News from Ireland 2020: Michael O’Leary led for-profit trades union declares results.

WorkRights, the private for-profit trades union founded by former Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has posted a post-tax profit of €1.2m after its first year of operation. O’Leary, addressing the company’s first AGM, welcomed the profit result as vindication of his belief that old fashioned trades unions were failing their members, and that an AA style operation would better serve modern employees.

“How is it that in a single year we have signed up 42,000 workers at a membership fee of €150 per annum? I’ll tell you how. Because WorkRights stands up for all its members, not just the ones who work in the public sector. And I’ll tell you another thing. WorkRights executives don’t have anywhere near the feathernested packages of ICTU and SIPTU big cheese! We put our membership fees into providing services for our staff.”

Since opening business in 2019, WorkRights has provided employment law advice to or represented over 12,000 non-unionised workers at the Labour Court, Rights Commissioners and Labour Relations Commission, as well as negotiated special pension, health insurance and other benefits for its members. O’Leary famously received a salary of €1 for his time as CEO, having promised that he could represent ordinary Irish workers better than “that crowd of hairy Hoxhas in Liberty Hall.”

SIPTU and ICTU delegates could not be reached for comment.

News from Ireland 2020: Surprise Yes vote on Nuclear Plant.

Coming soon to Carnsore.

Wexford 2020: Despite a series of opinion polls predicting defeat by a 10 point margin, Wexford County today voted by 57.1% in favour of the ESB proposal to build a nuclear power plant at Carnsore Point. Leaders of the NO campaign were quick to condemn the result, pointing out that the voters had been bribed by the Community Gain package that had been promised by the government if the proposal was ratified by the voters of the county.

Under the package, every existing home will be entitled to a a tax free lump sum of €5000 each year, as a recognition of the county’s willingness to “bear the burden” of hosting the nation’s sole nuclear power plant. It is hoped that the scheme, which will last for 20 years, and cost the ESB approximately €28 million per annum, will protect property prices in the county.

The leader of the NO campaign, Sebastian Wilcox-Smyth, speaking at the count, said that the people of Wexford had no right to impose nuclear power on the “ordinary people”, and would be taking the matter to the High Court. Wilcox-Smyth was involved in a controversy during the campaign when it emerged that his group, People Before Everything, had previously campaigned against the building of wind farms near anywhere “where human beings dwell.” The YES campaign suggested building them on Mars.  

Osama Bin Laden endorses Gingrich/Palin ticket in 2012

Evil bigoted terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden has endorsed former house speaker Newt Gingrich and former Gov. Sarah Palin for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Speaking from secret cave lair no. 345, Bin Laden is quoted as saying: “I have spent a lifetime trying to convince young Muslims that the United States is prejudiced against  Islam. Then they go and elect Obama, a man who has some actual knowledge of Islam, and treat Muslim soldiers in the US army as equals. They even have a Muslim in Congress! This is what I’m up against, so I really appreciate Newt and Sarah stirring up bigotry over the Islamic Centre two blocks from Ground Zero. Seriously, I could not have written it better myself, well, other than “We surrender, Praise Allah!” But now I can go to young American Muslims fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, who laud the US, and go “In your face, over here, working for the honky man!”. If I’m not trying to raise money to put Newt and Sarah into the White House in 2012, then my uncle’s a rabbi! It’s not as much a donation as an investment.”

The Gingrich/Palin approach to the proposed centre, thus ensuring that US Muslims know their place, is part of a radical new Republican approach to hot button issues the GOP hopes to showcase in the November midterm elections. Another issue is that of attitudes towards homosexuality, where Republican members of congress and formers chairs of the RNC are having gay sex regularly so as to be able to lecture family values voters on the evils of a hot gay banging with a buff intern named Chad. Repeatedly.

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: “Fairness”

Fairness? Fairness? I'll give you a damn good trashing!

