With the Catholic Church going into hiding in order to devise a new knot with which to tie themselves up, it is time to look around the scene in Ireland to see where else the pent up fury of the population can decend. The financial problem that Ireland is swilling around in has been forgotten about recently and Cowan from Offaly has been mighty glad that the Church attended during his hour of need, but money is again raising its ugly head and Brian’s sphincter is beginning to twitch once more.
News that the banks and building societies are slowly sinking beneath the waves and into NAMA’s unforgiving arms raises the question why has it taken so long and how much money has been wasted over this last 18 months whilst the soul searching process has stumbled along.
I notice that the Financial Regulator, who is getting plenty of exercise these days in his new job has appointed a provisional administrator to Quinn Insurance. It is a pity that his predecessor had not been as alert when the banks were doling out all that cash they did not have. So with Quinn in a state of flux, is this the beginning of the end for this once mighty organization.There was hundreds of millions of euros passing between this Insurance giant and Anglo Irish Bank that even the money got dizzy. Sean Quinn seemed to be playing some form of snakes and ladders, but it did not seem to make sense. For the last couple of years I had been wary of them as there seemed to be no logic to their pricing. I insured with them because their quote was reasonable and yet a year later with no claims, my policy went up €230. I quickly removed myself to logic and Axa and I presume a lot more people are doing the same, because when my wife decided to do likewise this year, she must have had ten phone calls from Quinn, pleading with her to reconsider. Their strong sales pitch, allied to their alleged poor payout performance must have gradually turned the wheel against them.
I also see that the public sector unions have reached agreement with management on pay and reform. Well lets hope so because the reform section needed looking at for years. The number of hours that I have wasted over time ringing various departments hoping someone, anyone, would answer the phone has been phenomenal. Even in the good years this simple task of contacting a civil servant proved to be nigh on impossible. The fact that they have all got jobs, as low paid as some of them possibly are, is better than many in the private sector who have no jobs at all, just dole to look forward to for the forseeable. Let us all hope now that this slackness might disappear and at least my son can go to school more times than he stays at home. This term has been remarkable for the number of teaching days lost.
However not everything is doom and gloom. Ireland and Limerick’s own, Kamal Ibrahim, came home with the spoils in the Mr. World contest in Korea and Kevin Myers column in today’s Independent stresses once again what a stupid, egotistical, bullying bastard Winston Churchill really was and that thought always brings a wry smile to my face when I listened over the years to the adoration given to him by the people of England, who could not see the evil that was within him.