Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

I sincere congratulate Sean Connick ion his promotion to a ministry of State. Sean and myself have one thing in common. We both have to use wheelchairs. I hope that Brian Cowen’s actions are not motivated by tokenism here. Sean has shown himself well able to perform the arduous and difficult tasks associated with government.

 This is not the first time I’ve congratulated Sean. I sent him a message at the time of his first election. Sadly he never replied.

 Sean has the opportunity of becoming a real role model for disabled people. He can demonstrate that we deserve a real chance to contribute to society, and be more than the obsequiously nodding backing groups to the often short-sighted actions of those who take responsibility for promoting the disabled.

As I have said myself and Sean have one thing in common. He has just been appointed to government, and yet I languor in obscurity. Sean has worked hard for his promotion, and deserves to be able to reap the rewards of his efforts, yet I’m supposed to just sit here and quietly accept the ongoing attempts of some people in this locality to rubbish me and my work.

Some might say that I somehow deserve my lot because of my outspokenness. But all I’ve ever done is call attention to waste and shortcomings. There are attempts also to portray me as some type of angry hothead who has never come to terms with his disabilities. I see my disabilities as gifts, yes gifts from God. Rather than raging against them it is up to me to work my way through and around them, as Sean Connick and many others have done. I remember once seeing an interview with him, where he said that, like everyone he had his good and his bad days – so do I. The most important thing is to keep going on and feel that you are making a positive contribution to the world around you.

A very persistent urban myth in American politics relates that the one-time governor of Texas, John B. Conally, once objected to any diminution of the use of the English language in his state on the basis that if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it should be good enough for the rest of us. It has been claims that this howler was uttered instead by governor Miriam Ferguson, but once again this seems unlikely.

 I’ve always been a bit uneasy with ethical relativism. For me the foundations of ethics are unchanging. What is more as a Christian I have never felt that the sermon preached by Jesus Christ on the Mount had a time embargo on it. It was good to go then and will be valid until the end of time. In other words, if it was good enough for Jesus Christ, it is certainly good enough for the rest of us, especially those who hold offices of ministry in any Christian church, To hell with the casuistry: if any action causes gratuitous pain or suffering, surely that is wrong. For that reason I find some of the excuses being put forward by leading figures in the Irish Catholic church for their non-actions when confronted with paedophilia to be intellectually feeble.

 I do feel that there is an element of shadow-boxing, maybe even dishonesty, about this issue. Some church figures are condemned for not informing the civil authorities, which they should have done. But let’s just ask what might have happened had they done so. I very much doubt that An Gardai Siochana would have known how to deal with the issue. Back in 1975 they were far busier looking for Dr Herrema or chasing after Dr Rose Dugdale to worry about paedophiles. The Murphy inquiry uncovered numerous instances of active collusion between the police and the church authorities in covering up child abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin. Many senior policemen viewed the Catholic Church as a type of religious police force, enforcing law and order, and generally keeping everyone in their place while some may have owed their promotion to membership of certain Catholic lay groups. Even younger police officers just out of Templemore tended to come from rural backgrounds, traditionally deferential to the more authoritarian aspects of religion. You never gave cheek to a priest, and if you did he could put a pig’s head on you or make you stick to the chair. Such police officers were reluctant to prosecute priests for minor traffic infringements, so how would they have approached the idea of a priest potentially committing something far more serious?

I suppose what I am trying to say here is: let’s not get fixated with attaching blame to a mere handful of individuals in the Catholic church’s past. These were not the only demons in Ireland’s society.

The phenomenon of headshops has introduced us to retail outlets selling legal or quasi-legal highs for the first time. This has of course met with the disapproval of the killjoys in the government, as well as established drug pushers who have seen some of their market segment shrinking. Not surprisingly the one has responded with legislation (which may or may not ever be enforced), while the latter has responded by setting fire to headshops, whenever members of the Gardai have their backs turned.

 These headshops are somewhat irresponsible. It’s all right for people of my age group, and maybe a bit younger. We’re responsible. But what about young teenagers who may be goaded into these places by peer pressure. They may be cajoled into experimenting with substances that could be both unpleasant and dangerous. It’s a bit like a teenager going to the whorehouse for the first time. He’s egged on by his friends and feels really grown up, but he may be robbed, beaten up or pick up a VD. People of my generation of course know that you get the best sex at home.

