it will die as soon as it is born.

The Attorney General has appointed counsel to represent the interests of the foetus in this case. James Connolly SC told the High Court yesterday that even though the foetus had no chance of survival upon birth, it was still entitled to whatever lifespan it would experience once born.

To put this unfortunate young woman through such a situation is utterly monstrous. Hopefully the High Court will come down on the side of common sense tomorrow and allow her to go for an abortion.

And also hopefully (but probably less likely), the new government will get off their arses and introduce legislation to sort the abortion issue out for once and for all. If not, eventually we will run out of letters of the alphabet to identify unfortunate teenagers with untenable pregnancies.

What sort of libel laws do we have where Monica Leech can be awarded €250k in her case against RTE?

If an RTE reporter stood outside the Department of Transport and made the allegation in question live on the 9 o'clock news, the it might be justified. But what happened was that a caller to Joe Duffy's Liveline made a lewd remark regarding Ms Leech and Minister Martin Cullen. The caller was cut off straight away, and Duffy and RTE distanced themselves from the comment immediately.

Were RTE at fault? Maybe, for not screening the callers. But as the person who made the allegation had no connection with RTE, then surely this award is excessive.

A few thousand at most would have been more appropriate.

File under "Whodathunkit"



When we look back at the news archives of late 1998, barely six months after the Belfast Agreement was signed, it's hard to believe that one day you would see the cast above feature in such a sit-ye-ay-shin. Up till recently, I would have doubted the success of such a venture, but as we hear the conciliatory noises coming from both sides, it is easier to imagine a more hopeful future.

Good luck to all who sail in her, I say.

I was down Wicklow way earlier today, and spotted several more pre-election posters. The common theme running through all of them was that the candidates/TDs were "working for Wicklow." This goes back to the old maxim about all politics being local, but it also goes to the heart of the Irish electoral system.

When we elect TDs to the Dáil, we are supposedly electing legislators who will act in the overall interest of the country (well, that's the theory anyway.) But of course that is not the practice. Politicians usually find their way to Kildare Street having been chosen by their local electorate on the basis of their positions on local issues, like schools, hospitals, etc. In some cases, a politician may feel obliged to put the interests of their local constituents over those of the country as a whole, even if they think privately that the national interest is more important.

Take for example two adjacent towns, in neighbouring constituencies, both of which have hospitals. The HSE may decide that all acute care be located in one hospital in order to allocate resources more efficiently. You can be damn sure that the constituency in which the hospital that "lost out" will not be happy about this, and will rely on their TDs to articulate that displeasure. Now even if those TDs took a dispassionate look at the situation and concluded that the decision taken was the correct one in the national interest, they might think twice about voicing that opinion. There might be an independent "hospital candidate" waiting in the long grass in the constituency, and the risk of losing their seat will help them make up their mind as to where they should stand on the issue.

This is why we have never been able to sort out such pressing issues as waste management and self-sufficiency in energy. Can you imagine any one of our current crop of TDs voting to have an incinerator or a nuclear power plant sited in their own constituency? We can't even debate these issues properly, because the local vested interests and the NIMBYs are the ones with the loudest voices.

So what can we do? Nothing really, short of a radical overhaul of how we elect our government. Until then we will always be at risk of having the national agenda scuppered by local politics.

I've been doing a fair bit of travelling of late, and even though the election has yet to be called, there are political posters everywhere. Rather than the usual mugshot attached to a lamp-post, these are proper 48-sheet billboard ads.

I'd imagine this is because the parties and individual candiates expected that the election would have been called by now and booked the spaces in advance. Still, it makes me shudder at what is to come, when every lamp-post and ESB pole will be festooned with election posters. I hate the bloody things. And they will be going up just as we enter the tourist season.

Go here, now

The deal at Stormont was done. The photo that was carried all round the world said it all - Paisley and Adams, formerly implacable enemies, were making peace.

