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.

Tags: Archbishop Neary of Tuam, Barrier Free Tolling, Bishop Drennan, Bishop William Lee, bullying, Government Agencies, National Roads Authority, Pierse & Fitzgibbon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Ireland, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.