Kayaker rescued off Wexford coast

“When integration is actually exclusion despite what the letter of the law says.”

Towards the end of 2009 I published the first of a planned series of articles on the tide of scumbag culture that is sweeping over the country. Detailing the attitude of many who are branded as “disadvantaged” and “minorities” but whom through my, and many others, personal experience do not constitute a minority of their own, self-imposed distinction from the rest of the populous. We are all equal in this world – it is only those who seek special treatment because of perceived circumstance or wrongful use of social guilt, who seek to twist the system and create inequality, who are in any way thinking of themselves as different.

No doubt anyone who has their ears open will be aware of social planning strategies that are operated by local authorities throughout Ireland. These strategies comprise everything from allocating individual houses in private estates, to demanding a percentage of new housing estates for “social and affordable” housing, to building one-off small developments from tax payers money to house “minorities” who need somewhere to park their Mercedes M-class jeeps.

Social planning strategies vary between counties in Ireland but because I live in Waterford I will simply, without opinion, and factually outline the reality of the social planning strategy and its resultant impact on Waterford City. The one commonality however, across all counties, is what is known as “social inclusion”. A term devised by somebody who was obviously so ridden with social guilt that they wanted to change everywhere besides their own back yard to make up for it.

Waterford City centre largely comprises long-term residents in old town houses, coupled with a few new apartment developments. There is little exception to this norm. On the outskirts of the city lie the old and the new housing estates – some of which where old style council houses in a time before private developers ruled the earth and others are council estates comprising a large proportion of “housed” families, our “disadvantaged” masses, a blend of people distinguished in society by a criminal record and/or a complete lack of respect for the world around them and the real minority who bear suffering at the hands of their “social inclusion”.

Every county has its “rough” areas, the proverbial no go zones. Limerick has Moyross, Dublin has too many to name borne of the same social planning disasters, although you’ll do well to find social inclusion in Foxrock. So, the question is really this: With so much activity and resource dedicated towards social inclusion strategies and helping to integrate minorities into various areas of each county, how come every city in Ireland has the exact same problems with a critical mass of problem people all living in the same area coupled with a few decent folk thrown in like a star on a dead Christmas tree? When does social inclusion actually turn into social exclusion?

Let us examine the situation in Waterford. Waterford City had a number of established council estates that gave residence to a large number of problem families – there’s nothing peculiar to Waterford in this respect, all cities do the same, that’s just life. These estates were on the outskirts of the city and provided decent quality accommodation for anybody “housed” there at the tax payers’ expense. Within the last 20 years however and specifically within the last 10, more and more “social inclusion” sites have been developed in the city and its outskirts. The city now has 3 purpose built “halting” sites for members of the travelling community – these comprise very high quality residences of significant size with privacy and were delivered at a huge cost to the tax payer. These sites are positioned almost equidistant from each other. In addition, two housing estates were developed by the council for the purposes of housing families and from my unfortunate personal experience they appear to house a disproportionate number of problem families and people who really do deserve the term scumbag for their respect for others, attitude towards the community and complete ungracious sense of entitlement for the benefits that they have been given free of charge.

So what? That’s every city isn’t it? Sure, it is. However, you haven’t seen the map of this development yet. You haven’t seen the complete lack of “inclusion” in this inclusion exercise. Below is a map of Waterford City, I have left the scale key to illustrate the failings of the strategy employed. The red dots are council estates with both historical, continuing, and verifiable problems caused by more than a minority of the “housed” residents. The blue dots are dedicated, purpose built halting sites, developed by Waterford City council for members of the travelling community (these members were supposedly vetted and deemed most suitable for inclusion and the award of housing).

Map of housing sites

In the map above we can clearly see a ring around the outside of the city centre with a specific concentration of sites in one small geographic area, less than 2km in radius. Interestingly, one of the largest population belts in Waterford city lies outside of this yellow zone, the area known as the Newtown/Dunmore Rd stretch – not much social inclusion going on there despite the concentration of people whom could no doubt accommodate it. The vast majority of the sites shown have also been named in on-going drug programmes to help “clean up” issues. With some of the sites shown, stretching more than a kilometre in length and a practice of social inclusion in play, why is it that this picture shows a critical mass of housing sites in one specific area, separated from the larger population zones, and all of the sites shown are removed from the central population?

