Got this in my e-mail today.
We need a new government.
Ireland's Christmas wish list
21 things the nation needs in the coming year
NEVER mind the pressies for granny, auntie and the sister's boyfriend.
Put-your country first. Here are 21 Things That Ire- land Needs For Christmas:
1. A Decent Health Service. The Danes pay high taxes and get an excellent health service; the French pay private insurance and get an excellent health service. We do both, and somehow end up with overworked nurses and doctors and a lousy health service. Why?
2. Basic Public transport. Go to the most impoverished Eastern European town and you'll find a tram system that'll put "prosperous" Ireland to shame. We never bothered to invest in public transport: we were too busy buying shirts for Charlie Haughey. Now our buses are gridlocked, and Intercity trains are so crowded they'd cause a revolt in Calcutta.
3. A sense of shame. Former eircom CEO Alfie Kane gets a E3.9 million pay-off while small investors and pensioners are still hurting from the disastrous eircom flotation - and in the same week, the nation's bosses tell us we need to tighten our belts!
4. Teachers. How many Irish primary school pupils are not being taught by qualified teachers? Go on, guess. A few thousand? Ten thousand? No, it's FORTY thousand.
5. Better Roads. It's the 21st Century, for Pete's sake, and our capital STILL doesn't have a bypass. On our primary routes, juggernauts thunder past each other on roads the width of goat ,tracks. When we saw all these problems looming years ago, we faced two choices: build better roads, or create decent public transport. We did neither.
6. A Reasonably Priced Pint. Watch visitors' to this country. turn pale and clutch their wallets when they're asked to pay E4 or E4.50 for a beer. See them blanch as a bottle of basic plonk that would cost them 80c at home, sets them back E7 or E8 here. Try to explain to them why a half-gird costs a lot more than half the cost of a pint. Then tell me, because I'd like to know, too.
7. Houses. Something is badly askew when a typical working couple will never earn enough to buy a basic house. Even if they DO get a roof over their heads, they can't afford to start a family. This is a society gone mad.
8. Politicians We Can Trust. More and more Irish citizens say they don't trust their politicians. Recent events at the tribunals have not helped. A portrait is emerging of a 1980s and 1990s Ireland riddled with corruption.
9. A National Stadium. The poorest banana republic has some sort of national sports stadium - but not us. The GAA took millions in taxpayers' money, but refuses to share the resultant money-spinning stadium with anyone else. We dithered over Abbotstown vs Eircom and ended up with neither.
10. An Airport-City Rail Link. Is ours the only capital in Europe without a rail link between the airport and the city centre? We have to take a taxi or a coach through gridlocked streets, or else bus all the way to Howth Junction, the grimmest and bleakest station on the Dart line.
11. Cheap And Cheerful Food. In most countries, you can get a basic Italian meal without breaking the bank. Here, even the humblest pizza house thinks it's Patrick Guilbaud's.
12 Reasonably priced cars. The EU's promise of free trade rings hollow to Irish motorists who have to stump up a "registration tax" of up to 30 per cent on any cars they buy abroad. Free Competition. The EU also told us that competition in trade would force down prices. It hasn't happened. To take just one example, the ESB still retains a virtual monopoly on power generation despite laws opening up the area to others. (It's putting up its prices by 13 per cent.)
14. An Air Ambulance. We An no dedicated air ambulance for emergencies. And how would we cope with a terrorist emergency with the sort of planes available to our Air Corps?
15. Safer Streets. Time was when Irish people were afraid to walk the streets in New York; now it's the other way around.
16. Help For Troubled Kids.. here's a chronic shortage of secure places for children in trouble, either with the law or for other reasons. Some are sent to adult jails, others to B+Bs. The closure of Shanganagh Prison won't help.
17. More Judges. A shortage of judges has resulted in long delays in hearing murder and rape cases.
18. Fast Internet Access. We have virtually no broadband access to the Net, something that one in 12 Americans takes for granted. In the UK, it's only one in 60. Here? Around one in 2,500.
19. Better Weather. It seems that in this era of global warming we are indeed experiencing a radical climate change - but instead of swapping climates with Ibiza, we're swapping climates with the Himalayas in monsoon season.
20. Affordable Car Insurance. A recent report revealed that motor insurance companies here made up to 10 times the profit of their UK counterparts. They made E927 profit per policy on young female drivers, and even E186 on young male drivers. Yet premiums here remain sky-high.
21. A good soccer manager. We don't need to expand on this.
Sunday World
22/12/2002
We need a new government.
