All too often we men keep very quiet about troublesome health problems and feelings relating to stress or anxiety for fear of losing face, being labelled as ‘weak’ or of being accused of being unable to cope with the many difficult stresses and strains of life.

I am big enough to admit I have seen it myself and have probably been guilty of the very same thing over the years. As part of the male ‘herd’, I have gone along to umpteen football matches and social events and sat down afterwards in the inevitable post-mortem among the males in the pub or the club and talked for hours about possibly EVERYTHING else under the sun in this world EXCEPT our own men’s health issues. We can talk about Ronaldo or Mo Salah for hours and hours on end, text and slag each other on Facebook or Twitter for days, but just try and mention men’s prostate problems or the big ‘C’ – and listen to the silence.

Change is happening

I’m glad to report that in the last 18 months since I began a new job with Roscommon LEADER Partnership where I work with men’s groups and men’s shed members all over the county on a daily and weekly basis, I have seen the first signs that this historic weakness of our gender may well be changing.

In case you didn’t already know it, the ‘men’s shed’ is a worldwide, community-based project where men can come together on a regular basis to learn, share skills, have a laugh and make long-lasting friendships. The men’s shed movement was first founded down under in Australia in the 1980s, and has since expanded to other countries including Ireland, the UK, America, Canada, Iceland and Estonia, to name but a few.

In recent years we have all seen that Ireland has become one of the leading nations for men’s sheds, with this island having the most sheds per head of population. Currently, there are over 450 sheds in Ireland, with at least 10,000 men visiting a shed for a mug of tea or an activity once a week. Here in Roscommon we are lucky to have quite a few of them around the county. These include a brand new one just kicking into gear in Roscommon town at the moment – meeting every Friday morning at 11 am and on another weekday evening at their new meeting point in the Roscommon LEADER Partnership offices on the Lanesborough Road (the building formerly known as the HSE primary care centre).

Even though the men’s shed movement has a national structure, all sheds are independent and self-autonomous, and the range of activities carried out by sheds differs from one to the next. Many sheds engage in activities such as woodwork, metalwork, gardening, carpentry and community work, but there is really a blank canvas there for most involved. If they decide they want to go on a history tour or a day’s outing somewhere instead, they generally do that –  depending on what the members decide. In some parts of the country there are more ‘special interests’ sheds that focus on activities like music, fishing and restoration work too, so every need can be catered for. The new Roscommon group has one man with a keen interest in restoring old tractors, for instance, and also a great chess player who can teach you how to play. So, like I say, all interests can be catered for.

Movement grows

Having started in 2009, the Irish men’s sheds movement had its birth in Tipperary where the first shed was formed. Following the formation of the first shed, the movement began to grow rapidly. There are now over 400 sheds registered with the Irish Men’s Sheds Association, and at least 12,000 men visiting a shed every week. Following the formation of the Irish Men’s Sheds Association in 2011, the movement began to receive national recognition of their value to Irish society. In 2013, the Irish men’s sheds movement received recognition at the very highest level when President Michael D. Higgins became patron to the Irish Men’s Sheds Association.

The Association has also received governmental and European recognition of their contribution to Ireland. In 2018, the Association received the European Citizens’ Prize after being nominated by Irish MEPs. Most recently, the organisation was named as one of the twelve Sustainable Development Goals Champions by the Irish Government for 2019/2020.

I have had the pleasure of visiting some of the most successful sheds around the country in the last 12 months and I have to say that no matter where you go, it is hard to beat the efforts of the Ballaghaderreen group! The lads down there have a fantastic workshop on the ground floor of a building they did up (right in behind Durkin’s). On the first floor they have huge social space for a large TV, pool table, kitchen and much more. It really is a terrific set-up and a credit to them all.

New group in Roscommon

Here in Roscommon town, the men’s group is still in an early stage of their development and chairman Tom Harrison has steered them quietly out of the Covid pandemic into a place where up to ten members now meet on a weekly basis for a cup of tea, a chat and often something much more engaging. In the last 12 months this group has conducted day trips to a range of fascinating venues around the county – including Gerry Browne’s fantastic organic garden centre, the Drum Heritage Centre, the Roscommon Museum, the Lough Ree Access for all boat and the famine workhouse at the back of the Sacred Heart Hospital. The group has already shown they are not afraid of tackling the big issues such as mental health, and I strongly recommend them to you.

Guides such as Marie Gillooly, Marian Harlow and Gerry Browne have escorted the group along their journeys and I know they are now keen to welcome up to another ten members for the autumn and winter season of activities. If you would like to join the men’s group please contact Tom Harrison on 086 8278111 or email: roscommonmensgroup@gmail.com and they will come back to you with details of their meeting times.

The post Roscommon men confront the big issues in new group appeared first on Roscommon People.

I am not a deeply religious person by any means but for the last three decades I have been a personal friend of Fr John Cullen – a priest in the diocese of Elphin who was in charge of religious programming on Shannonside FM when I was Head of News there back in 1991.

John and I have from time to time enjoyed an open dialogue about the ways of the church and the actions of ‘his boss’ AKA God. We have debated the good, the bad and the ugly parts of the institution on a regular basis. I have to say he is a brilliant man to bat on the church’s behalf – making sense of many things I could never have previously understood or accepted.

I remember one particularly entertaining and emotive argument in this vein that I enjoyed having with John. It was about the actor, broadcaster and writer Stephen Fry after his appearance on the ‘Would You Believe’ TV show with the late Gay Byrne. Readers may remember that Fry had pointed to the callousness and unfairness of absolutely harrowing real-life events such as babies developing leukemia or dying with cancer tumours in their youth. In really strong and controversially outspoken language, he told Byrne he could never respect “a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world … so full of injustice”.

Public outcry

There was a bit of an outcry about what Fry had said  among those people of deep faith in this country. You may remember that one person even reported Mr Fry to the Gardai on grounds of alleged blasphemy and the Government subsequently changed a law in response to such occurrences. John and I continued the argument for many weeks as we had our own debate in a civil manner, by text and phone call, on how events of such a tragic and heartbreaking nature could ever be interpreted as acceptable in a church which was allegedly endorsing a life where individuals should portray love and respect for one another (and the aforementioned God).

