Straight Talking with Seamus Duke

Fr Donal and the Gravy Train

I was glad that to hear Fr Donal Morris (who is now based in Boyle) on RTE Radio airing his displeasure on the question of political pensions and the gravy train which continues to roll on earlier this week.

  I have been complaining about this for over five years here in this column so I am glad to see that I have at least a few allies now and then! 

  There are many people (myself included) who do not have a pension of any description. What little there was in the pot

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Fr Donal and the Gravy Train

I was glad that to hear Fr Donal Morris (who is now based in Boyle) on RTE Radio airing his displeasure on the question of political pensions and the gravy train which continues to roll on earlier this week.

  I have been complaining about this for over five years here in this column so I am glad to see that I have at least a few allies now and then! 

  There are many people (myself included) who do not have a pension of any description. What little there was in the pot disappeared during the crash so it is interesting to hear people discussing massive pensions in Aer Lingus, the public service, for politicians and for the bankers. 

  I read today where Michael Noonan has admitted that the pension pot of former AIB bank chief Eugene Sheehy will cost in the region of €10.3 million.

  For one man! Paid for by the taxpayer too. Pensions of over €100,000 per year should be taxed at a rate of 75% – at least.

  Michael Noonan says that he cannot touch these pensions legally. That’s a load of codswallop and a total cop-out.

  How can the government reduce childrens allowances, social welfare payments, home help hours and increase taxes on PAYE workers, and yet he cannot touch the pensions of the fat cats? The facts are that the political will is not there.

  If the government really wanted to they would act immediately on this scandal. 

  Remember too that the very people that we want to act on this matter will themselves receive massive pensions. ‘Turkeys’, ‘Christmas’ and ‘voting’ are three words that come into, it I fear.

Docile Irish

On Wednesday of this week there were work stoppages in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, the UK, Holland, Belgium and France in protest at continuing austerity measures being pursued by EU governments. 

  Here in Ireland we have just endured the most expensive bank bail-out in the history of the world and today’s (Wednesday’s) Irish Independent says that the budget will cost every PAYE worker €3,500 extra in 2013, and the most severe budget is the history of the state is on the way on the first week in December. There were no work stoppages in Ireland – can anyone explain to me why there are none, or what’s wrong with us here?

Referendum apathy

The low turnout in last Saturday’s children’s referendum was down to a number of factors. Firstly there was almost total political consensus on a Yes vote, hence there was little or no debate locally or nationally. The government campaign was lacklustre and they took the very tiny No side for granted, which was almost a fatal mistake. I believe that if the vote was a week later the proposal might not have passed at all. 

  The Supreme Court judgement last Thursday, which found that the government were illegally using public money to promote a Yes vote, put a lot of people off voting. Many remarked to me that regardless of the outcome it was likely that the result would be challenged in the courts. That remains to be seen.  I certainly hope that the government do not use the disastrous turnout figures to delay the holding of other referenda on the issue of disbanding the Seanad or in respect of other issues on which commitments have been given.   As an aside, it is interesting to note that over 800,000 people watched The X-Factor on Saturday night which was over 200,000 people more then voted Yes in the Childrens Rights Referendum earlier in the day. I wonder what does that say about our society?

Crisis at the BBC

Every single institution that we are brought up to believe in and respect when we were young has let us down. The Church, the politicians, the banks, big business, sports stars like Lance Armstrong and several athletes who cheated their was to glory have all made us very disillusioned in one way or other. 

  Even RTE had their own crisis following from recent controversies, starting with the Fr Kevin Reynolds case. However one of the saddest things that I have seen in recent years is the current crisis at the BBC. 

  As someone who has been in broadcasting for almost 25 years I always felt that the BBC were up there at the very top. Their standards of professionalism and attention to detail were always superb. Whether it was radio or TV, nobody could do a show like the Beeb. They are in a real crisis now though. How Jimmy Savile slipped through the net after 40 years of alleged child abuse, and the Newsnight debacle in that regard was bad enough, but the huge error made by the Newsnight programme last week was truly shocking. 

  It is very sad to see this magnificent organisation in crisis. I hope that they can sort out their problems. The world of TV and radio needs the BBC. They have set the standards for broadcasting in general over the past 50 years and it would be a shame if we were to lose them because of all this.

GOAL Mile

It’s coming to that time of the year again and the 8th annual Roscommon Town Christmas Day GOAL mile will take place as usual on Tuesday 25th December at 1.30 pm sharp. A launch will take place in the town in early December. You can contact me for further details and we will have more information closer to the time. 

Love/Hate going too far? 

I don’t watch a lot of TV apart from news and sports programmes usually but last weekend I got a chance to watch the return of the RTE series ‘Love/Hate’ and it certainly is not for the faint-hearted. As someone who watched (and enjoyed) ‘The Sopranos’ in the past I would have been used to seeing graphic sex and violence on TV and I am certainly no prude in that regard. 

  It is a fact that graphic sex and violence can be seen nightly on almost every TV station now. However the very graphic rape scene shown on ‘Love/Hate’ last Sunday night was a shocker. It happened not long after the programme started so it was before 10 pm when lots of very young children were still up. It was at least as graphic (if not more so) than any such scene that I have ever seen in the cinema or on TV. 

  I accept that the programme is violent and rough and everyone knows that it is not an episode of ‘Bosco’, but how many parents didn’t know what was coming and had their kids sitting there having their supper waiting to go to bed? ‘Love/Hate’ is well-written and well-acted too but maybe they should wait another hour before they show the kind of stuff we saw last Sunday night.

Roscommon People

Issue: 16th November 2012