Appollo House and all that.

Many moons ago I worked  for a good while in Apollo House.It is in Tara Street and beside the famous Mulligan's pub.As far as I can recall the ground floor was occupied by the Dept.of Social Welfare and the bulk of the rest was occupied by Revenue.
I was never a big drinker because I couldn't afford to be but I nevertheless did savour the occasional first class pint in Mulligans.
Now I am  sure that the general populace couldn't give a curse either way about the presence of Revenue there as being realistic Revenue are regarded as a necessary evil and even I have mixed feelings about my time there.
Let me say first of all that in general most but not all of my workmates were the most decent of people and in no way nasty.
There were of course exceptions to the rule and while I will not name names some deplorable actions were carried out there which are etched in my fading mind.
It was there that two senior officials mounted a campaign of remorseless bullying against a most decent guy and a worker par excellence,just because they had the rank to get away with it.
They made this guy's life so miserable that he had a complete meltdown and it is because of God's mercy and maybe because of my intervention that he survived it.If ever there was an example of systemic bullying and hateful activity this was it.
One of the bullies  is passed from this world and would have had to meet his Maker.I hope he paid the price.
Funnily enough the same very senior ,and to those who knew him casually .extremely affable person used bad mouth me behind my back at every opportunity to those who could influence my advancement .I knew this because one of those to whom he spewed his poisonous lies used inform me immediately after every outburst,but was not prepared to make an issue of it.
There wasn't much I  could do about it except offer it up and shrug it off.
Another matter that springs to mind is the concerted efforts of a tight band of senior personnel to see down another of their own because they were jealous of his apparent good fortune.This operation was so undercover that only those directly involved knew about it and its existence was only rumoured but I suspect that it was organized to inflict maximum damage which it surely did.
Finally I received a visit while there from a former staff member who I had not seen for decades and to whom I had been unfailingly decent to in my dealings with a long time ago.
I kinda knew she had a drink problem then but had covered for her from time to time.
She explained to me that she was receiving counselling for alcoholism at the time of the visit and was,under advisement of her counsellors ,now visiting those she had b done damage to during her addiction  .
She was visiting me after all this time because for a reason she was not prepared to tell me ,she had spread lies about me to my superiors and had done all in her power to discredit me.
These are not pleasant memories and I would suggest that the organizers of the sit in get Father McVerry to exorcise the entire building lest these awful events leave permanent scars on the present occupants .
And just as laxy medics blame all illness on smoking I don't for one minute believe that there are health and safety issues of any significance that would impinge on sleeping overnight in the building.
Certainly they would pale inti insignificance to sleeping rough in this weather on the streets.