Last week was another one of those similarly difficult moments for me and for some of the people around me. As we watched the funerals take place in Donegal our hearts sank to the point of despair as the relatives came forward to speak so passionately and so bravely – at the funerals – about the loved ones they had lost in such an indiscriminate manner.

I wasn’t actually speaking to John about the events in Donegal at all last week. Nowadays he is far from his old Roscommon duties. He is on a working sabbatical in a ministry with the poor and the homeless on the streets of London. Yet, as if by telepathy, he probably knew what was going through my head (and in the minds of a few more people). He decided to email me a copy of some deliberations he put together while speaking at an inter-faith prayer service in London last week.

I read it, and even though I still don’t agree with everything he says, I am big enough to admit that he has once again struck a chord that may well help and console people of faith in the aftermath of such horrific events as those we witnessed in Creeslough. So, with his permission, I am going to republish it here this week in my column in the People. I will leave it to each reader to interpret it as they wish.

‘A lament for Creeslough’

The sound of lament is heard throughout the Bible: cries of grief, distress, oppression, displacement, protest, pain, anguish and a timeless expression of the weeping voice of God, in whose image and likeness we are all made.

Creeslough is twinned with Calvary. Together we stand at this station of sorrow. We all feel the searing pain of this moment in our collective and individual lament. We all cry for the loss of life and for the loss of a future. Our lament expresses a painful paradox: that in the midst of life – we are in death.

In our time, the haunting sounds of lament are heard across our fractured world: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Thailand, Myanmar, Palestine, Nicaragua, the Uyghurs in China, the plight and danger endured by migrants in their search for a welcome and a home, and the victims of knife and gun crime across London…agus anois…An Criooslach… croíthe briste…

The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin solemnly read into the Irish House of Parliament (the Dáil), record, the ten names of those who died. We name them here –  believing God ‘calls each one us by name’ (Isaiah 43:1). A candle will be lit for each one of the names as they are called…Shauna Flanagan-Garwe, and her father, Robert Garwe, Leona Harper, Hugh Kelly, Jessica Gallagher, Martin McGill, James O’Flaherty, Martina Martin, Catherine O’Donnell and her son, James Monaghan.

It is in the prophecy of Jeremiah that we hear the lament of Rachel echoing down the centuries to our own day, as she weeps for her children: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15). The sound of lament is rooted in our ancient, biblical past. Rachel still grieves for all generations who have known loss, grief, suffering, death and bereavement.

I hear muffled laments in London: in the voices of those who queue for food, in the voices of homeless, in the voices of the elderly, in grieving parents who face the suicide of one of their children, in a young person who is trapped by cocaine or another addiction, in a marriage break-up, in those impacted by the financial crisis, in those who have to beg for food for their families and in that unique quality of silence in a palliative care hospice.

The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem is the subject of the Book of Lamentations. It was a catastrophic event for the people. It precipitated a tradition of lament that became part of the ritual of the people. It was a vocal expression of collective grief in response and in reaction to the dire loss and displacement that they felt and experienced.

The recent time of mourning for Queen Elizabeth  united Britain’s different faiths, traditions and cultures. People gathered to sign Condolence Books, bring flowers and messages, to stand in silence, prayer and long, overnight procession queues to lament and honour her memory and service with respect. It was a reminder that the ancient language of lament is still expressive and that it has not, as yet, become a lost language, in a society that tends to be so preoccupied and too busy to stop and face the reality of death.

As we lament in silence for Creeslough, we all share a Donegal accent that is now our universal mother tongue. But fluency is not a requirement for prayer or a biblical imperative as we mourn and lament the massive loss of ten precious lives. Jesus gives us a tip on how to pray – ‘do not heap up empty phrases when you are praying’ (Matthew 6:7).

Our authentic lament here at our inter-faith prayer service is grounded in the experiences of Irish people who have made London their home. I also welcome the people who have joined us from other faith traditions, nationalities and cultures. Your prayer and presence with us is appreciated. As we say in Irish…Céad Míle Fáilte.

Together, we believe that our lament for Creeslough is heard, held and healed by our God, ‘who is close to the broken hearted’ (Psalm 34:18). Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. (In the shelter of each other, people survive).

– John Cullen, October 2022

The post A lament for Creeslough: another test for our faith appeared first on Roscommon People.

The main point of that article was not just to highlight again some of the shocking circumstances that led to hundreds of deaths in this country during that terrible time, but to call on the authorities here to set out a plan to investigate what went right – and what went very wrong during our state’s entire handling of the virus. In particular, I felt we needed to look into the cirumstances relating to those deaths that occurred while people were in the care of the state and private nursing centres.

My thoughts at that stage were first and foremostly with the relatives of the people who died in the pandemic (and they still are today). I think, in a subsequent radio interview, I admitted to being on the verge of depression some of those weeks when  reporting on the multiples deaths night after night on the TV News. It was a groundhog day-type nightmare that nobody would ever want to experience, but at the end of the day I was just a third party in all of this. One must still remember that for the people who had lost a mother or a father, a grandad or a granny – often someone who had been in relatively good health when the whole nightmare began – this was heartbreak day after day, an episode that will undoubtedly go down as one of the darkest days we have ever seen in the history of this state.

Hospital admissions

I am thinking in particular of people like the woman from County Laois who rang me repeatedly about the fate of her father in those terrible times. This was a man who went into a nursing care centre with no major physical ailments before the pandemic began, but who subsequently contracted Covid and died there. This poor woman used to be on the verge of tears on the phone to me as she spoke of her family’s repeated efforts to get that relatively young man out of the home where he was staying and into an acute hospital where he could receive intensive care treatment for the virus. The begging and heartbreaking phone calls were made by the family day after day as their Dad’s condition deteriorated – yet the hospital authorities said they were unable to admit the man into their emergency department because he had contracted the virus. The fear was obviously that, if he was admitted, he would then spread it to dozens of other people who were not sick in that hospital at the time.

I wrote in that article 12 months ago that I felt very strongly that a full independent legal inquiry was the only way to deal with cases like this (and other concerns) when the pandemic was over. Rather than spend millions of euro on barristers and lawyers looking at thousands of specific cases, it might be better to go and look at the hospitals and units where the highest level of fatalities actually occurred, and try and learn from the mistakes that were made there and throughout the state. This was so that, if – God forbid – we ever encounter another worldwide pandemic of this nature, we might have learned something from this horrible experience which could perhaps help us to save lives the next time.