In the last 10 years I sadly bought a house near this critical mass, sadly not knowing the extent of the problem which seems to go completely unreported. I have since sold that house because I no longer wanted the danger of owning an asset in that area. It came as a great surprise to me that any time I wrote or contacted the council about problems in the area, they seemed oblivious to any issues at all. I’m not talking about noisy neighbours here, I’m talking about gangs of aggressive youths roaming the streets, intimidating pedestrians and motorists, obvious drug dealing in certain areas, and a myriad of other problems. After I bought my house I learned that an area with an existing critical mass of council housing and problems was to receive a further addition by way of a halting site. A halting site that had originally been planned for another location but somehow moved to be closer to existing council developments. Since that site was developed, Waterford witnessed the now nationally famous traveller feud that spilled out onto our streets, saw cars being crashed on our roads, and cost the taxpayer an unconscionable sum of money to police. My wife and I could hear gunshots only a few hundred yards from our doorstep, not from the halting site but within a nearby council estate. An area with no problems, seemingly, and no connection between the different housed locations?

I can think of no way to end this article other than to list a number of headlines that relate to serious problems in Waterford over the years. News items that have brought shame to our doorstep and huge distress for people living here. Not one of these headlines relates to something other than a problem council estate or purpose built halting site for vetted tenants. The wave of scumbag culture is sweeping over our fair land, social inclusion strategies are clearly not working because there is a significant amount of NIMBYism going on in terms of where social inclusion is placed, and the most unpalatable thing of all is that we still hear that we’re not doing enough despite providing acres upon acres of high quality, free accommodation. We still have social guilt thrown at us because we did something with our lives. Some of the best and most successful businessmen that I know, came from so-called disadvantaged areas but decided to do something with themselves rather than sit around waiting for handouts. It’s nothing to do with environment, it’s all about attitude.

2006 – Kilbarry Halting Site

2009 – stabbing death linked to Waterford traveller feud

2008 – Mutilated horses

1998 – Juvenile crime problems and drug use

1998 – Report on drug use in Waterford City (68% of all juvenile crime comes from a fraction of council housing locations pg. 14)

2008 – shots fired at house (November)

2008 – shots fired at house (December)

2007 – shots fired at halting site

2008 – shots fired at house (August)

2008 – shot fired at house (July)

Sadly not a definitive list; even sadder to say it all relates to social inclusion sites; even sadder again that while areas have problems these ones are making national news and dragging down the reputation of what should be the jewel in the crown of the Southeast and Ireland’s oldest city. We have done everything we can, no more funding, no more handouts, no more sympathy can be allowed. People have to make their own choices in life and the responsibility should not be shared by the rest of us. Decades of trying to do otherwise has just shown us that problems get worse and even more people suffer at the hands of an ever-growing “minority”.

This Friday the people of Ireland will go to the polls and at this moment in time I have no doubt that the Lisbon Treaty will be approved by a majority YES vote.

Yes, I advocate the NO vote but so too am I realistic with respect to the current state of play. Without offence to any individual, the YES side is made up of people whose jobs would not exist if they were not needlessly paid by somebody to be there and die hard Euro fanatics who would question their own mother before questioning the European Parliament, e.g. die hard trade unionists, politicians, minority businessmen whose business depends on EU subsidies, etc. The NO side is made up of people who are independent, self-starters who didn’t inherit a business to run, and minority political forces who will never become career politicians of any magnitude.

So why am I so convinced that the treaty will be carried? Well it’s simple really. The Irish are easily scared, rarely exhibit backbone, and are too ignorant to actually read anything they ever vote on. In addition to this, so-called independent bodies have done nothing but publish guides on how to vote YES, debates on national TV have always portrayed a majority leaning towards YES, the only credible NO campaigner is the victim of a slur campaign by our government and also was brought onto the main evening news to be ripped apart while no YES campaigner has ever received a similar treatment nor stern questioning of the value in voting YES. Finally, effecting the Lisbon Treaty will have consequence as simply put, consequence is the result of implementing any change, and no act of sublime lunacy is without consequence.

So a provisional congratulations to the self-interest groups and career politicians who successfully ran a campaign of, well actually it debases all my beliefs to call it a campaign given that not a single fact was used by the pro-YES vote side. Equally annoyed I am at the pro-NO side for using equal amounts of scaremongering and fallacious rubbish before anyone says anything about them. Anyway, congratulations on making it an iron clad fact that the voice of the Irish people will never be listened to within their own country nor within the EU. Congratulations on securing an opinion poll majority from people who believe that Lisbon will effect economic recovery. Congratulations on reaffirming your unquestionable stance in society whereby democracy is always wrong unless it’s the answer you want. Well done – you should be very proud of yourselves.

