It’s amazing what you hear in Cavan, I mean the scurrilous rumours. One relates to why so many of Cavan County Council’s workers, that is, people who get their hands dirty (unlike the pen pushers whose alabaster-skinned hands can never be soiled by manual labour,) have been put on short time. This is because of, you’ve guess it, the fleadh. It seems as if the whole thing went way over budget and the inevitable cuts have to be made where they hurt ordinary people, and not in any way that might impinge upon the publicans and other hangers-on in whose interest the fleadh took place.

 But how did such budgetary overruns occur? Poor or non-existent management I say. I’ve written a bit about management (especially strategic management) and if anyone were to ask me to define the manager’s role, I’d say he or she is like an orchestral conductor in charge of a myriad of differing, sometimes conflicting resources. It’s the manager’s job to ensure that the various resources, human, technical, intellectual and financial (to name but a few) combine effectively and efficiently. It’s hard to single out any one resource as more important, but I think that many would say that finance is pretty big. If you don’t have cash how can you stay in business, pay wages, order supplies? So any manager who allows budgetary haemorrhages on his watch is a pretty poor example of the species. You don’t have to have an MBA to know this – but I’d love to have one nonetheless. (It should be obvious I’m not talking about Cavan County Council here: I mention “intellectual” resources.

 Maybe I’m being too idealistic here. I’m talking about managers in the private sector who have to operate against the buffets of an ever-changing market landscape Budgetary overruns don’t matter if the institution concerned can act with impunity, like so many in the public service. Such managers can (and frequently do) say “Ah sure fuck it, it’s only the public’s money…”(followed by drink-sodden laugh). Such public service managers may hypocritically claim that they are operating within a climate of unprecedented economic pain (Jaysus! That’s a good one! Same again is it?) but in reality these people can act as it likes – because they can – and no one can stop them or question them, least of all our castrated pubic (sic!) representatives – even if they had the ball to , which they haven’t. 

 And the money that was overspent can be made up out of the government’s “reptile fund” ;or failing that, through hospital and school closures, or through unemployed people being bumped off the live register because their faces don’t fit or their welfare officers don’t like them.

 I shouldn’t be asking these questions ( me? A cripple? Now I’m being silly – but I like it). What do I know about management? – a good deal more it seems than some managers in Cavan. We must believe that the fleadh was a success and anyone who doesn’t accept that is obviously a whinger, motivated by begrudgery. The people of Cavan should just accept how great it was and not worry about cutbacks – until they affect them. And if we all wish real hard we’ll get it next year, so that the mayhem can be revisited upon us and certain publicans can rip off their customers. Juvenal must be smiling. It is further proof of how you can attempt to fool people with bread and circuses.

 PS. There is only one reason why I feel in any way positive about the fleadh. It’s got nothing to do with the obese, flatulent – yes – bastards associated with it. It’s just that I happened to spy this girl. I think she was a busker, as she had a fiddle strapped to her back as she walked towards  Cavan town. She was really cute we exchanges smiles and … well, everyone knows my weaknesses for pretty women who play stringed instruments and the way their fingers move down the bridge of their instrument and …. We could have made beautiful music and the fleadh could have run three six five, twenty four , seven …

I’ve never been there and I doubt I’ll get there now, but I have heard their national radio station La Voix du Sahel  broadcasting from the capital Niamey. Each night it ends its programmes with its jaunty national anthem performed by a group of school-children, most of whom are out of tune. I believe the recording was made at the time Niger gained its independence from France in 1960. I wonder how many of the school-children are still alive or even in Niger? Many, probably the lucky ones, migrated to France where they eventually settled. no doubt having to suffer discrimination and hostility at first. Others may have died of hunger in one of the incidents of mass malnutrtition which have visited Niger. A small handful may have joined the small elite of senior army officers, bureaucrats and politicians who never have to worry about hunger, who live in comfortable villas with all the latest mod-cons and who send their off-springs to be educated in either the best French lycees or exclusive American B-schools.

The Nigerien government seems to be very sesnsitive about figures. Not surprising, I suppose, given that fhese figures usually place Niger on the bottom rung in the world and that they usually hint that life has disimproved dramatically since independence. These figures are embarrassing, but the government”s response is embarrassing at another level.

The succesful case brought by Hadijatou Mani has highlighted the persistence of slavery in Niger. Human rights organisations like Anti-Slavery International claim there are as many as 40,000 slaves still in Niger; the Nigerien government dismisses the claims as grossly exaggerated. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has worked for many years in Niger, says there are tens of thousands of malnourished children in Niger. The government doesn’t agree and in July it suspended MSF’s activities in the country. Since then the charity has asked to be allowed to resume work but has received no response from the authorities. This has prompted the charity to pull out of the country altogether.

Have some of these bureaucrats trained in Ireland?