I am totally fed up with a lot of the comments about Mary Harney. I realise that as a politician she is fair game. And as a politician who is in charge of the Health Service at a time when it is scandal after scandal after horrendous error she deserves a hell of a lot of criticism.

But I’m fed up about the cheap shots about her appearance and her weight.^[1]

What fucking difference does that make to anything?

To be honest I’ve no clue as to what is going on in the Health service, other than to know it is fucked up, but I do think that Harney should resign. She is the Minister for Health. She is ultimately responsible.

Course the same could be said of Bertie and his shenanigans. It just isn’t something that Irish politicians seem to do, is it? Shower of tossers.

Nevertheless cheap jibes about her physical appearance are just crap and annoying and pointless. What possible difference does it make to how she does her job? If she were stick-thin and anorexic would that make her handling of it any better?

Is it a form of sexism, cause you don’t really see the same amount of jokes being made about overweight male politicians?

Title from this excellent post

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This morning, as I walked to work, I happened to glance at the headline of my Metro Family anger at killings verdict. And I thought to myself, this couldn’t be the family of the armed raiders shot while robbing a post office, could it?

Of course it was.

This sort of shite annoys the fuck out of me. Is it sad that you lost a member of your family? Of course. But sometimes family members do stupid things and bad things happen to them. And it is their own fault. These were men attempting to rob a Post Office, armed, the gardaí told them to disarm. They didn’t do that so they got shot. It wasn’t for “no reason” it was because they were attempting to rob a post office and threatening the lives of people.

Garda A gave evidence that he heard a loud bang and saw the glass in the security hatch shatter. He believed that the loud noise was a gunshot and shouted “armed garda, drop your gun” as he opened the door leading into the public area of the post office.

At least half-a-dozen witnesses gave evidence indicating they clearly heard the officer warn the raiders to drop their weapons. Some witnesses said the garda gave the warning several times;
one man said he warned them on up to 10 occasions.

I’m not a huge fan of the gardaí. But in cases like this, where armed robbers are involved? Then I’m backing them. I’m not even a fan of the death penalty. I think it is a ridiculous punishment and serves no purpose apart from revenge, which is not what I think the justice system should be involved in.

Bereaved mother-in-law Ann Grimes, who reared Griffin’s four children, hit out angrily yesterday.
She said the gardaí “knew beforehand they were going to do the job. They should have stopped them”. She added: “they put people in the post office at risk.”

Part of me can understand that coming from the family. After all they have suffered a death. But another part of me is more than a tad annoyed at that sort of attitude. The gardaí knew what was going to happen, so they should have stopped them! How exactly? Should they have arrested them despite having no evidence apart from a tip-off? A rumour?

It isn’t as though the gardaí didn’t try to intercept the raiders;

However, efforts by gardai to stop the raiders’ car prior to the raid, including cordons on approach roads and vehicle tracking, failed, and the three raiders entered the rear of the building at approximately 8am led by Gavin Farrelly, who was wielding a sledgehammer

Maybe Colm Griffin, who knew he was going to rob a post office with a gun, should have stopped himself. He was the only one responsible for his own actions. He went to Lusk intending to pull a gun on people. He took up a firing position, he put people’s lives in danger.

I’d have more sympathy for the family of the second robber killed. After all he was unarmed when shot. But at the same time if the garda involved believed he was armed that what other option did he have? I don’t say that to let the garda off the hook. More to say that you get involved in an armed robbery then don’t try to play the victim when shots are fired. After all if it had been a shoot everyone then the third individual involved still be alive, would he?

And lets not forget that a garda involved in that operation now has a contract out on him.

Oh, and for the record, I’m not saying that the gardaí should be allowed to shoot anyone and then say “he had a gun” obviously there should be an inquest, as happened here, and the fact should come out. But the very idea of turning an armed gunman into an innocent victim is just wrong.

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I was quite surprised to learn that Joe O’Reilly was found guilty last night. We’d been having a conversation about it at work, and most people seemed to be of the opinion that yup, he did it, but that the evidence wasn’t sufficient to not leave reasonable doubt. I haven’t been following the case in all its detail from the very start, I never saw the Late Late when he was on it which seemed to persuade more than a few of his guilt.