For anyone as of yet undecided, for those who have not bought the claptrap that a YES will bring economic recovery, keep us in Europe, send out waves of positivity to foreign investors, and pave the streets with gold – fair play to you for not yet being sucked in. For those who are die hard that the EU has treated us so well, that being part of the EU is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that life can’t exist without the EU as it stands, I have the following question: Why on earth are you voting in a treaty that guarantees changes to the EU and doesn’t preserve it in the way that it currently exists and has been good to us? The only consequence as a result of Friday’s vote will be if the treaty is passed – any other outcome changes nothing about the operation of the EU nor Ireland’s role within.

I’m not a Euro sceptic nor do I have any paranoid delusions of the EU being out to get us. I simply don’t ever accept YES as a default action and I despise change for the sake of change; change that serves little other purpose than justifying huge amounts of expenditure by some group of bureaucratic pen pushers. Let’s put it this way, if the Public Service in Ireland was campaigning for the opportunity to give itself more power and waste extraordinary amounts of public money on rejigging documents that have little to no effect on the running of the country, would you vote YES to their campaign?

Anyway, “que sera, sera”. Frankly I am both ashamed to be an Irish citizen and also ashamed to be a European who is currently frowned upon for not letting petulant, power-hungry, politicians get their way. Post-Lisbon Ireland will bear little difference to pre-Lisbon Ireland – only the passage of time will have any effect on the landscape. Twice in recent history we stuck our heads out and said something to the EU and twice we were slapped on the wrists – I wonder will Lisbon change the respect that Ireland gets for talking? Will effectively becoming a spineless jellyfish who swallows pride and forgets beliefs, win us the respect that we clearly do not yet have from Europe? Only time will tell…

A couple of weeks back I was talking to Siân about what I perceived as the shameless pro-YES campaign being run for the Lisbon Treaty. I’ve been taking notes of the kind of voices that are being given air time from the NO side and the amount of YES side commentary and blatant lies that are being thrown around, coupled with ridiculous amounts of auld buddies from business lobby groups backing up their political friends. Anyhow, I made the remark that it would only be a matter of time before we saw an advert on RTE from Aer Lingus that told people that their deal for a trip Lisbon was just too good to ignore.

Gobsmacked, I sit here with a cup of tea watching ads on RTE and behold, Aer Lingus’ new advert for city breaks, hypnotic music, oodles of enticing and pleasant sounding words, mentioning of a great deal, and finally in big, bold letters, in the middle of the screen, “LISBON” – I kid you not. I’m not big on conspiracy theories as I like cold hard facts but I said that this would happen and now, 2 weeks before the treaty vote we have the advert that asks people how they could say NO to Lisbon. I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence – not in a million years.

A clever and appropriate nomenclature coined by John Murray Brown of FT.com to summarise Ireland at the moment. Our Emerald Isle is looking more like a junk shop, jade dragon – cheap, useless, outdated, and fragile. On one hand our country is fighting the evil of wreckless developers and their associated debts while on the other the government and courts appear to be doing everything possible to stop these people from going bankrupt and giving them all the chances necessary to welcome them into the ba-nama republic that we have created. It’s fair to say that some great strokes were pulled over the years by unscrupulous Irish politicians but what we are currently witnessing is the equivalent of the first admiral on the Titanic persuading people to get back out of the lifeboats! Amidst all of this iceberg hugging behaviour is the persistent belief that somehow getting the public to vote YES on the Lisbon Treaty’s second time referendum will save the country, as if Christ the Financier were due a second coming. Rather than awaiting the return of our money messiah however, we should probably be more focused on crucifying the current radicals that have brought us to the water’s edge but neglected to admit that they were drowning while supposedly they were walking on the surface. Here’s a link to the FT.com article.

Last October the Irish people went to the polling booth to have their say on the Lisbon Treaty – the result was a definite NO. The path is now being paved for a second vote on the treaty; So, what’s changed?

Before the first Lisbon vote, many people had a great number of concerns about the Lisbon Treaty’s content. Unusually despite this, every single, major political party supported the YES vote. The public were subjected to the opinions of ministers who openly admitted never reading the treaty document yet were convinced that YES was the only way to vote. After the NO vote won out, the government played out on the back foot for a while; the occasional snipe at the public and various fallacious comments such as how they made the recession worse by voting NO.

In recent times we have heard about the legal agreements sought by the government of Ireland, that would protect the points of concern, as expressed by the public. Concerns that you will remember, did not exist before the last vote as they were supposedly non-issues. However, the government now seems to agree that these are actually issues and has spent a great deal of public monies on legal council and drafting these so-called guarantees. So, the NO vote was right all along, we actually had genuine concerns?