 Personally the biggest high I could get would be to hear that minister for health Mary Harney, along with her party of officials, had just vaporised during their visit to New Zealand, or that the minister had insisted on going bungee jumping, but the whole thing had just gone horribly wrong …

Disgraced minister Willie O’Dea admitted in the Dail that the allegation he made against Councillor Maurice Quinlivan had originated with a member of An Gardai Siochana. Just as Willie O’Dea seemed to be obsessed with ladies of the night it is surely worthy of note that the guards in Limerick seem similarly obsessed with brothels. I wonder why? And in a city with a crime problem that is long out of control. No wonder gangs are free to rub each other out because the police are too inefficient to combat the violence. One recalls the Limerick bouncer murdered by criminals because he would not allow them to sell drugs in the club where he worked. Of course, the gardai were elsewhere that night, too busy cruising Clancy Strand, the old Dock Road and Perry Square in their squad cars to see who they could blackmail.

 The allegation may not have been true, and O’Dea was just so gullible that he swallowed the bait, no matter how much of shit it tasted. Let’s just give O’Dea the benefit of the doubt. The garda in question obviously thought this would be a great way to get some promotion in the future – feed something to a politician who seemed, until recently, to be on the way up. Certainly the ministry of justice seemed one that O’Dea could aspire to. The minister would then remember the debt of gratitude he owed to the flatfoot and respond by giving him a pull up through the ranks. It is alas due to such procedures that many promotions are earned. It would be far better if they were earned for fighting crime, but Jaisus, that’s too dangerous.

I have to admit that the cut in my Blind pension, compounded by the disgraceful way in which the minister for social affairs has lied about it, has left me reeling. My self confidence has taken a knock. I certainly feel far more uncertain about myself.

 I’m nearly forty-five, an age at which many people take stock of their lives. I’ve achieved much, and done a lot I can be proud of, but in purely financial and material terms I am no better off than I was when I was 18. My sight seems to be holding its own, but I have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disease of the nervous system which will get steadily worse (unless some miracle cure is discovered). My medication has succeeded in slowing down and ironing out the degree of relapse, but I am realistic enough to know that eventually I face complete paralysis maybe in the medium term. But the Irish government has so far responded to me not by giving me more but by taking away the little it gives, so that I anticipate in the coming years the prospects of being a penniless and helpless cripple, unable to work, indeed unable to do anything for myself. I will probably be housed, if I’m lucky, in a home where I’ll be the recipient of the mixture of care and indifference such places provide. Of course I will be looked down upon , and treated with condescension.

 This is not the life I had planned out for myself. I have never considered myself imbued with extraordinary intelligence, but I always worked hard at education. This was for a very simple reason. I didn’t want to live in the twilight world of a cripple. No, I wanted to contribute fully to the world around me and earn adequate amounts of money; I knew it would be tough with my sight problem, so I thought that if I have grades and qualifications of a higher level than other people it will force society and prospective employees to give me a chance and treat me as an equal. How naïve I was! In all my hard work in education I was only fashioning a rod with which others could beat me.

 In Ireland disabled people have very few rights in employment. All the cards are held by the employer. If he or she has the slightest hunch that a disabled person will not be able to do a job they are perfectly entitled to sack the disabled person, or, as happens fare more often, not give the disabled person a job at all. I was not considered for a job because I was “not a driver and able to get around,” even though the job was not that of a chauffeur. I was very well qualified for the job in question, and I was then intended to do much of the work the successful candidate couldn’t do, but for a far lower wage than he received.

 But those disabled people who are in employment are made to feel that they are lucky. Certainly they are in a minority. One of the reasons often put forward for the higher level of unemployment amongst disabled people is lack of skills. This may be true, but dare I say again look at me. I have a PhD, as well as diplomas in proofreading, copy editing and public relations. I have a knowledge of over a dozen European languages, as well as a keen interest in areas like management studies and world trade. Am I any better off? I know I should have paid more attention to scientific and technological subjects, but I honestly feel that I would be equally “unemployable” in the minds of many employers if I had a Masters degree in information technology. I have made mistakes in life, but none of them are so serious that they must be punished by a life sentence of poverty. And exclusion

 Many disabled people are confined to employment ghettoes, doing low=skilled and badly-paid work without prospects of promotion. This is especially true of the public service, and is a situation that has been allowed to continue with the connivance of the trades unions. These jobs are often entirely unsuitable for the particular disabled people who get them. In one local authority I know of a girl who is a university graduate who has a job in the motor tax department. She is partially sighted and finds the work tedious, as well as placing great strain and stress upon her eyes. In the local authority concerned there is only one disabled person employed in a higher, supervisory, role – and he is the son of a former TD and County Councillor (a man who, by the way, has worked tirelessly on behalf of his son, for which he deserves much praise).