Still, the details I picked up from skimming the papers and catching the news made me think that he’d done it. I was among those who thought that maybe he’d be found not guilty, circumstantial evidence and all that. But I guess that mobile phone was enough to convince the jury of his guilt. And I’m glad.

Although you do have to wonder what’ll happen to his two children now. And how they can begin to cope with the knowledge that their father beat their mother to death.

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An asylum seeker who came to Ireland in 2000, Mr Adebari mused that while he was now Portlaoise’s first citizen, he was not yet an Irish citizen.

“Are you telling us you’re not legal,” Mr Aird interrupted, at which the whole public gallery erupted in laughter.

Okay, so on one hand this is good news. But is it really such good news that we have to point it out as though saying see, look, no racism here?

Bloody^[1] asylum seekers, coming here, bewitching our electorate, getting voted into office, and where are the brown envelopes huh? Where is the corruption? What, no money for favours? What sort of Irish politician is he? Or maybe he is just too much of a cute hoor to be caught out yet.

And also, a voting pact between Fine Gael and Sinn Fein?

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Looks like we got ourselves a gubermint. FF in coalition with the Greens.

Newsflash via Damien

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Last week a young boy was attacked in Offaly by two rottweilers. He was rescued by his father, and was taken to hospital. The dogs were put down.

So now we have to put up with the usual knee-jerk reactions. That these specific breeds are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed as pets. I have every sympathy with the family. And do believe that dogs need to be controlled, but the fact is that any dog can attack. And any dog can inflict a fatal wound on a person, especially a child.

“I’ve seen virtually every breed involved in fatalities, including Pomeranians and everything else, except a beagle or a basset hound”

The fact is that people do not appreciate that dogs can kill. Sure, a pitbull probably makes a more efficient job of it than a pekinese, but that is simply because humans have bred them to be that way. Statistics show that in America the number of people who die as a result of dog attacks remains fairly stable. What does change is the breeds involved. Having more german shepards means that more german shepards will bite. Thinking of dobermans as “attack dogs” means that people who want that in a dog will get a doberman and, in all likelihood encourage that response through training.

“In 1974,” he says, “we saw more German shepherd, collie, andcocker spaniel bites. Today it’s the Rottweiler, chow, and pitbull. The dogs are a victim of their own popularity.”

In the case in Offaly it seems that the rottweilers were usually kept confined to a back garden, but managed to break out. The owner seems apologetic and remorseful, obviously enough, but maybe questions should be asked about how she kept those dogs? She says that she left them locked in the garden, which, given the fact that this happened on an estate, couldn’t have been the largest space, on Friday and returned on Saturday night. I think the dogs were both year olds, but no where does it say whether they were neutered or not. Entire male dogs are more likely to want to break free and can be more aggressive. There are a lot of questions that need answering before we go down the usual “lets ban this breed” argument, which I’m sure will come up at some point.

Then there is the response from the gardaí. Neighbours in the estate have criticised the gardaí for not doing something after they were informed that the two dogs were running loose. Supposedly two gardaí took a look and decided to call the dog warden, but it took more than an hour to track him down.

A spokesperson for the county dog warden’s office said gardaí left a message on their phone at 9.18pm but dog warden Ray Mulhall was not contacted on his mobile until 9.45pm.

I’m left wondering exactly how many dog wardens there are in Ireland, and was the one in question on or off duty at the time. I’m guessing that 1) there aren’t enough and 2)he was off-duty.

I don’t think that the dogs involved in this specific case were fighting dogs, but they may have been, or maybe dogs used for intimidation purposes, so maybe if a dog warden, or someone trained in handling possibly dangerous dogs, was on hand this all could have been averted.

Are the Gardaí to blame? I don’t think so, yes, they should have gotten in contact with the warden quicker, but unless they were trained to assess the animals then they could have provoked an attack themselves.

Dogs, like people, can be unpredictable, and dangerous. And sometimes accidents happen. I’m not saying that we simply say “oh well, it was an accident”, by all means we should investigate what happened, but knee jerk reactions won’t help anyone.

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