In this country, that appeal of mine for a public inquiry seems to have largely fallen on deaf ears. After some initial talk about a tribunal, I haven’t heard any mention of such a move in months. Yet three months ago, across on the other side of the Irish Sea, the then British Prime Minister – the much-maligned Boris Johnson – set out the terms of reference for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and appointed Baroness Heather Hallett as chair. She has now begun the process and is actually taking evidence in an inquiry that has already led to public consultation with over 20,000 people on what unfolded.

Cutting to the chase

In fairness to Baroness Hallet and our British neighbours, they seem to have cut to the chase and already got their priorities right as they set out on this fact-finding review of what happened. She said on day one that people who have suffered during the pandemic will be at the heart of the inquiry’s work and that the inquiry team is committed to listening to people’s experiences.

The chairperson has reinforced the strong position that the inquiry will be firmly independent and has already said publicly that she will not tolerate any attempt to mislead the inquiry, or to undermine its integrity or independence. If she encounters any such attempt she will make her views known in a public hearing and therefore publicly expose any third party bids by government or anyone else to try and twist the truth of what happened.

Interestingly, the British inquiry is not just going to focus on only the capital city or parliament area. The inquiry team has said they will travel around the UK to ensure they hear from as many people as possible, and Baroness Hallett has already told the BBC she is acutely aware that experiences were different in different care centres across the UK – as no doubt they would also have been here in Ireland – based on the number of fatalities one witnessed in each corner of the country.

Care centres

What I particularly like about the British inquiry is the clear focus they already have on where the key questions MUST be answered. The chairperson will have the discretion to explore issues in more depth as part of the inquiry’s scope. They have prioritised their investigation into the role of primary care settings such as general practice, the management of the pandemic in hospitals, including infection prevention and control, triage, critical care capacity, the discharge of patients, the controversial use of ‘Do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ (DNACPR) decisions, the approach to palliative care, workforce testing, changes to inspections, and the impact on staff and staffing levels.

All of these issues are absolutely critical here too and had an effect on the number of deaths in this country. I honestly believe that health care workers in all these areas will be the first group to come forward and put up their hand to testify about what happened so that they explain it from their unique point of view –   isolated and abandoned as they were behind the screens in care centres all over the country in those desperate days.

I believe it is absolutely essential that an Irish public inquiry MUST follow the lead of the UK model and examine the management of the pandemic in care homes and other care settings, including infection prevention and control, the transfer (and failure to transfer) of residents to or from homes, treatment and care of residents, restrictions on visiting, workforce testing and the controversial procurement and distribution of key equipment and supplies, including PPE and ventilators, and all those key areas where millions of euro were spent in a very short period.

It is still not too late for the state to stand up and admit that a public inquiry of this nature is badly needed. If this Government does not do it, I think the next one may well do so. It is the only way we will ever learn from what happened in this tragic era of our history.

The post It’s time for a public inquiry on the Covid-19 pandemic appeared first on Roscommon People.

Everybody knows that the housing crisis is the number one national issue after energy bills at the moment, but very few seem to have heard the news on Budget day that a new vacant homes tax is now on the way. This is a measure aimed at increasing the supply of residential properties around the country – and especially at a time when there are thousands of people on the waiting list for a home or living in temporary emergency accommodation.

The new regulation is relatively straightforward: the tax will apply to any residential properties which are occupied for less than 30 days in a 12-month period.  But it remains to be seen how many homes and owners it will affect, as even the Department of Finance estimates the new tax will raise just a measly €3 million to €4 million a year.

Burning issue

On the week of the Budget, I was asked to chair a discussion at the ploughing championships about this burning issues of empty houses around the country. I got an opportunity not only to get some proper up to date statistics about the situation as it stands around the country, but also to talk to some of the main players with a view to trying to find out what can be done about the situation.

In the first instance, it is important to point out and indeed emphasise that we are not talking about derelict houses here in this measure, or about houses that are just abandoned for years or have been only half-built.

Instead, we are looking at good quality houses with roofs and windows on them and in perfect living condition that, for any of a variety of reasons, are just lying idle. The whole objective of this new tax is to try and create more housing stock by encouraging people to put all these properties that are sitting vacant for most of the year into good use all year around by incentivising these property owners to either rent or sell these homes and make them contribute in some way to addressing the housing crisis. It’s really about maximising the use of existing housing stock. The new tax will be self-assessed and administered by the Revenue Commissioners.

When I read the brief given to me about the tax, I was intrigued firstly to find out just how many empty ‘good’ houses we have around the country and how the Revenue Commissioners will know which property is vacant and which is not. Apparently it all goes back to the census that was done earlier this year. It seems that even though they might not have noted down the owners of these homes, the census enumerator certainly did do a count on vacant houses – paying close attention to giveaway signs such as uncollected post in the letter box and (for example) gates simply left locked for days.

Census count

On the night of Census 2022 in April, these enumerators found that there were 166,752 vacant dwellings and 66,135 unoccupied holiday homes in the 26 counties – a staggering 35,000 of these in Dublin, where they are needed most. It’s an incredible number of empty beds when one thinks of the scale of the housing shortage in our country.

As a result of this finding, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien – himself under renewed pressure to do something about the national housing crisis – had already made it clear the week before the Budget that there was most certainly going to be a new and punitive measure brought in to tackle all these empty homes. When it landed on Budget day, we all learned the tax would be charged at a rate that is three times the local property tax already applying to each home. That means in effect that if you own a second home valued at €300,000 that is occupied for less than 30 days a year, you would have to pay the annual €315 local property tax on it, with an additional tax of €945 a year on top of that, or three times the annual tax you would normally be paying on this property. All of this would mean in effect that your new annual bill for that property would now go up to €1,260 a year (for both the new tax and the old one).

At our discussion on the new tax at the ploughing, some people suggested to me that it would not be easy to work out for sure and certain whether a house was really vacant or was actually not legally available to be rented. For instance, in the case of the death of a person when the house of the deceased would normally remain empty for months, it could well be justifiably claimed that sorting out the probate matters and the will could take well over a year or two years in some cases before the new ownership could be sorted out and the house actually rented or sold by a new owner. However, the Minister and his Department say that even though the tax is aimed at long-term vacant properties that are unoccupied for 12 months or more, there are a number of exemptions.