 I like to see myself as standing up to evil but I’m no hero. Yest, I am afraid, because I see those in positions of power and influence as being very evil, wicked and cowardly people who cover their nefarious activities. They are as evil as the likes of Osama Bin Laden, but though evil they seldom have courage, certainly not the courage to do anything on their own bat. No, they much prefer to act in consort with others who are similarly stained by evil. In this they remind me of the phenomenon recognised by Hannah Arendt in the likes of Eichmann; an evil which is banal, not very spectacular, but which is nevertheless capable of causing great harm.

 I gain happiness from my marvellous partner, Rosie, our family of three dogs and five cats, my family and close friends. But I feel so vulnerable. The rulers of this country and their advisors are a group of cowardly, selfish, vicious and hypocritical thieves who are able to act with impunity. Nobody comments any more on how bad things have got, because they know they can’t change anything. The media seem to have gone into abeyance. An opinion poll hasn’t been published in months, and won’t be until it is favourable to the government. The country as a whole chugs along motivated by a culture of botch and mediocrity, which can be summed up in the phrase “Ah sure fuck it, it’s bollixed but it can’t be helped an’ anyway it’s not my job.” In many of our bigger towns and cities  there is an out-of-control crime wave, with tit-for-tat murders occurring nightly, while our police are scared shitless of any real crime because it would be a challenge to them to actually do something instead of riding around in their squad cars. Visits to my local hospital in Cavan are prohibited for the forseeable future, bceause of another outbreak of the “Winter VOmitting bug.”  This must make a stay in hospital more akin to a prison sentence for patients, whether they are on trolleys or are lucky enough to have a bed,  It’s a bit of a joke isn’t it; you go to a hospital to be cured, but in Ireland you may come out seriously ill.

For me personally the feeling of vulnerability is compounded by the knowledge that the various charities and voluntary organisations who supposedly campaign for the disabled have thrown in their lot with the powers that be and are far more interested in raising funds to keep their officials in employment.  Sometimes my fear at the situation leads to panic.

Let them eat slush

Yesterday (Sunday January 10^th) we were given a further example of the contempt felt by this present regime for the Irish people when the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, came back from his holiday with a smugness and alacrity that was insulting.

 The inclement weather has created real hardships for tens of thousands of people, of all age groups, and it behoves those who rule us – and who get paid to rule us – to remain in the country where they can at least experience the difficulties faced by the Irish people. Minister Dempsey’s attitude was, however, “I’m a government minister, a big shot, and I can do what I like. In fact I can head off to the sun and leave all you scummy little people up to your arses in slush. Yez don’t deserve any better. Why d’ya think I’m a minister and you crowd of whingin’ hoors are nobodies?”

 The minister claimed that he was so well-informed that it was as if he was back home. So, as he was being kept abreast of developments did he sit ibnside his refrigerator? Did he turn on the air-conditioning to full blast? When he went out for food did he worry whether he’d be able to get back to his pied-a-terre?

Dempsey seemed to imply that there was no need for him to be here at all. Many would agree there, but does he also agree then that there is no need to pay him a salary? What’s more, he came out with the accursed guff of “Oaying tribute” to those who had been trying to keep the country moving, but it sounded so insincere, like a back-handed jeer. Anyway, what he really meant was to send a message to the various managers that they’d be in line for a nice bonus later on in the year, especially if they had earned it by staying in their overheated offices and as far away as possible from snow and ice. or better stioll, had not bothered coming ibnto work at all but had directed operations from home.

 Noel Dempsey, you’re nothing but a disgrace. Thank your lucky stars that I’m disabled and in a wheel-chair, because if I wasn’t and I met you I would give me the greatest pleasure to break your rotten neck. How many tears would then be shed amongst the very extensive extended Dempsey clan where possession of the surname or some other agnatic link guarantees a job and impunity from the law. I better make sure I n ever come up before your brother the judge.

The Gardai Siochana really should go out on strike if they feel devalued, as claimed by Garda Representative Association P.J. Stoned. But they should stop the bloody sabre rattling and get out there and show for the first time that they are with the people, and not merely the paid security punks of the corrupt elite. As for that shit that Dermot Ahem came out with about it being anti-democratic and unconstitutional, stop the shaggin’ lights Bunny. As Ken Livingstone said if Democracy really changed anything they’d abolish it, and as for the constitution, nobody takes any of that seriously. And then there was the line that striking gardai could be arrested !!! There is only one group in Ireland who have either statutory or common law powers to arrest anyone – the Gardai. Does anyone think they’d arrest each other? They don’t do it for speeding or drunk driving.

 So listen you flat-footed Fascist bastards. Come on and show us that you’re men and not fecking pansies, and that you’re able to stand up to REAL criminals, instead of harassing suspected illegal immigrants and rounding up their children prior to transportation.