Yesterday, The Irish Times carried the expanded view of that photo. To Paisley's right were his two main lieutenants, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds, both of whom will be ministers in the new Executive. But who was alongside Adams? Martin McGuinness was there, naturally enough, as he is to be the Deputy First Minister. Gerry Kelly? Mitchel McLoughlin? Bairbre de Brun?

Nope. Mary Lou McDonald, that's who. And not only that, but she was next to Adams. But she is not an MLA and will take no part in the Executive. The elected office she holds is MEP for Dublin.

Now Sinn Féin will say that her being there is right and proper, as McDonald is Chairperson of the party. And that it is a 32 county party, etc. But of course this is all bullshit. The reason she is in the photo is because she is standing for Sinn Féin in Dublin Central in the forthcoming general election, and Sinn Féin want to maximise her media profile. They did the same in the run up to the European elections in 2004. Whenever Gerry Adams was making a statement to the media, Mary Lou was by his side. Once she got elected, you didn't see her so much anymore. But now, she's their great hope for picking up a seat in Dublin, and so the old tricks are coming out again.

You'd think that last Monday, being the historic day that it was, that they might put the cynical electioneering stunts to one side. But you'd be forgetting that this is Sinn Féin, the party with the sharpest political radar in Ireland.

Well, it all went quite well in the end. Ian said some nice things, Gerry said some nice things in Irish, and everyone toddles off for six weeks. But this six weeks thing puzzles me. Why not now? I mean, it's not like the DUP and Sinn Féin don't know one another's positions by now, given that they have been dancing around one another for the last four years or so.

This is a big gamble for both parties. For Paisley, he is doing what he said he would never do - go into government with Sinn Féin. He has clambered onto the high ground of unionism over the last four years, digging his hob-nailed boots into the backs of the Ulster Unionists on the way, by saying he would never countenance power sharing with Sinn Féin. Yet here he was today, sitting alongside Gerry Adams in Stormont. I know that many unionists are resigned to seeing this happen someday, but it will be interesting to see how the grassroots reaction unfolds now that it is - almost - reality.

For Adams, there is the risk that it might all unravel in the six weeks between now and 8 May. Will Paisley or one of his lieutenants try to introduce a new obstacle to the process, in order to raise the bar further for Sinn Féin? I'm sure that there are some in the DUP who would have been confident in the assumption that Sinn Féin would never either decommission their weapons or support the police. But both have happened, and so now the DUP have nothing left with which to stall the momentum. There's many a twist twixt cup and lip and all that…

And if it does get going, how long will it last?

Tomorrow marks the day where Northern Ireland will finally get executive it was promised almost nine years ago - or maybe not. The DUP have said that they aren't quite ready to go into power with Sinn Féin just yet and have asked for a further six weeks. What's six weeks when we have been waiting nine years, after all?

The DUP should be told on no uncertain terms that the deadline set for tomorrow is unchangeable. For too long the people of Northern Ireland have been promised "jam tomorrow" in respect of the devolution they voted to endorse back in 1998. The parties have played around, and deadlines have come and go, so it is only right that the gravy train should come to a halt.

It's time to piss or get off the pot. Devolved administration or direct rule. Make your minds up.

Whenever I'm in the car during "The Drivetime Slot" I tend to listen to The Last Word on Today FM more than most. A day rarely passes when The Last Word doesn't get someone from the Green Party on to offer us their predictable "Down With That Sort of Thing" analysis of any given subject, media whores that they are.

Today was no different, and Patricia McKenna was on to offer the party's line on the fluoridation of drinking water (predictably, this is a Very Bad Thing And Needs To Be Stopped.) I find the Greens pretty annoying and self-righteous at the best of times, but McKenna is particularly shrill. She came on and said her piece, explaining that fluoridation was the cause of several maladies and saying that parents were putting babies at risk by bottle-feeding them with formula made up with fluoridated water. Then Matt Cooper introduced another guest (who's name escapes me [Added 12 April: His name is Keith Redmond]), a dentist who also happens to be a PD election candidate.