Minister O’Brien is adamant that exemptions will apply to ensure owners are not unfairly charged where the property may be vacant for a genuine reason. It seems to me that a letter from a solicitor handling a probate would probably suffice to explain quite a few cases. Tax will not be applied either to properties that are recently sold or listed for sale or rent, properties that are vacant due to its occupier’s illness or long-term care, or to properties that are vacant due to significant refurbishment work. Therefore it seems to me that these exemptions would also probably take several thousand more houses and owners out of the new tax net.

Holiday homes

Another question raised at the public debate I chaired was the thorny issue of holiday homes lying idle around the country in places like Rosses Point, Kilkee and Ballybunion. Thousands of these buildings are unused quite a lot and it seems now that at least some of them might actually be eligible for the extra tax – depending on how often they are occupied/used.

For instance, anyone just using their holiday home for only a few weeks every summer would be in trouble (i.e. eligible to pay the tax) as it could be claimed that house could in fact be rented to a needy or homeless family for the rest of the year, but because it is more than likely that the vast majority of holiday homes are occupied for at least five or six months of the year, I can’t see how too many more of these seaside properties will actually fall into the tax net.

The reaction to the new measure has been a quiet one. There’s been a fairly muted response about the actual merits of the new scheme from those in the ‘housing for the homeless’ sector, with few of the main players getting too excited about the new tax. Pat Doyle, chief executive of the Peter McVerry Trust, was quoted last week as saying the new tax had “the potential to increase the availability of all forms of housing” but it’s clear that the actual regulation of the new tax and its enforcement probably holds the key to whether or not it will actually make a difference.

We will have to wait and see if it actually frees up these vacant homes or the holiday ones on our coasts – and that may well take a year or more to clearly determine.

The post Will the new vacant housing tax really change the fate of the homeless? appeared first on Roscommon People.

  The departure of Boris Johnson from Downing Street, the relatively sudden death of the Queen, and the arrival of what was loosely described initially as a ‘mini-budget’ in the UK, made for some of the choppiest waters that the markets have ever seen. This, of course, has led to equally serious implications for our own economy here, which relies so heavily on what happens in London and elsewhere.

  My old secondary school economics teacher used to proclaim that “if Britain sneezes, then Ireland comes down with pneumonia”. That has proven to be the case over the last two weeks with fears over export costs, the collapse of Irish-based business in the UK, and general unease about the ability of the British to repay some of the massive debt that they are building up with a series of tax breaks and tax cuts for not just the lower paid but, bizarrely, for some of the best-known millionaires in the Union too.

Energy crisis

Here in Ireland, the coalition government produced their own array of measures to try and deal with what has become an energy crisis for most families in the last few months by introducing fairly widespread changes in the 2023 Budget on Tuesday, dishing out cash and incentives in several directions – with mixed  views on how effective it’s all going to be. 

  The electricity bill chaos was the big one that had to be attacked and the finance minister’s first attempt to calm things down was to try and effectively subsidise everyone’s bills. You don’t have to go too far in Roscommon or any other county to meet somebody who has been severely affected by the staggering spike in electricity charges.

  Stories of customer bills going up by thousands of euro in the space of just one month are everywhere. We all read the incredible details of how Annie & Vincent Timothy in Roscommon town saw the family supermarket electricity bill go from just over 6000 euro to an incredible high of over 20,000 euro in a very short period of time. I know of dozens of people in business who are literally not sleeping at the moment in the fear of what is going to be on the bottom line of the electricity bill the next time it pops through the letter box or drops into the inbox.

  The Government response on Tuesday was to pledge that businesses will receive up to €10,000 a month to assist with energy bills and that every household will get €600 in electricity credits in three payments over the coming months. 

To cap or not

The reaction on Tuesday night was fairly muted for the most part. For most people, the thought that there would at least be some sort of a hand-out or an effort to give them a leg-up with paying a big bill every month over the winter period was at least reassuring. But since then, there’s also been a feeling much broader in the community that what is required is not a month by month approach to the energy bills crisis, but some sort of a cap that could be put on the final electricity or gas bill account next April or May when most people know they can hopefully turn off the heating again and relax for a few months over the summer without the fear of a whopper of an ESB bill coming in.

  There is no energy price cap as it stands in Ireland. In the UK, however, the energy regulator Ofgem introduced an energy price cap in 2019 to help protect households from excessively high prices and to ensure people who didn’t switch supplier regularly weren’t charged an excessive ‘loyalty premium’. The cap used to be reviewed twice a year (but was then scheduled to be reviewed every three months) and was set to increase by 80% to £3,549 from 1 October following the most recent review – but the new UK price cap, introduced this week, puts a limit on the unit price of gas and electricity.

  On average, it is reckoned that the price increases announced so far here in Ireland have added around €2,200 a year to the average household’s energy bills, so most want to know if this figure can effectively be capped now by the Government – instructing the energy companies to hold the overall cost below 3000 euro or 4000 euro by the end of the winter.

  The problem for us is that we don’t have the control on the energy providers who are charging the customers here. Ireland is a huge importer of coal, oil, and gas and we have very few natural energy resources of our own – apart from the controversial Corrib gas field off Mayo. That effectively means that we have no major power to cap the price of these fossil fuels as we’re buying them from other countries.

  So if we really want to cap prices, someone (i.e. the taxpayer) would have to pay for the difference between the wholesale or market price of the fuel that we buy and the cap that’s been set. 

  All of this brings us back to the UK economic crisis and the decision by the new PM Liz Truss to borrow a staggering £100bn over just one year to cover the cost of capping the energy prices over there. The huge level of borrowing has led some analysts to forecast a collapse in the value of sterling over the coming months, which in turn would make imports such as food and clothes more expensive for British consumers. We saw evidence of this only this week with the instability in the markets. If something similar were to be implemented here, economists say it could cost up to €10bn over one year and would have left the Government with no room for any other type of social welfare measures, public pay increases or tax cuts, such as we saw in the Budget this week.

Other options

There could, of course, be other ways of approaching this issue. In Ireland, we know from recent publication of annual accounts that the ESB is not a loss-making operation. Readers will remember I argued in a column here last February that the Government should ask them to take the hit with the price of oil and coal going up, etc. It seems somebody may have been listening to me after all as there was a lot of this going on in the last few weeks with the increased government dividend from the ESB’s accounts apparently going to pay for some of the measures we saw in the Budget this week.