So, the parties’ line is now that these agreements are in place and protect the genuine concerns of the Irish people so we can all be good little EU subordinates and vote YES because they want us to. Every major broadcaster and printed media has conveyed this message to the people and many lobby groups have convinced pockets of voters that YES is now the only option because these guarantees are in place. Very clever PR and electioneering; I take my hat off to the powers that be for conceiving and executing such an incredibly intricate and conniving plan.

What we haven’t heard anything about in the Irish media is how not a single word of the Lisbon Treaty document has been changed. We have also not been told how these guarantees are standalone documents that do not form an appendix to the treaty and that these guarantees are effected now, prior to the impending second vote on the treaty. What we are not being told is that voting YES to this treaty will supercede these guarantees, give power to the EU commission on all future decisions (a commission on which Ireland is still not guaranteed a seat) and allow the EU commission to govern with a treaty that remains unchanged from the original NO vote, still carrying all the concerns of the Irish public (confirmed recently by the Irish government’s actions as being genuine concerns). So essentially, Lisbon II will see the Irish government persuade the Irish citizens to return to the polls and despite ratifying all original fears and concerns, ignore their better judgement and vote YES anyway. This request will be made despite not a single word of the original treaty being changed and our only guarantees of comfort being standalone documents that will be superceded by the treaty coming into effect, rendering them null and void.

While not being one for holding back on what I believe in nor what I think about things, I really am lost for words that the Irish government truly believes that the Irish people are that stupid. I’m further confounded that somehow, lobby groups are managing to persuade certain groups that these hard times are linked to the last NO vote. I’ve always said that the Irish state verged on being Orwellian but am I truly gobsmacked at the blatant, stone-faced, audacity with which this deception is being performed.

Last time I voted NO because of concerns that the Irish government now says are genuine. Nothing has changed and the Irish people are being hoodwinked by clever political manoeuvres and fallacious scaremongering – this time I will be voting NO again, regardless of what anyone says. We’re still at square one.

When the Green party in this country were sucked into power last year by the great vacuous siphon of Fianna Fáil, I thouhgt to myself, this is no longer a party of idealists and tree huggers led by the political incarnation of Duncan from About the House; this is a Marxist and Sellout Party.

Sadly I have not yet been proven wrong. Despite all their fluttering and spluttering like a diesel engine under water, the party has stood fast in its only stable belief at the moment – it’s better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.

I recently read an article in the mainstream printed media that cited further rumblings from the Green Party about further taxes on our emissions, our fuel, and pushing, pushing, pushing us further towards a carbon tax on every man woman and child. All this despite the fact that the country already has one of the higest global costs of living and the fact that we are in serious recession with no free money to spend on taxes that will be unavoidable if such measures are taken.

Recently I had the pleasure of spending lots of hard-earned money to get a BER certificate survey performed on my house that I am selling. The guy who did the assessment is a top guy and a true professional but enlightened me to the fact that half the assessment is guess work and based on assumptions. It doesn’t matter that you have a gas boiler that you may never use to heat your water it still brings down your rating if it’s not 100% efficient and many more stupid assumptions. So much in fact that a 5-year-old, modern home, with good insulation and double glazing was awarded the average rating of a D2, which is pretty low down the scale. Imagine introducing a carbon tax on that? Imagine what anyone with a 20-year-old home is facing!

Another thing that particularly annoys me about the Green Party in this country is not only do they choose to ignore EU stupidity such as the BER system and its impact on people but they also choose to ignore our own national stupidity. Just over a year ago the new road tax system came into being and vehicles were to be taxed on their emissions. On face value a wonderfully progressive idea, even if it doesn’t take into consideration that somebody might only drive 1000 km per year and have almost no emissions. However, such was the stupidity of our implementation that all possible Green intent was striped from this plan when it was announced that it only applied to cars registered in 2008 and beyond. Imagine an outwardly Green policy to reduce emissions and save the planet is actually encouraging waste, disposal of existing cars and purchase of new cars, incurring shipping, manufacturing, etc waste and emissions and dissuades people from the primary function of environmental consciousness, to recycle and reuse. Yet again our Green policies are nothing more than penalise the majority and tax everyone. Everyone knows that the only sensible way to be environmentally conscious about vehicle emissions is to tax the usage, i.e. tax the fuel and do away with road tax. Alas that idea would never fly.