This guest demolished McKenna's argument and left her floundering, and also accused her of advising parents not to have their children vaccinated or immunised. Cooper picked up on this, even though it was off-topic, and invited McKenna to respond to the accusation. What followed was pure gold. McKenna trotted out the old line about the alleged link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Cooper himself (who would normally play a disinterested devil's advocate role in a debate like this) was on her like a ton of bricks and vehemently pointed out that this theory was bogus and had been utterly discredited. More flapping from McKenna, as she desperately tried to validate her points, but by then it was hopeless.

Trevor Sargeant, if he was listening, must have been banging his head off a table at this point.

Hopefully Today FM will put it up as a podcast, and if they do I'll link to it.

Update, 12 April: Justin Mason has links to the audio file, and a transcript of the relevant part of the interview here

The PDs' new poster campaign (as it should really appear):

The Sunday Tribune tells the tale today of one JJ Barrett, whose father won several Gaelic football medals with club and county back in the 1920s and '30s. The medals are on display in the GAA Museum at Croke Park, and Barrett has written to GAA Director-General Liam Mulvihill, asking for them to be returned to him before the Ireland-England Rugby match at Croke Park next Saturday. He is doing this in protest at the playing of God Save The Queen as the English national anthem before the match.

Barrett objects to the "arrogant, war-mongering" lyrics of GSTQ and wonders why the English couldn't have come up with a compromise anthem, as Ireland did with Ireland's Call.

It was probably inevitable that a crank like Barrett would emerge at some point. Even though the removal of Rule 42 was carried with relative ease, such was the depth of feeling among the "antis", that it was certain that nonsense like this would happen in the run up to the Ireland-England match. There are some who see the presence of the English rugby team in Croke Park as a betrayal of those that were killed on Bloody Sunday 1920. They just don't see that for everyone else, Ireland has moved on.

And in a wearily predictable fashion, that bunch of antediluvian wankers "Republican Sinn Féin" have announced that they too will be there to protest at the playing of God Save The Queen.

Fer Chrissakes, will you all just get over yourselves? We have moved on.

The saga surrounding Minister Tony Killeen is disturbing.

He says that the letters making representations on behalf of a convicted paedophile and a convicted murderer, sent from his constituency office, were sent without his consent. He claims he did not sign the letter.

I can believe that. Below is a letter I got the other day, forwarded from my old address in Dublin, from my erstwhile TD, one Mr Bertie Ahern TD. You can be damn sure that this letter didn't pass under the Taoiseachly nose for his approval and signature, even though it is signed in a matey, first-name manner.



Sending ersatz-signed letters to constituents about mundane matters like tenants' rights is one thing, but having them sent from your office, by your staff, making representations to the Department of Justice on behalf of persons convicted of serious crimes is another thing, whether you know about them or not.

On the RTE News tonight, it was suggested that Killeen's job as Minister for State for Labour Affairs is not under threat, because all TDs do this sort of thing. This is disgraceful, and it shows just how far the culture of the parish-pump is ingrained in our political life.

Tony Killeen should resign his ministerial office over this. If he doesn't he should be sacked. Ivor Callely was forced to resign for not disclosing that a builder he dealt with while he was chairman of the Eastern Health Board had painted his house gratis.

Unlikely, though.

The report concerning RUC collusion with loyalist terrorists by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, published this week, has brought the expected reactions from both sides of the sectarian divide. Nationalists are happy, and say that it vindicates everything they have been saying for years. Unionists are furious, casting doubt on the veracity and independence of the inquiry, and claiming that it vilifies the brave RUC officers who were at the frontline of the fight against terrorism down the years.

Almost daily in Northern Ireland, someone or other makes a call for a public inquiry into some murder or other atrocity of the Troubles. Whichever side makes the call, almost without fail, the other side starts the whataboutery and the atrocity trading. It makes you think what would be the point of any inquiry if the findings (and presumably the truth) were just going to be used to bash the other side over the head.