  The bottom line, however, is that hefty electricity and energy bills are on the way to every home and business in the country next month – and while the government subsidy in the Budget will help to take the sting out of it in some places, there are others who will not be able to pay the bills. That doomsday scenario is going to be a reality for many people – which is why there really is a need to revisit this situation on a month by month basis in the coming months. 

  People who are vulnerable cannot be left alone to suffer. They must be carefully monitored and supported this winter.

The post Did the Budget go far enough on energy bills? appeared first on Roscommon People.

“You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits”

The brave and inspiring words of the record-breaking Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps opening our column this week after seven days when the true value and importance of sport in our lives was underlined with a very special and emotional event for the small community of Ballyleague and Lanesborough and the surrounding areas.

It happened on Saturday afternoon. There were no Olympians present (that I am aware of) at the official opening of the new 3G soccer pitch and playing grounds at Lanesborough Community College out by the Shannonside town, but there certainly were hundreds of young boys and girls there on the playing fields with the ambition for greatness and the will to win. I suppose that’s what Phelps was really talking about when he spoke those memorable words after the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The American superstar won a staggering 28 Olympic medals in his career, to make him the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time. 23 of those Olympic medals were gold ones. When he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps broke fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz’s famous 1972 record of seven first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. He was just awesome – yet, like so many other great sporting heroes of his generation, it had not been a bed of roses all along the way to glory. His parents divorced in 1994 when Phelps was just nine years old. He went through a very tough time at home and the American swimmer later revealed that the divorce had a heavy and severely negative impact on him and his siblings. Yet, he continued his swimming training throughout the whole trauma and finally mastered his sport – to become a man who was, undoubtedly, the greatest of all time in the swimming pool.

The atmosphere at Ballyboro FC on Saturday afternoon was probably a million miles away from that of an Olympic stadium in Beijing or London, yet I doubt if anyone who was there in the sunshine would accept that it was not just as important an arena to be in on the day. Saturday saw the amateur youth soccer club finally open its fantastic new facilities at the athletic track behind the community college on the Ballymahon road.

Four years

This is a development project that has been four years in the making. A meeting of parents away back in the late summer of 2018 kick-started a plan to upgrade the local soccer facilities and produce an all-weather pitch for the long winter season. A hugely dedicated group of 14 local volunteers took on the task. EU LEADER funding of over €175,000 was drawn down and the local school principal worked diligently with the committee to try and help raise the remaining €60,000 that was needed to pay for the new facility.

Bernice Martin was no ordinary school principal. Her first day at Lanesboro Community College entailed setting a blistering pace at the annual school walk. It was evident from the outset that this lady was a force of nature – that’s according to Hazel Hannon, who today holds the principal’s role at the school.

Hazel says Bernice was a proud principal who  endeavoured at every step to ensure that the student’s experience of excellence in education was to the fore. This included the co-curricular and extracurricular domains including the classroom, sporting field, music, science and the arts, to name but a few. She also worked tirelessly with Ballyboro Football Club and LWETB (Longford Westmeath Educational Training Board) to bring the dream of an all-weather astroturf pitch to fruition.

Led from front

Bernice led from the front throughout the campaign to raise the funds and get the new soccer pitches put into place, helping the Ballyboro club to achieve an effective operational licence for a 15-year period with LWETB – and then going on to roll up her own sleeves in fundraising and starring in the big ‘Oskar’ Night film production as Kitty Kiernan in the Michael Collins film. I know from first-hand experience that Bernice never let the club down at any point and the brilliant new facilities that are in place today are a direct result of her support.

Regrettably, the young principal was not with us on Saturday last to celebrate that achievement. Her husband Eric and her young family lost Bernice from this life through illness and the Ballyboro club and school community was heartbroken in February 2021 to hear of her passing.

“Words cannot adequately describe the scale of the personal contribution made by this fantastic lady to achieving this dream for our club, her school and the community” the Ballyboro FC chairman John Tynan says. “Bernice, we will never forget what you did for us all here in Lanesborough. We will remember your contribution today at our official opening with the unveiling of a special memorial bench with your name. We will remember Bernice again every time we come to the pitch and use this bench, and her legacy here will never be forgotten. Rest in peace, Bernice”.

The greatest blow of all from her tragic passing was obviously felt by Bernice’s family and it was poignant and heartwarming to see her husband Eric, her children Ella, Ava and Conor, her parents Hugh and Bridget, sisters Gloria and Edel and brother Hughie with their families all there on Saturday to unveil that special memorial seat in her honour. Eric’s family was also by his side to mark the occasion. Lanesborough Community College has also marked her contribution to the school and the community with the most lasting legacy – called the Bláthu award, presented annually during the school annual awards ceremony. This award acknowledges an individual student’s journey and flourishing. Before her death, Bernice had asked that the school might continue to keep her vision alive – and that’s why they had a memorial sculpture crafted from bog oak by the school’s woodwork department and presented to the award winner every year to acknowledge another student inspired by Bernice’s vision of all students blossoming into fine young adults.

Blossoming

It is well known that Bernice assisted many students to find their way when times might have been tough, giving new direction and a sense of hope despite her brief tenure as principal. Her colleagues at the school say Bernice often spoke on the concept of students blossoming, like the way a flower will thrive if the conditions are right. She dedicated her time and energy in trying to bring out the best in every student. It has been remarked that in good times and bad, you could always count on Bernice to be supportive, helping students to achieve their full potential.

Saturday’s ceremony at the official opening was hugely poignant and emotional for all the members of the Martin and Treacy families, and for the entire community too. But it was also important to mark Bernice’s extraordinary contribution to the soccer club, the school and its pupils.

At the graveside where she is interred at Scramogue cemetery, the ultimate tribute remains in stone:

“Always remember, you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think”

Rest in peace, Bernice.

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Florence Nightingale would be up there near the top of the list, no doubt about it. Coming to Britain in 1856, she championed sanitary health in the community – and confirmed her status as a hero over the next 50 years of her life, establishing the career of nursing as a deeply respected profession for the first time. Florence with the lamp is still a childhood memory from my early reading days.

Marie Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, to give her her full and correct name, was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity and will be remembered for her groundbreaking discovery of radium and polonium, and for her huge contribution to finding treatments for cancer – undoubtedly saving the lives of millions of people – far ahead of her time. She’s well up the list too.