Yes, our dear Green Party presides over a government of incompetence that sits only to tax and taxes only to cover its own blundering expenditure rather than putting any thought into policy making and budgetary planning. Indeed I think it is fair to say that the only shade of Green left in this party is that which reflects the envy of how Fianna Fáil have managed to garner so much power and that Super Duncan and co will never realise such ambition.

I think it was Des O’Malley (founder of the Progressive Democrats) who brought that phrase to my attention many moons ago: “in the national interest”. Many years have passed since then and the bridled chaos, held fast for so many years by nothing more than lies and the singular interests of the civil service, has now been let loose upon a chamfered society that is without direction. Ireland, litter tray of the Celtic Tiger, is now more like the pissing bed of a much more sedate and hapless creature; one that I will call the Hiberno Hamster. Yes, an animal that will happily feed away on its own faeces while running nowhere on a wheel until such time that a burst of energetic necessity causes it to keel over and self-terminate.

For too long this country has worked on the creation of the perfect little onion society. Layers within layers of workers whose sole purpose was to do the job of their superiors and justify budgetary spending of biblical proportions. Then there were layers of media and publicity that covered up why budgets were disappearing without product and they too burrowed into our state’s resource hamper and ate the yield of our tax payers. We have now started to peel the onion and unravel the putrid, stinking, flesh that is the sorry excuse for humanity, charged with the guidance of this country. We are still nowhere near the core of this rottenness but the vile odour has already seeped into our financial markets and removed all but the minute shreds of economic DNA necessary to just about keep the species alive.

Regular readers of my blog will be painfully aware that during Ireland’s so-called boom period, I bitched and moaned about inadequacies and misguided spending in Irish society. I fully attributed blame to those I saw as being wholly accountable for ill-founded invoices and I removed the veneer from the million dollar chipboard cabinet that was sold to us as progress. The time for blame was then; many media gurus feel that the time for blame is now but yet again I stand ahead of their morbid appeal and go out on a limb to suggest that blame will indeed get us nowhere in this dank quagmire of economic collapse. We need an amnesty on accountability and an rapid advent on action.

We the people now need to step up to our call. The time for complacency and inaction has long passed; no longer can we shrug off the inadequacy of our political leaders in humourous satire. The onus is on us as a nation and not us as an elected government, to do something about all that is around us; to remodel our society such that maybe, just maybe Ireland will not disappear down the rabbit hole and into a weird and wonderful land induced by poverty-stricken hallucinations. Can we do this? I do not know…

We concern ourselves with complaint about what our governing forces are not doing and yet for the vast majority of Irish democratic history we have never sought change in political leadership. Why? A nation divided by political colours and not civic duty is more akin to football hooliganism, destroying all that is good about the beautiful game. Our wretched attitude goes way beyond political adversity however. We have lost community drive, no passion in presentation of our roads, our streets, our homes within cities; no desire to go an extra mile to make something to be proud of – sure the council will clean it up. The only thing that Irish councils have cleaned up is the excess of tax monies left lying carelessly about the hallways of the Department of Finance. We have removed ourselves from caring about social issues that destroy communities by developing legislation to grant us immunity from acknowledging what is wrong with certain “minority” groups’ behaviour and a whole manner of other things. We developed tax and welfare loopholes so that the victims of society (mostly those who make victims out of society) can be kept hidden from view in council estates and be given the money to get along with things without us ever really knowing how they justify their handouts. Sometimes this skill is passed generational so that the trade is never lost, meanwhile Jack must prove his job finding trail to gain dole payment after 6 months unemployment following 20 years hard slog in the factory.

Yes, as a nation we have successfully failed to deal with everything that ever landed on our doorstep. From immunising ourselves from responsibility by introducing legislation to rejecting the voice of the people when they speak out about dissatisfying referenda, we’ve done it all. Ireland – a nation that just couldn’t give a shit! Unless of course it severely hurts the back pocket of the individual but even then they’ll just march on the streets until somebody else does something about it. The national interest? There is no national interest – the nation just isn’t interested.

60 years ago (1948 to be exact) a large body of people of the Jewish faith decided to claim their own patch of land and subsequently invaded the lands of others to enlarge their patch. When others fought back the Israeli’s sought the support of another super power (the good old Jew S of A) and set upon a 50 year campaign of killing and land grabbing against those whom they could get away with calling names such as terrorists even if they weren’t. Sounds awful familiar to me, didn’t something similar happen in the 40′s before Israel? Can’t quite remember what… Somebody please tell little America to pull their heads in before more life is needlessly lost.