Take the Bloody Sunday Inquiry for example. I welcomed its setting up, as I believed that a new, credible investigation into the events of that day would go some way to bringing closure to one of Ireland's most tragic days of recent times. It was clear that the flawed Widgery Report was a running sore, and something had to be done to really get to the truth.

But what will happen when the report is finally published?

Let's say that Lord Saville finds that the soldiers acted within the law and their actions were justified. Nationalists will stamp their feet and call the independence of the inquiry into question. They will say that it is another example of how Irish people are hard done by when dealing with British justice. Unionists will say that the British Army has been vindicated and complain about the cost of the tribunal.

Alternatively, what would happen if Saville judges that the soldiers acted unlawfully, used lethal force inappropriately and planted evidence on the victims? Nationalists will say that justice has been done and an historic wrong has been righted. Unionists will complain about the political bias of the tribunal, and again complain about the cost when it was obvious from the start that the tribunal was only ever going to come to one conclusion as a sop to nationalists.

If Saville and his team try to plough a furrow down the middle, and say that the soldiers were sorta to blame, but the victims were also partly the authors of their own misfortune, their findings will be condemned as a fudge by both sides.

What will not happen is the "losing" side saying "OK, that's cleared that one up. Let's move on."

So that leaves the question: In a hopelessly divided society like Northern Ireland, where zero-sum-game politics reign supreme, is the truth worth pursuing at all?

This is a panel from last Friday's Doonesbury strip:



Does anyone know if this is true or just an urban myth?

Today marked the 300th anniversary of the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, when the Scottish and English parliaments were abolished to be replaced by a new parliament of Great Britain, sitting in Westminster. Some have celebrated this date, some have mourned it, and many more have asked if it is now time to revisit this relationship.

Firmly in the pro-Union camp is Gordon Brown, destined to be Britain's next Prime Minister, and MP for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy. Over the last couple of years, Brown has been keen to promote an homogenous Britishness, although some suggest that this might just be a ploy to make his premiership more palatable to Middle England.

Scottish (and Welsh) devolution have been a reality for some years now, with the Scottish parliament going about its business of making laws for Scotland. The problem is that Scotland also sends several MPs to Westminster, where they can vote on matters affecting England and Wales. Yet English and Welsh MPs have no corresponding jurisdiction over Scotland, because it has a substantial amount of power devolved to the Scottish parliament.

The fault for this mess lies squarely with the current Labour Government. Bowing to pressure from its own Scottish party, it rushed through devolution for Scotland in an attempt to stave off outright Scottish nationalism, and save the Union. Ironically, this ill-conceived approach may in fact hasten the demise of the Union, as more English voters question its value.

When Scottish devolution was granted, it should have been as part of an overall devolution plan for the entire UK, England included. However, at the time, the English didn't want their own parliament, as they regarded Westminster as fulfilling that role. And herein lies the problem. Westminster is now forced to perform two duties - parliament of the United Kingdom, and de facto devolved parliament of England.

If the devolution project is to work and the UK to stay intact, then England must be given its own parliament to make its own laws. Each devolved jurisdiction can then send MPs to Westminster (many fewer than the current 650 would be required) to look after the overall governance of the UK. If this doesn't happen, the whole thing could come asunder.

Is the Union Jack about to come asunder?


There was a poll about the relationship between Scotland and England/Wales on the BBC website today. Funnily enough, there was no mention about the other part of the UK, i.e. Northern Ireland. How on earth could they forget about such an integral part of the United Kingdom, I wonder?

BUPA's decision to pull out of the Irish market leaves the PDs, and Mary Harney in particular, with a lot of egg on their faces.

For a long time, the PDs have sold themselves as the champions of the free market, competition and deregulation. That a PD minister (and former leader of the party) could preside over the implementation of such an anti-competititve monstrosity as risk equalisation is a bad joke. That she should just shrug her shoulders when the main competitor to the VHI folds its tent and leaves, shreds her credibility completely.