Malala’s charisma

I was fortunate enough to once meet Malala Yousafzai, a brave young Pakistani activist for female education and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.  The world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate, she campaigned passionately for human rights advocacy, especially the education of women and children in her native Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the Pakistani Taliban have at times banned girls from attending school and used violence to rule over that gender.

I met Malala at the presentation of the International Peace Awards in County Tipperary and her charismatic effect on her audience has stayed with me ever since. All of which brings me to the number one woman on my list, the Irish lady who holds that honour – not for her international achievements or her groundbreaking discoveries – but for her wonderful sense of duty and civic responsibility, and all revealed to the world only after she hit the ripe old age of 100!

Nancy at 107

Nancy Stewart was born on 16 October 1913 and had experienced both the Spanish Flu (1918-1920) and the coronavirus pandemic when I met her at her home on the Meath/Westmeath border a while back. It was the occasion of her 107th birthday. Nancy’s family had gathered in big numbers and in great spirits to celebrate her birthday and hear her positive message of hope, which she recorded with the assistance of her granddaughter, Louise.

“Imagine turning 107 in a world pandemic,” Nancy said to me that day, “this definitely is something very unusual, even for me and all I have been through. I live in Clonard in County Meath and have lived in my home for over 83 years. I write to you today to send you my love and to offer you my prayers. We are in a very difficult time at the moment in our country, in our lives and in our world. But I reach out to you in this letter to offer you hope, faith and belief that everything will be okay in the end”.

A year earlier I had been in the same house just off the old Kinnegad to Enfield road at Clonard. On that memorable day Nancy had been in equally buoyant mood in the midst of her family, as the then 106-year-old called on the Government of the day to get the finger out and provide proper homes for the homeless, as well as the poor and needy in society.

Campaigner

The great thing about meeting Nancy was that she was always so seriously conscientious with her message. At the 106th birthday celebration we chatted about so many things that had happened in Irish history down through all her days. Here she was in a frail but healthy state and still saving her pension money to try to support those suffering from poverty in Ireland and abroad.

I recorded an interview with her that day for RTE TV and radio and it got one of the largest responses I ever received over a career in broadcasting lasting well beyond 25 years. Looking into the camera, with a wicked sense of urgency in her voice, Nancy said the Minister for Housing needed to provide homes at an affordable rate for the many people around the country who have no home of their own and were staying in hotels and other such accommodation.

Hale and hearty at the age of 106, Nancy talked with great gusto about the true feeling of safety and security that only comes to any family with the peace and comfort of knowing there’s a roof over your head for you and your family at the end of every day – especially in the Irish winter. She sat there doing the interview in the house where she had lived for more than 80 years as if to emphasise this point and spoke with great determination and enthusiasm about her mission – making very little of the fact that day that she herself had just broken her hip the previous December. She had since made a full recovery at 106 years of age and was able to stand up and blow out the candles at the celebration.

Nancy always spoke candidly when we did our interviews. She once said to me that the secret to her long life and success had been her abstinence from alcohol and cigarettes, but principally her good humour.

“Not fighting with anybody is good for your health,” she told me, adding that she has little time for telephones and gadgets and walked and cycled most of her life. Nancy also spoke with great clarity about the arrival of the ‘black and tans’ at her home when she was a young child. She described to me how her mother had sent herself and her siblings well down into the garden at the back of the house for safety and shelter when the unwanted guests came into sight. They had all hidden there and watched with a sense of great fear and anxiety as the man from the unit came through the garden gate and asked for a drink in the home. A few moments later, he was given a jug of milk and bade her farewell but you could tell it had been an uneasy few minutes for the children, locked away down the garden, as they waited to see their own mother’s fate at the hands of these notoriously violent visitors.

Nancy had no great wealth or riches – no palace, no staff and certainly no grandeur about her – just like many of the other great ladies of the last 100 years. She said she suffered like everybody else from corporal punishment at school, but the parents of a fellow school pupil had put that to an end by threatening the teacher who was doing it. There was a sense of great pride and courage in her voice as she recalled how they dealt with that challenge from a bully – and survived the ordeal by reacting in the only way one ought to do when dealing with a bully – and that’s to confront that person head on.

Nancy lived with her husband and her family at their modest little home in Clonard for over 70 years. Up to a very short time before her death (a year ago this month) she still lived in the house with her niece Louise Coughlan, who always described her as the greatest granny in the world.

Louise adored her granny and, in fact, I often slagged her that she had become Nancy’s media agent – welcoming the TV and radio stations of the world into the house alongside the print and electronic media for endless interviews and chats. The best part of all that was the fact that Nancy clearly enjoyed every moment of it.

Right until the very end, Nancy held onto her great dignity and her pride. She was a wonderful lady – a great person and a tremendous mother and grandmother. She will be fondly missed.

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It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say he had a cult following, but ‘Scobie’, the sweet-talking, romancing man about town (and brother of Shamie) was a hugely popular character even from the very first episode of the drama. The role very much set up actor Garrett Lombard for further success in his career. Some said it was mostly down to the on-screen smirking and ‘country boy’ chat-up lines from his wonderful performances as ‘Scobie’ as he wandered from one pub to another in search of alcohol, romance and more in the towns of Banagher, Shannonbridge and Birr. For many others viewers, there was a very definite sign in the series of what was once described to me by a writer as the ‘mirror, mirror on the wall’ effect – a sense in the feedback from the TV and stage audiences that those who loved it had actually recognised somebody or some very familiar thing in the part and the role played by the actor that they actually personally witnessed previously in their own family life or small community.

“There’s a Scobie in every town” the same writer said to me, “and that’s why we all can identify with the role and the very complicated plots it can lead on to. That’s why we love it!”

Moment in time

Garrett Lombard was not the only star of the TV show. Charlene McKenna played the part of the troubled young woman called Jen who also returned to her home town in ‘Pure Mule’ and proceeded into a series of questionable life choices. Her portrayal of mental health issues and other internal struggles also struck a chord with the audience and won her many fans.

The TV series went off our screens back in 2006 but has re-emerged in the form of many repeats over the course of the last 16 years – most recently during the Covid-19 pandemic when it got another run in front of a new and young audience which perhaps knew very little about the Celtic Tiger period in which it was set, the behind the scenes action of small town Ireland at that time, or the mix of emotions that it brought on. The word ‘zeitgeist’ has been used to describe the effects of the series – a moment in time captured so well in a screen production for ever more. It is true that ‘Pure Mule’ did just that – capturing an amazing time of boom and blow-out in Irish life during that swelling Irish construction sector expansion.