 Of course if the Gardai did go on strike that’s when things would really start to kick off. There would have to be a State of Emergency and the suspension of Civil Liberties. Jaysus that would be just the lad for all those Opus Dei cunts in the Department of Justice. There’d be no talk then of Clerical Sexual Abuse of Minors, and anyone showing less than clear deference towards their betters would be interned. I’m fairly sure that among the first to go would be this blog, but they couldn’t touch me. I’d just plead insanity. Now where did I put that packet of razor blades and that bottle of paraffin…

Yesterday RTE offered viewers the opportunity to watch the election of a Ceann Comhairle live on television. Why would I bother? If I wanted to see a group of pimps, prostitutes and serial masturbators attempting to persuade viewers that they weren’t impotent. It doesn’t matter how much viagra they take they still look and sound as if they’ve got no more cum left in their balls. Let’s be honest, there are less than a dozen men or women amongst them who have been tarnished by exposure to the gravy-train of politics. I could watch a porno DVD like Hard Mary Gets Fucked Up The Butt Again . What’s more the women would probably be far more alluring than any of the flabby, frumpy dogs in the Dail. What’s more the attempt to simulate cunnilingus might be more true-to-life than the flaccid verbal ejaculations to be heard from our legislators. You might be able to make a porno of what goes on there starring the Confederation of Irish Industry’s idea of crunpet Hairy Mary. This wouldn’t be like Rosey Dixon Nightnurse but would be real hard core featuring scenes where Hairy Mary gets fucked by a pianist on his piano or others with Hairy Mary doing it on athe government jet, and we all know that there are men who are prepared to pay a lot of money to see a hirsute bird getting rodgered.  It could be called with justification Hairy Mary Fucks The Country.

 But I have some pity for Jodie from Cahirciveen. He was given the bump for racking up ridiculous expenses. But why did he have to walk the plank while the cabinet slut was able to get away with as much? No one has yet found out that John O’Donoghue was entertained at taxpayers’ expense by a private bodhran player. The whole thing smacks of double standards. I doubt HJohn boy would disagree with the sentiment that we live in a hoorocracy.

There’s husbandry in heaven -
Their candles are all out..

I want to tell you a story; let me assure you that every word of it is true, no matter how fantastic it may appear.

 Recently Rosie and myself have had a couple staying with us who have been attempting to liberate their son from care, into which he was delivered on the flimsiest of reasons. One of the couple established a website in which he attempted to publicise their plight and that of other families in similar situations.

 Last Thursday, Ms Helen McGovern, solicitor for the Health Service Executive, succeeded in extracting a High Court injunction against the website. The manner in which this injunction was subsequently delivered beggars belief in a free society. At approximately 1.30 am on the following morning all of the residents of the house were awoken by the arrival of Ms McGovern, accompanied by no less than four gardai. Ms McGovern obviously does her best work after dark, but I cannot for the life of me see why they had to be served at such an ungodly hour. I also fail to see why she had to be accompanied by such a large force of police. Did they believe that the couple were going to “make a run for it”? or that they would be offered physical resistance? One of the garda squad cars had come all the way from Navan with Ms McGovern. Most people know that sadly, Co. Meath is awash with illegal drugs. The gardai respond as well as they can, though they are often hampered by insufficient resources. On the morning of Friday, September 18^th, their ability to fight not only the drugs problem but crime in general was severely hampered by allocating one squad car with two gardai to accompany Ms McGovern’s nocturnal frolic. The forces assigned for this visit were equivalent to those for a raid, yet this group presented the unedifying spectacle of skulking  through the blackened Cavan countryside asking for directions. Obviously the Gartda Siochana haven’t heard of GPS yet.

 Luckily I wasn’t in residence at Putiaghan Upper that night. I would have been terrified to be disturbed by the headlights of police cars. The whole thing would have reminded me too much of a scene from Alan Parker’s film Mississippi Burning. Both Rosie and myself are law-abiding people, without so much as a parking ticket to our names, so to be treated in this shameful manner by the police is intolerable. My first reaction upon hearing the front door being knocked in the middle of the night would have been to seek the protection of the gardai by telephone. Imagine how I would have felt on learning that those who were disturbing my peace, those who were frightening me, were the very people towards whom I looked for protection, I feel that my customary civility towards the Civic Guards would have been stretched to breaking point.

 On the following evening, at approximately 10.30 pm our peace was again disturbed by a Process Server delivering additional court documents. Why can documents only be delivered at night? The Process Server, who seemed genuinely embarrassed, explained that the late hour was caused by the delay in preparing the documents. This preparation had been so rushed that they hadn’t been filled in properly or signed.