So now we're back to a virtual VHI monopoly in the health insurance market. The third player in the market, Vivas, will probably pick up some of BUPA's ex-customers, but the likliheood is that most of them will go to the VHI. Like when Eircom pulled the plug on Smart Telecom, many of those who were left high and dry went back to the former state monopoly, just in case they got caught again. So it will be with those seeking a replacement for their BUPA cover.

This was badly handled from start to finish. Once the government accepted that the PHI market had to be opened up to competition, it should have prepared the VHI for privatisation. But what about all those elderly and infirm subscribers? Well, what the government could have done was to do an audit of the VHI on the day before BUPA opened its doors in Fermoy, and identified all those subscribers that would be seen as a burden on a privatised VHI. These could then have been put into a new, government-backed scheme, while the rest of the VHI could have been sent to market to seek its fortune as a private company, on an equal footing with its competitiors. If risk equalisation subsequently had to come in, then it could have been applied more fairly.

BUPA's decision to quit does not surprise me. I know someone who was doing some consultancy work for them when all of this was going on, and he told me that he had seen the books, and that BUPA simply could not afford to stay in a post-risk equalisation market. They weren't bluffing.

I reckon Mary Harney is a lousy poker player.

The PDs have launched a major poster campaign, in which they claim that by their doing, car insurance has fallen by 45%. They back up their claim by pointing to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, set up by Health Minister and former leader Mary Harney, and a more vague "streamlining" of court proceedings by Justice Minister and current leader Michael McDowell.

Fine. But insurance premiums ballooned earlier this decade not because of a sudden increase in "compo culture" or an unnaturally high number of road accidents. It was because the big insurance companies were losing a lot of money due to the softening equity markets, and also in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the USA in September 2001. Ireland had then (and continues to have) a highly uncompetitive insurance market, and so the insurance companies just charged what they wanted for essential products like motor, home, mortgage protection, public & employee liability, etc., and Joe Public had no choice but to pony up.

Since then, equities have come back and the big insurance companies have been able to make their profits at less expense to the average punter. Thus premiums have fallen.

What the government helped in a small way to return insurance premiums to their normal levels, but it is a bit rich of the PDs to claim all the credit for it. It should be remembered as well that the original ballooning of premiums happened under the FF/PD coalition too.

Today, I was out and about in the south-east, calling on some of my customers in Wexford and Waterford. As I had one call to do in Arthurstown and then go on to Waterford City, I decided to take the ferry from Ballyhack to Passage East. The alternative is to go back to New Ross and head into Waterford on the N25, a journey of 40-odd km, and a major pain in the hoop, as New Ross can get badly clogged up at this time on a Friday evening.

So ferry I did. There were only a few other vehicles on the vessel as we crossed over. When we arrived in Passage East, we were confronted by a phalanx of protesters, unhappy with the operation of the ferry. Their method was to prevent us from getting off the ferry by standing in our way. The driver in front of me just barged through them, and one protester fell to the ground in his attempt to stop him.

I got out of my car and asked what all of this was about. The reply shouted at me was "Ask FBD." FBD are the people who run the ferry service, and eventually I got the answer from one of the protesters. They want the ferry terminal sited away from the village in order to remove all the traffic.

That's fair enough. It's plain to see that Passage East and the roads around it get choked with traffic generated by the ferry, and there is merit in the argument that the point of embarkation and disembarkation should be moved away from the village. But boy, are they going about it the wrong way.

By blocking people getting on and off the ferry and going about their lawful business, they are just pissing people off. One protester held up a large banner with the words "Children are at risk" on it. Another protester was wheeling her young baby around in a pram. So whatever about children being at risk from the traffic, this child was at risk from being brought into a volatile situation.

