The Club made great fist of THE Scrap Saturday.In these times of economic woe it is wonderfully innovative of Clubs to come up with such brilliant fundraisers.Not only does it induce people to get rid of quantities of scrap that it would be otherwise troublesome to dispose of, it also raises much needed finance for the Clubs,which in rural Ireland are the social glue holding the community together.It is not by chance that these organisations,run by amateurs to the highest professional standards,hosted many of the counts in the recent elections.
Happiness all round says you.Well you’d be wrong.I f Press reports are to be believed the GAA are set to ban them.On insurance grounds seemingly.I would not be surprised if Health and Safety zealouts have also put in their oars.Another innovative idea redtaped to death.No wonder there are Dunderry viewers of this blog from the USA,Australia,the U.K.The Isle of MAN,Signapore,Norway,Italy ,Germany, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.(How’s it going Retaine?)
Maybe you’d let me know discreetly whether your new homelands are as over-regulated as we are?
It is my firm view that the GAA should call in their Insurers and explain to them that someone is insuring the scrap merchants and that the clubs should have appropriate cover also.I am sick to death of oppressive hurdles being put in the path of community innovation and there must be a limit to nonsense.
I remember organising the Meath Mayo football match for the pavilion opening two years ago with Billy Bligh.As soon as we cleared one hurdle another was placed in our faces.Billy spent 60 euro on his payphone one afternoon being shunted from Himself to Jack,if you get my drift.
Anyone who tries something in this country is stymied from the start by a no no nanny state and I must say a GAA that is getting too fussy too.
There organisations should go out of their way to help and assist their members ,not stymie them.
On a political note I will judge the incoming administration on the following Five Point Test-
(A)Whether it puts an end to evictions and repossessions in genuine cases,as all the the big five party leaders promised to do.
(B)Whether people who genuinely cannot pay debts and fines continue to go to jail .(7,000 people who could not pay fines were jailed last year and committal orders continue to be issued by the Courts)
(C)Whether the blight of forced emigration is stopped and reversed.
(D)Whether the unemployment rate is genuinely reduced. (sending 25 year olds plus back to full time education does not count.The old Frank Hall crack that the solution to unemployment lay in keeping people at school until they were 66 and them putting them directly on the old age pension applies .)
I will judge the effectiveness of the opposition on how they tackle these issues.
Incidentally all the above issues arose in 1845 at the time of the famine and it is a source of bafflement to me how the 4 million populace we now have are not living in the lap of luxury,given scientific and educational advancement since then, when 8 million subsisted on spuds alone and the cream of our produce went to England to pay rents .
Even substituting usury for rents cannot fully explain it and it is a fact that never were we so educated as a nation and never were we so banjaxed.
Finally I must pay tribute to a section of society who,like myself ,are probably too long in the tooth and too tired to read this blog,namely the grannies of Ireland.Having reared their own families they are well on the way to rearing their grandchildren,will probably have to hold on to rear the next generation and cope with their elder relatives ,when the aging process really takes root.
If ye don’t make Heaven there’s no such place.
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