“Fairness” is the Scaletrix of Irish politics, in that the debate goes round in circles and circles and is incapable of a new direction. It starts from a simple proposition. We all believe in fairness, don’t we? You’d want to be Jabba the Hutt to be against fairness. Everyone nods sagely at the desire for Irish society to be built on fairness. But don’t dare ask for details, because if you do, you’re a hateful Thatcherite, a Victorian despatcher of children down the mines, their little tummies aching for a crust, a stale crust at that. Or worse still, you’re Michael McDowell.

But what is fairness? Is it fair that some people are going to bed hungry? Of course not. Is it fair that some families are scraping together euros and cents to pay for their kids schoolbooks? How could it be? What about if one of those families spent their money on a kickass 42″ Plasma screen TV, whilst their neighbours didn’t? Who is more deserving of fairness now? What about the mother who works overtime in a launderette to pay for her daughter’s maths grind? Is it fair for her to pay more tax than the mother who’s on the scratcher, after all, she brings home more money, therefore she’s richer, therefore it’s only fair that she should pay more tax, isn’t it? It’s only fair.

But taxing the rich, we can all agree that that is fair, right? Of course it is. Higher taxes are the price of membership of our society, but is it fair to want to punish someone for being successful? Is it fair to want to take half of someone’s take home pay, one in two euro they make, for the crime of creating a business and (the  bastards) giving people jobs? Is that fair? Is it fair to have rich people at all? Would it be fairer to have no rich people at all, even if it meant we were all poorer?

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But want to debate the idea? No, because we don’t do debates here, it wouldn’t be fair. 

Serial killers thank Irish media for distracting Gardai.

The Centre for Homicidally Obsessed Persons (CHOP) would like to thank the Irish media for focussing so much attention on the release of Larry Murphy. By demanding the deployment of substantial Garda resources to track and follow Mr. Murphy, they have redirected those resources away from catching those of our members who are still active in the community.

On behalf of the serial killers, murderers and rapists of Ireland, we thank you, and knowing that the media is sincere in its wish to protect the Irish public from Mr Murphy, we know that they will continue to keep up this level of coverage about his actual whereabouts at any given time regardless of the waning effect it may have on an eventually bored public. 

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The Political Biological Clock.

It’s normally a single event which causes the realisation: The moment you realise that the guy two years behind you in college is now a junior minister, or that plump girl you used to pity is now the political editor of a major national newspaper. And it’s not just your peers: Behind you, you see younger, slimmer, prettier and more media savvy types coming up behind you, making you realise that your beer belly or plump tree trunk ankles have now rendered you no longer a threat to their career path. You’re in their way.

What happened? You were going to be a senator at 25 or presenting your own Today FM sunday show at 27. What happened was the curse of our generation, who haven’t quite grasped that our physical age is a good ten years older than our mental ages, and that time is running out to do the great things, learn the guitar, write that novel. Get a fright when you realise that a guy you used to see playing the guitar naked whilst full of soup is now a father?

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

News from Ireland 2020: Gardai protest growth of Private Police.

NPSI officers on patrol in Galway yesterday.

Galway 2020: Garda unions have lodged a formal protest with the Mayor of Galway following the decision of the City Council to outsource public order duties to National Police Service of Ireland Ltd. Under the decision of the council, the Garda Siochana will no longer be responsible for non-national security policy in the boundaries of Galway city. This has followed a three-year trial period where the NPSI policed the city alongside the Gardai, as they were entitled to do under the 2014 Private Security Act.