They should be trying to get people on their side. Maybe they're taking their cue from this shower of loopers. They are, of course, entitled to protest, but their protest could be a lot more effective. They could get an information sheet printed up and hand it to drivers in the queue for the ferry. They could lobby politicians. They could nominate spokespeople to make their case to the media. The best way to make your case is to make it in a reasonable manner. I knew nothing of this protest or issue before I got on the ferry at Ballyhack. If I was made aware of it before I got on, I may have decided to go the other route. One protester suggested that it was the responsibility of the operators of the ferry to tell those intending to travel of the protest.

Eventually the Gardai came to the quayside and managed to get things moving. Sadly, this sort of nonsense will continue as long as the protesters continue to scream their objections rather than trying to make their case in a reasonable way.

There was a letter in the Irish Times today from a correspondent in Belfast, bemoaning that fact that the Republic of Ireland lacks an honours system, and so could not bestow a meaningful honour on her most famous artist, Louis le Brocquy, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

"If he were a British subject, he would probably by now have received a high honour of some sort."

[…]

"Why should the Irish Republic eschew a system of honours to recognise the acheivements of its citizens?"

Well, with the current "cash for honours" controversy in Britain, I'd reckon we're as well off without one. Indeed, my opposition to an honours system could be summed up six words.

Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare.

The mid-term elections on the USA have given the Democrats control of both Congress and the Senate, a turnaround which begins the lame-duck phase of George W Bush's presidency. In two years time, there is every chance that the Dems will win back the White House, but what a poisoned chalice that will be. It is very unlikely that the Iraq situation will have sorted itself out by them, and whoever takes over at the Oval Office will have one hell of a mess to sort out.

Not that any of this will matter to GWB. He can retire to his ranch in Texas and establish his Presidential Library, safe in the knowledge that he has done what he set out to do when he was elected to the highest office in the land back in 2000 - serve two terms and kick Saddam's butt.

The more I see of George W Bush, the more I get the impression that the only reason he decided to run for President was to impress his father, or even to achieve more as President than his father ever did.

Before taking office in January 1989, Bush Snr had a very impressive track record. He was a decorated fighter pilot in World War II, while still only 20 years of age; he had been captain of the Yale baseball team; he built up a very successful business career in the oil industry and then went on to have a distinguished career in the public sphere. He served as congressman for Texas; as Nixon's ambassador to the UN; as chairman of the Republican National Congress, as US Liaison Officer to China, and later as head of the CIA. In 1980, he sought the Republican nomination for the presidency, losing to Ronald Reagan. He joined Reagan's ticket as Vice-Presidential nominee and served two terms under the Gipper. In 1988 he became the first serving Vice-President to be elected President since 1836.

And then it all went wrong. Sure, he did what many other Republican President had done before him - running up a massive deficit and starting a war - but his presidency will be remembered for two things. After successfully liberating Kuwait during Gulf War I, he stopped short of deposing Saddam. To many in the "Arab Street", this was a victory for Saddam. Also, during his campaign for the White House, Bush had said "Read my lips, no new taxes", a pledge upon which he was forced to renege. This contributed in no small way to his defeat to Bill Clinton in 1992.

In contrast, Bush Junior's pre-presidential record is rather less impressive. He managed to stay out of the way during the Vietnam War by serving in the National Guard, an option that would probably not have been available to him if he had been poor or black or both. He attended Yale and Harvard, and by his own admission was only an average student. He never emulated his father on the sports field at Yale, but he was an exemplary cheerleader by all accounts.

He followed his father into the oil business, but his record is less stellar. He set up a number of oil exploration ventures, none of which ever managed to discover anything. In truth, his career in the oil business should never have risen higher than gas pump attendant. His "youth" lasted well into his late 30s, he was an alcoholic and it is alleged that he was troubled by other substances as well. He was arrested for drink-driving in 1976 and pleaded guilty.

He coasted along until 1986, when he found Jesus and turned his life around. He stopped drinking and cleaned up his life. He managed to get his business life together, buying into the Texas Rangers baseball team, and helping build up their profile. He entered politics and was elected Governor of Texas in 1994.