The man who wrote the screenplay for ‘Pure Mule’ was Eugene O’Brien – a midlands-based writer who previously brought part of the same backdrop and plots to the stage in his successful play ‘Eden’ (based in Edenderry). I am delighted to say that over the summer holidays I had the pleasure of reading O’Brien’s latest written work – a new novel (his very first) entitled ‘Going Back’. It will be published by Gill Books at the end of this month.

The update

The great thing about ‘Going Back’ is that for ‘Pure Mule’ fans like me, this is actually the updated version of what happened to ‘Scobie’ and some of the other great characters from the TV series in the last 15 years or so. The blurb that came with the book really whetted the appetite too and captured every single memory I had from that moment in time – telling us that “Scobie Donoghue was once the king of Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, famous for the craic and the drink. His twenties were spent working on building sites during the Celtic Tiger, making good money and spending it on wild weekends. A lovable rogue, the lads wanted to be him and the girls wanted to be with him.  But now, returning from Australia after the breakdown of his relationship, Scobie is back in the single bed of his childhood home. About to turn forty, burnt out and depressed, he quickly discovers that life in the small midlands town he thought he had left behind has moved on – but has Scobie?”

With a preview teaser like that, this was one reader who couldn’t wait to get stuck into O’Brien’s new book. You know the feeling yourself with a good new novel. You try out the first couple of chapters to see if it’s really going to be the style of writing that made you like the TV drama, and if it’s really the content you had expected. Then, when it delivers, you’re hooked, reading every page at a frantic pace and turning them over in a bit of a panic to see what really happened next.

Changed life

I have to say I loved ‘Going Back’ with Scobie – the prodigal son of the midlands – returning from Oz after probably the first really serious relationship of his life, the trauma of a miscarriage there for his partner, and then the reality of coming home to a very changed landscape in the midlands. I also loved the way the Covid pandemic was written into the book and the manner in which the writer summed up the desperate choices and scenarios that faced people in remote and rural Ireland during the lockdown and the rather shocking experience of mental health issues, gambling and drug addiction that was portrayed in the book in several chapters and which actually, truth be told, scared the living daylights out of me – such was its ferocity in some parts.

I also loved the way ‘Pure Mule’ scenes were practically updated and modernised in some of the chapters and I loved the same coarse and rural dialect evident there – portraying the reality of a less than glamorous new life for ‘Scobie’ as time moved on. Also admirable is the way O’Brien twisted the plot with new villains and heroes. It all made for a thoroughly thought-provoking read, desperately sad and funny in parts and one that I can wholeheartedly recommend to our readers.

I won’t spoil it for you here by describing the ending, but ‘Going Back’ has a superb climax – with a conclusion that is perhaps a bit predictable but is at least a contented one and one that will certainly please most of Scobie’s biggest fans.

‘Going Back’ will be published by Gill Books on Thursday, September 29th, 2022, priced at €16.99.

*Footnote: I’m sure some people will want to know the origin of the ‘Pure Mule’ title from the TV series. They tell me that in ‘Offaly dialect’ it’s a phrase either to be used to describe what has been a really good experience – or just a really lousy one! Either interpretation works!

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The bank started the process of writing to its 900,000 current and deposit account customers in what we were told was a very orderly and controlled fashion away back in the spring. The aim was to try and give the punters six months’ notice to move their accounts to another institution where required – or to close them altogether. When the first letter came through the letter box, I distinctly remember wondering (complete with a bit of a jaundiced eye) if this phased plan would really be so smooth.

Ulster Bank had warned us at the end of last year that it was getting out of its operations here, adding that there was plenty to wind down. It immediately started selling €7.6 billion of assets, including performing non-tracker mortgages, performing small and medium business loans, its sizeable asset finance business, and no less than 25 branches to Permanent TSB at that point. Later they told us that AIB was also going to be one of the new owners by buying €4.2 billion in performing corporate and commercial loans from it. By general agreement, there was an awful lot of work to be done.

Current accounts

What was left out of the deal at that point, however, were the 900,000 current and deposit accounts which Ulster Bank had on its books for decades and for the weary Joe Soap in that category the job of finding a new home for the debit card began. It was estimated that those current account holders, including 360,000 primary active personal accounts and 300,000 deposit accounts, would either have to move them to a new institution or close them altogether – and that’s where the real fun began.

The PR offensive was very strong at the beginning. Ulster Bank said that its branches would remain open during the process to assist customers who need in-branch support and, despite fears from the regulators and unions that the banking system was not fully prepared for the mass switching process by Ulster Bank and KBC Bank Ireland customers, we, the public, were told it was all systems go.

The problem was of course the complicated nature of all of our current accounts nowadays and in particular the need for us customers to tell utility providers, employers and others who use weekly and monthly direct debits, standing orders and make salary payments into accounts of our new banking details – if and when we get them set up.

Paperwork nightmare

Anybody who has recently tried to set up a new account in a bank or a credit union will not need me to tell you just how complicated a process this has become. The anti-money-laundering legislation has pushed us all to the pin of our collar at this stage. The need to gather a paper file of bills and ID documents and haul them into the bank is usually the first step for most setting up a new account. Even that process, which should be straightforward, is often fraught with difficulty and some stress.

What happens for instance if you, the new account holder, just don’t have the electricity bill or the phone bill in your name anymore? It is often the case in lots of households that different spouses take on these tasks at different times of the year and indeed change accounts regularly into their own name from year to year. The move to online accounts has also meant that some people don’t even possess a paper bill in the kitchen cabinet anymore and rely instead on the laptop view every week. But it’s been the request for even more personal information from new account holders that has also been deeply frustrating and time-consuming.

I am aware of cases this year where personal credit reports from the Central Bank have been asked for by some of the organisations opening new accounts and trying to administer relatively small loan projects. In some cases historic evidence of income from social welfare has been requested. I am not sure if you have applied for your own credit report from the Central Bank in recent times but it can also be a tortuous process. Patience is also certainly needed for anyone brave enough to take it on.