 The serving of the papers at such an unorthodox manner on the morning of the 18th, accompanied by such a large contingent of police, was a clear and deliberate attempt to intimidate the couple and my partner Rosie. Ms McGovern’s visit was no act of charity; she will indeed seek and no doubt receive handsome payment of expenses for her after hours’ exertions by the HSE. How can the HSE don the poor mouth, citing lack of money when cutting back vital and essential services, but yet they have money to burn on such non-vital expenses? Is it not true that at a time when we are told we must swallow “tough” decisions regarding public spending, which will cause genuine hardship, our public servants and those whom they employ can waste as much money as they can?

 I wish to stress that everything I have said above is factually correct. When (or if) Ms McGovern reads it I am sure she will be enraged, and as a well-connected member of the judiciary she will possibly seek to gag me by undertaking legal action against me. She may labour under the mistaken belief that I can be frightened into silence, as was her intention in visiting our house at such an inappropriate hour. But if the truth hurts don’t blame me. Furthermore I believe all the comments made to be fair in the circumstances. The above statements are not motivated by malice, but by a desire to expose abusive behaviour by the executive, including an abuse of judicial process, I am also conscious that in writing the above I have not made myself many friends amongst those who seek to dominate our lives. Let me remind everyone that we still live in a free society – just.  Amongst the freedoms we take for granted are not just freedom of speech, but the freedom to enjoy an undisturbed night’s sleep.

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I have the greatest of regard for some economists, people like Mohammed Yunus (founder of the Grameen Bank) and Oxford’s Professor Paul Collier.

 Sadly the aficionados of the dismal science in Western Europe have been taken over by nasty ideological corner–boys, puppets of the likes of Hayek and Friedman. Many of these people have never read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations – otherwise they would know what a contradictory book it was, albeit one penned by a genial Scotsman who did not wish harm on his fellow men.

 The McCarthy report could be summed up in one word, but, because I’m anxious not to encourage bad language I’m reluctant to use any of them.

 It is a rather tired and predictable recipe based on Reagano-Thatcherite principles. It is unoriginal and unimaginative.

 It is also cowardly as its recommendations seem to rely for their effectiveness on the Public Spending Paradox. They attack unfairly the weakest in our society, the sick, the poor and the nation’s children – those who cannot be blamed for the economic morass in which the country stands and who never benefited during the years when the Celtic tiger was roaring. But of course attacking the poor and the vulnerable is music to the ears of some right-wing commentators.

 More than anything it is dishonest. First McCarthy speaks about the almost imperative need to cut spending in areas like health, education and social welfare. One would assume that spending in all these areas stood on a high plateau of government generosity. The fact of anyone with exposure to areas like health and education is that they have been suffering for years from cutbacks and indeed cannot endure any more.

 But the report’s greatest dishonesty is in its aims; to pull the country out of an economic quagmire and restore it to health. Nothing could be further from its goals, which are to entrench and consolidate the economic hierarchy of this country, while strengthening, deepening and widening the gaping inequalities in Irish society. Put in fewer words, it’s about making sure the rich stay rich and the poor get poorer. This is why the report has been taken up with such unashamed glee by the right. McCarthy has pressed all the right buttons, or more accurately he has pressed the right button – he wants to cut social welfare payments. Indeed, it is only because he is too afraid of antagonising the liberal lefties that he has not advocated the real solution: cutting social welfare payments altogether and forcing the work-shy to work while throwing the poor onto the good offices of groups like the St Vincent de Paul society.

 Income disparity is a fact of life, and within reason it’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is not the form of inequality I’m talking about. The worst form is the way many jobs are held by people who try to shield their incompetence behind some self-important title. These people, more often than not, owe their positions to family and political connections. Others who would be far better in the jobs are confined to the bottom rungs of the economy and society, frequently have no jobs and are denied an opportunity to make a worthwhile contribution to society.

 We all know about the “haves” and “have-nots”; contemporary Ireland is about the “always-haves” and the “never-haves”. Why is it that those lucky to be born near the apex of the economic pyramid can take hope for granted. They know that hard work will be rewarded and even mediocre effort is tolerated. For those who are disadvantaged, whether by economics or say by disability, labour as hard as they might, they will never break out of the bottom rungs, so the smarter ones just don’t bother.

 I hate always reverting to personalities but I cannot but say there is something seriously wrong with a society that allows a person with a doctorate, who has written nine books plus over a hundred articles, speaks a dozen languages, to languor at the bottom, dependant solely on a miserable blind pension which he expects to be cut still further.

 I want to finish by asking a question of a historic personality, Patrick Pearse. What the hell did you bother for?