This is where I reckon he saw the opportunity to prove to his father than he could achieve more. By this time Bush Snr's presidential career had ended in ignominy. If any President Bush was going to be remembered, it would be GWB, not GHWB.

And so, he managed to get himself elected in 2000, with the help of Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of Florida, who just happened to be his campaign co-chair in the state. After 9/11, he was forced to rethink his non-interventionist stance in relation to foreign policy, and launched a UN-backed war against the Taleban in Afghanistan.

Influenced by several of his advisors, Bush decided that the greatest threat to the US was Saddam Hussein, and so he set about planning an invasion that would topple the despot. This he did, and indeed, Saddam was driven from power, but we all know what happened next. Bush somehow managed to get elected for a second term, and you could see the glee on his face as he strode up to take the oath of office for his second term in the presence of his father.

I could be completely wrong of course. Maybe George W Bush aspired to the Presidency simply because he wanted to serve his fellow Americans in whatever way he could. But I reckon he just wanted to look his once-disapproving father in the eye and say "I did what you couldn't do."

Declan Kiberd had an article* in The Irish Times today concerning the Irish language. He points out that even with the most enthusiastic policies for promoting the language, it still has come nowhere near where we would like it to be in terms of daily usage.

This is something that I have often thought I should write about. Like many others, my standard of Irish is abysmal, even though I studied it for 13 years in school and even did Higher Level in the Leaving (OK, it was over 23 years ago since I last studied Irish.)

Ever since Independence, successive governments have done all they can to try to promote the use of Irish. Compulsion in education, grants, incentives have all been used, yet the prevailing opinion is that Irish is in decline, possibly even terminal decline.

So what can be done to save the language? Surely, if we force schoolchildren to learn it from Day 1 of primary school, they should be fluent by the time they come out the other end at Leaving Certificate? Well no, they're usually not.

Anyone who is involved in marketing will tell you that the most effective way to make something more desirable is to tell people they can't have any. Any parent will testify that if you tell a child they can't have something, chances are they will want it above everything else. So could we take this approach to Irish in order to save the language from terminal decline?

What if the government was to suppress it, abolish the Gaeltacht and paint over the Irish on roadsigns? If they were to stop all the grants for companies setting up in the back end of Conamara, providing jobs that Poles or Latvians will end up doing anyway? Stop teaching it in school? Send The Boys around to the studios of TG4 and Raidio na Gaeltachta, armed with sledgehammers and crowbars, to smash them up? (Whoever writes that instruction should make sure to have a typo on it, with "TV3" on it instead of "TG4", only to realise the 'mistake' too late. Bonus.)

Introduce 21st century versions of the Penal Laws, except this time it's Irish speakers to be persecuted, not just Catholics. They would have to be substantially updated, as being debarred from owning a horse is not a hardship these days (but we could reserve that sanction for Hector Ó hEochagáin.) Instead, introduce a law that anyone with a sine fada in their name will be prevented from owning a 4x4 or an investment property in Sofia.

Soon Irish will be driven underground. The sincere lovers of the language will take to the streets to protest. Meet that protest with the riot squad. Instruct the Gardai (except they won't be called that anymore) to crack open a few skulls.

When people realise that they are no longer allowed to speak or use their native language, demand for it will grow exponentially. Clandestine meetings will start to take place to resist the suppression of the language. College students, who once passed around drugs and flagons of cider at their parties, will instead distribute illicit texts of stories by Mairtín Ó Caidhin and poetry by Máire Mhac an tSaoi, in small rolled-up pages, which can be easily concealed within bodily orifices should the authorities raid the party.

Movies will be made about the struggle, starring Robin Williams as the inspirational leader of the rebels, who enriches their lives before being shafted and sent away.

Secret societies of Irish speakers would flourish around the country, teaching the language to the young. Before long, everyone would be fluent, and the language would be saved.

It just might work, you know.

*No link because it's subs only.