Staff shortage

The problem with all of this is the scale of the task that Ulster Bank had to take on in a relatively short time. There were over a million people in Ireland who were with KBC or Ulster Bank and many of these have since then faced major delays in switching their accounts.

There were also issues on the ground. By the end of April it was claimed that, due to a shortage of staff in some banks, those trying to schedule in-person 1:1 appointments to get their affairs in order ahead of the big shutdown in a face to face fashion were having to wait weeks and weeks on end to be seen because of staff shortages.

According to the Irish Independent, some people who are trying to open with a new bank were really going through the mill after being temporarily blocked from a number of new services they needed. These included the very basic one of opening a credit card account and getting an overdraft facility – two of the bare essentials that were at the top of the agenda for most.

The harsh reality in all of this is that in all corners of life some of us are better than others in dealing with paperwork. I know some members of my own family who have neither the interest nor the inclination to open a laptop to sign up for anything online, preferring instead to head to the post office with their trusty documents under their arm. This has been probably the most difficult part of the Ulster Bank closure process for hundreds of people.

The ordeal of having to even go into the bank scares many people and can bring them out in a ball of sweat at the best of times. To have to gather almost every important document of your life and head down the road of detailed administration to get the account closed or transferred has freaked out many people – of a certain age especially – and I know some are still putting it off as we enter September.

The Ulster Bank staff around the country have been flat out trying to deal with all this paperwork, and I know they have tried their best to resolve issues. Still, the banking unions are adamant there was a better way of doing this – a more ‘human’ 1:1 approach from head office that could have taken the stress out of it all. A better role for the Banking Ombudsman’s office in the whole process would also surely have been a better idea. Maybe it’s still not too late to try it?

The post Why Ulster Bank’s long(ish) goodbye is stressing out so many people appeared first on Roscommon People.

History has certainly provided us with an outstanding legacy for the career of the man who died so young at Béal na Bláth in 1922, but while his ambition and ability shaped that strong reputation, it was his achievements in the role as the most unlikely finance minister in the history of the State that really showed Collins to be an administrator par excellence.

At 29 years of age, Collins was the youngest member in an Irish Cabinet where the average age was 44 – yet he discharged his duties with considerable ease, great courage, incomparable efficiency and inspired purpose during the Anglo-Irish and civil wars and the almighty challenges that came his way. Such achievements by a man so young should never be underestimated.

National Loan Scheme

Historians tell us today that his greatest achievement in finance was the successful organisation of the first national loan scheme. The state records tell us that two million promotional leaflets and 500,000 copies of a shiny new prospectus to help set up the secretariat for the new government were printed and distributed. More than 50,000 letters were sent to high-net-worth individuals seeking loans. Full-page newspaper advertisements were costed, and €30,000 in today’s money was apparently spent on a new promotional film – even in those days this was exceptionally far-thinking stuff.

The scheme was a success. By June 1919, the secretariat of the Dáil had seven new employees, and each of the new government departments were recruiting their own staff. Funding had to be sourced for new overseas diplomats, the planned judicial system, and for other government programmes. It was while reading about this innovative action recently that I began to think of the irony of it all as, one hundred years on from Collins’ death, this country faces financial challenges over and about loans of a different sort in considerable scale heading into the autumn and winter of 2022.

Struggling

In the last four weeks we have read in new surveys and polls that nearly eight out of 10 Irish people are struggling to pay monthly household bills like gas and electricity. Some are apparently already getting loans from credit unions to help out. I was simply astonished to read that in a poll of just over 2000 people recently, 70% of those polled thought they would be using hot water bottles to stay warm at night this winter because they won’t be able to afford to turn on their heating in the coming months. Even though one might feel the sample for this survey was quite small, I think at this stage there is considerable evidence around the whole country to support the finding that more than half of respondents in the same nationwide survey are under pressure over monthly mortgage payments.

A couple of weeks ago I, like the rest of the country, listened with some feelings of deep unease when Taoiseach Micheál Martin warned people to brace themselves for further increases in their energy bills. Mr Martin says that the upcoming Budget will help working families to try and cope with the price hikes.  There has been considerable media leaking of some of the measures set to be proposed, but for all of the promises of assistance, I think many people are already feeling extreme pressure and trepidation as they try to work out where they are going to get the extra cash for the ESB bill, the supermarket trolley-load, or deal with the steep costs associated with sending a child back to school this September – whether at primary, post-primary or third level. For those with multiple children still attending school and trying to pay for accommodation in cities where the prices have already been hiked, it’s an even more treacherous time – and more loans are most definitely on the cards as people prepare to try and deal with such rising costs.

The impact the rising cost of living is having on families right across Ireland is now actually scary. I see evidence each day that prices are still going up at an alarming rate in key areas. The reason for it all is now very much open to several different interpretations. There can be no doubt that the unprecedented war in Ukraine has made heating our homes, buying some foods, and filling up our cars with fuel more and more expensive. Even though there has been some reduction in fuel prices in recent weeks, there is no guarantee that this will not change again.

Even after the first round of efforts to help people who are experiencing these financial difficulties, I am not sure if anyone really feels a significant difference.

Price gouging

It is true to say there has been price-cutting of the cost of public transport, reduction of excise duties and VAT on fuel, but there are lots of examples of areas where prices seem to have been raised again just as quickly. In recent times there has been significant evidence of price gouging in key areas as some unscrupulous traders abroad and closer to home moved in and made a killing on the back of poor people by sticking the price up again and taking back for themselves the extra margin that was supposed to be saved.

One can only speculate on what the great Michael Collins would have had to say about such occurrences or the mess we are in at the moment, but I think most would expect him to have been outraged too. The next Budget is now confronted by severe challenges in its design as it will not only need to be a cost of living Budget, which will focus on areas where people most need help, but also prove that it can adapt and give ongoing supports to people who are in extreme difficulty in trying to pay their bills.

Unless this Budget deals firmly with reducing costs in the area of childcare – by helping out working parents – or deals emphatically with cost increases in areas such as public transport and healthcare, there will really be a crisis coming down the line in the autumn. Nobody should doubt that.

Hopefully, those in authority might learn more from the greatness of Michael Collins in that finance portfolio. Some of our finest historians say Collins’ personal organisation skills were exceptional, allowing him to hold four major positions simultaneously, prompting him to impose order and clarity on a world of deep disorder and confusion.

It’s at times like this that we really need these skills back again!

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