Reply To: Irelands Ten Worst Roundabouts

It is not that, it the fact that no one seems to care what they cost, what they are achieving – that is, other than providing RTE and the Irish Times with something to report about. On the other hand, did anyone see the programme made by the BBC about house design last night? The one where all the house was built in a factory in Germany and shipped by road as far as England?

A ‘Huf’ house?

I think, if you put some EU funding towards the Germans to help solve some difficulties in poorer countries prone to disasters, you might get more results than a bunch of middle class ‘concerned’ Irish people pissing around in jeeps, looking for war stories to bring back to their old cronies. 🙂 Now, allow me to qualify something here, before I am completely misunderstood. I have heard it said, the Irish and the Mexicans make the best journalists/reporters in the world. That is a very useful function, in the context of disaster prone relief/prevention too.

I mean, the Asians, in the tech world are notorious for being tight-lipped about tech glitches etc – seen as weak to admit a problem you see. The Texans like Mikey Dell are over-achievers, the Germans are too proud to own up to difficulties etc and would prefer to go down with a sinking ship. But I think the Irish, tell it how it really is, regardless of who/what it might offend. So we are great in some areas – just not in others. The tribunals are probably done to the highest standards of fact-finding and reporting – for all I know.

But, you cannot solve every problem by using the gift of the gab. But I think there is a real role there alone, for the Irish in trying to sort ot the problems in poorer countries. If we are ever going to benefit from more stability and safety globally, we here in the relatively well to do, parts of western Europe and North America are going to have to learn to change some very deeply routed and fundamental attitudes, which have been lingering around far too long – since the days of missionaries etc, etc, etc.

It is the same with the refugee problem – all we want to do, is talk and talk and talk about the rascism, and accomodating more refugees etc. But no mention about what is happening in these countries to begin with – or putting our money and effort where our mouth is, and solving that.