Paul Malpas

Following my blog and letter of 5 February entitled Barrier Free to Pierse & Fitzgibbon, Solicitors, Market Street, Listowel, Co. Kerry and agents for the National Roads Authority, I received a reply bang on the 19 February, as requested.  They said the error which made them think that I had not paid my €3 was entirely my fault.  I was supposed to have given my car registration number as 012874RN instead of the correct number 01RN2874.  It took them four months and lots of soul-searching to work that out, along with many a threat of fine and conviction aimed at me and it was only when I wrote to them looking forward to my day in court did they come up with this paltry excuse.

All this bother was for their mistake of thinking that I had not paid my €3.  When I then asked them for an apology, their letter said, because it was due to “an error on your part” (their bold italics) “neither this office nor our client will apologise for your mistake and furthermore, we will not be paying your costs”.  Obviously written by a person with little intelligence, no wit, and certainly no nose for business.  Somehow or other government agencies have to realise that they are dealing with people and not machines.  Not to long ago these drudges in agency offices were people and would not have liked this bullying system they have adopted but I suppose all institutions that nowadays deal with people have engendered this malaise towards their flock, the Catholic Church being one good example.

So I am admitting defeat, I cannot be arsed carrying on, the bullys have won the day, but perhaps I can suggest a little wheeze.  If my little supposed transgression can cause such mayhem to the system why does not everybody who pay  tolls do so with a little deliberate mistake in the transmission of their funds.  It would have a cataclysmic effect on that abysmal system and hopefully change it to the good.

For the last few days I have been necessarily entertaining some of my children and grandchildren over from Manchester and Dublin on the occasion of birthdays and half terms and I have noticed that my mind and hand do not work in conjunction after the third bottle of wine or the fifth pint of plain.  So my blog was an unfortunate casualty, but I am happy to be back on the abstemious track and really happy that mind and hand are back on the same orbit.  Just one last thought on the outpourings of this horrible man from Galway, Drennan is his name.  His words do not seem to come from a man of God but from some wretch of a politician or government official desperately trying to hang on in there.  Perhaps his boss, and now his only arbiter, the Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, can say or do something. He has at least grasped the nettle on the value of women.  See John Cooney’s article in the Independent of 23 February 2010.

Whereas the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, William Lee has the answer to all our woes and is recommending that we all take up the Stations of the Cross.  When will they get their heads round the problem and face up to the agony and anger of the abused and why should the abused show forgiveness as Father Eamon Conway of Limerick is suggesting when they are faced with this stoney-faced obfuscation of their position.

The newspapers made great reading this morning as various long-running stories progressed towards some sort of conclusion.

The Eamonn Lillis murder trial is slowly winding its way to a guilty verdict.  It seems he is now saying “fair cop, guv” after initially telling the Guarda that an intruder murdered his wife.  I am always surprised by the husbands of Ireland, the list is long, who think they can get away with killing their nearest and dearest.  There seems to be three or four of these trials every year.  If you cannot stand the one you married, walk away and find another.  There are suckers on every corner.  Do not not kill the old one and pretend it was someone else.  Come to think of it, these guys in the main had found another but did not know how to trade in the old model.

The bishops of Ireland met behind closed doors in Maynooth yesterday as a preliminary to the Pope’s summons to Rome on 15/16 February.  I presume this meeting was to get their story right and to coin a phrase, to make sure everyone was singing off the same hymn sheet, especially important when there are loose guns like Drennan of Galway hanging around.  What surprised me and with matters of obvious great import to discuss, only 18 of the 33 available bishops turned up, whatever happened to the other 45%.  Were they too ashamed or did they not want to mix with the guilty.  Drennan of Galway was there again throwing his dummy out of his pram and not speaking to anybody.  He has to go before he embarrasses even me.  The words best practice were aired again.  They were used a few weeks ago by Jones of Elphin, our local boy, who, in the wake of the Murphy report, said that Elphin Diocese was not guilty and that Elphin aspires to best practice in all matters.  Words he may live to regret.  When you start to think about it, when a child is being abused, what constitutes best practice.

And while we are considering holiness I notice that Maeliosa O’Hauallachain, he of the unpronouncibles and a Catholic priest to boot, has been excused by the judge because a consultant psychiatrist died last year.  He had treated the young girl claiming abuse by the priest about 15 years previously.  There were two other shrinks still living who had treated her initial breakdown but they were not available.  It all stinks and the poor woman might now go off and have another breakdown and make herself unavailable also.  A nice case of dust and carpet.

To escape religion and to concentrate on Spring, as it is only just round the corner and all you ladies will be dusting off last years gladrags to save buying new in this second year of austerity.  I feel for the poor woman on Tyneside, Mrs. Cartwright, who could not help making a loud noise everytime she had sex with her legally contracted spouse.  She received an eight week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, from an obviously jealous judge.  When you sign your name on the register and you are given your licence to partake in these matters there is no mention of decibel outage or there was not with me all those years ago.  Perhaps then they had no measuring device to say what  was what.  It seems these romantic yells started around midnight and lasted for two to three hours every night of the week.  Even the postman complained so they might have lasted even longer.  Either that or the postman was starting work four hours early hoping he could get something off the menu.  All I can think of is what a lucky bugger Mr. Cartwright must be.  All power to his elbow or whatever part of his anatomy he uses to elicit this romantic rowdedowdow.

The last gem to be gleaned is that Mr. Gallagher and his trusty water main men are not the only gang who do not like digging deep.  It seems that the builders of Ireland “have driven a coach and horses through the Building Regulations and a Kildare County Council spokesman says it is the householders responsibility to dig up and drop the level of their incoming water services when they freeze up as many did in this last cold spell.  They should be 750mm deep instead of the shallow depth that most have been put in at.  I am not sure of that statement by KCC because in our case it was a breach of Planning Conditions and I would consider the builder culpable.  It is certainly nice to know that this particular aspect of the Irish psyche, that of doing your neighbour as often as possible is not just peculiar to North Roscommon.