Addressing a press conference, the mayor stoutly defended his policy: “The reality is that, after three years patrolling public areas, dealing with tourist crime, public order and safety issues, our polling has shown that the people of Galway overwhelmingly preferred dealing with the NPSI over the Gardai. They found them more responsive, more courteous, more professional, and the fact is, they are better at solving crimes than the Gardai.” The Garda unions complained that NPSI have more resources than the Gardai, a claim disputed by the mayor. “Since the government devolved policing budgets to the county councils, we found that the cost of putting a single Garda on patrol, when you weigh in salary costs, pension and early retirement, is the same as two and a half PSNI officers. NPSI officers tend to be younger, fitter, better trained and have more modern equipment than the Gardai, because their budget is not overwhelmingly spent on pay. Galway just cannot afford the Gardai anymore.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions was criticised by Garda unions earlier in the year when an email from within her office admitted that NPSI’s in-house  unit of barristers supervising investigations had meant that NPSI files tended to be far better prepared and generally stronger cases than those submitted by Gardai. Garda unions demanded more resources. The email stated: “It should be noted that NPSI cases tend to be founded on presentation of forensic evidence, CCTV footage and corroborative statements to a much greater degree than Garda files, which rely overwhelmingly on confessions by an alleged guilty individual. There are also far more cases submitted, per head of population, by the NPSI than by the Gardai. It would seem that the NPSI seem to “see” more crimes committed than the Gardai. Having said that, the Gardai continue to lead the NPSI on road traffic violation charges, particularly during good weather.”

The decision follows six years of legal battles, where Garda unions attempted to force the DPP not to accept files prepared by the NPSI, claiming that as a private organisation it could be corrupted. Previously, the court had ruled that the DPP had to consider properly prepared documents indicating that a crime had been committed, regardless of their source. The case memorably collapsed in the High Court last year when former FBI agents, brought in as consultants by NPSI, conclusively proved that not only were investigation standards in the NPSI higher than the Gardai, but that anti-corruption measures within the NPSI were far stronger than in the Gardai. A further embarrassment was caused when the Garda Ombudsman, charged with regulating the NPSI, admitted that the NPSI cooperated with her office to a far greater degree than the Garda authorities did. Garda unions demanded more resources. 

Whalesong revealed to be inane mindless chatter.

A whale yesterday. Plankton was his favourite.

Marine scientists admitted to being bitterly disappointed at new evidence that whalesong, once heralded as being an example of the intelligence of whales, has been revealed to be nothing but bland,  boring conversations between the giant seagoing mammals.

“We’re very disappointed.” A scientist said. “We’ve devised a means of translating whalesong, using a stunning cryptological logarithm and a computer mainframe we borrowed from NASA. We were hoping for a real insight into their culture, only it turns out that they haven’t got one. It’s all “I’m a whale. Are you a whale? I like plankton. My favourite colour is grey. Mine too. Did I mention I like plankton” and this goes on for hours. They seem to have very limited attention spans. In short, they’re idiots.”

The project did admit that the software was yielding interesting insights into other species. “For example, we’ve discovered that every single male penguin is called Steve, and they spend hours huddled together calling out each others names, and then arguing that “You’re not Steve!”

Fine Gael calls on govt to “restrict oxygen” on govt jet.

Fine Gael has promised that it will tackle abuse of the government jet by restricting oxygen to flights of one hours duration, if elected to government. An FG backbencher said: “We need a government jet, to get to London and Brussels. But this using it for jaunting around the country has to stop. Therefore we’ll be putting a timer on the oxygen supply, so that any flight less than a hour long comes with it the risk of massive brain damage to the passengers, leaving them drooling vegetables incapable of running a sweetshop, let alone a country.”

Fianna Fail replied that such a policy was unfairly biased towards Fine Gael TDs.

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The surprisingly cold candidate.

Icy icy baby!

On paper, she’s electoral gold. She’s pretty, young and well-educated. She looks great on a poster and even better in real life, bringing that X factor to politics. Except she doesn’t. When you meet her, she smiles at you and shakes your hand and affects to listen to you, yet you can’t help notice that the smile has all the warmth of an open fridge full of fish fingers. In fact, you can’t help feeling that the smile is like that of some sort of alien doppelganger, like someone who has only learnt how to smile late in life and is trying to copy someone else a little too hard.

Her earnest look is betrayed by that flicker as you talk to her, that millisecond when she looks over your shoulder to identify her next port of call. Yet the smile remains rigid, even though you know she’s not listening. And there’s the test right there: If you were to suddenly say to her “My mickey is unusually heavy. Would you like to see?” She’d keep smiling, her brain miles away, whereas a really good and forthright candidate would at least ask: “Fair enough. Will it increase the chance of me getting a number one?”