Joerg's Ramblings – Page 13 – A Foreigner in Ireland

LUAS Drivers at it again – Row over stupid stuff!

01 September 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Luas Drivers, or rather their union is causing problems again and you have to read this full article as published by RTE.ie to understand how ridiculous the issue is and how unions are (not all, but most!) at total waste of space!

The row is over where 13 LUAS drivers (out of 67) have to have their lunch. Because they can’t have it where they might have parked their car and where they start their shift, they seemingly want compensation. The reason is because they can’t bring a packed lunch anymore but will now have to buy their lunch.

Transdev, their employer, nicely placated them and offers to provide Cooler Bags for lunch transport purposes instead of additional money. Ooops, that’s not what they wanted.

Read that article, it is nearly hilarious!

Dublin, Traffic Cooler Bag, LUAS, SIPTU, Transdev, unions

Misguided Pope Outrage! Focus on the real issues!

25 August 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Interesting, these complaints about the Pope’s visit! There is a level of outrage on Facebook that starts getting overboard. I don’t have a problem with people not being keen on the Pope or the Catholic Church or this event. I myself am not a big Pope fan and I won’t go to Phoenix Park or Croke Park, but I have an issue with lies and half-truths, just to justify a bigger “amount” of outrage.

Here are some of the arguments:
1) The horrible pope is costing us 32 mio. taxpayers money.
2) Nobody wants to see the Pope, but he will cost us lots of money.
3) Because of the Pope homeless people will have to stay off the streets over the weekend
4) It is the Pope’s fault that I can’t get out of my house on Sunday

Let’s do a fact check on these reasons for outrage:

1) The horrible pope is costing us 32 mio. taxpayers money.
It is indeed estimated that the visit might cost 32 mio, although nobody really knows yet the exact amount. Of the 32 mio I read that 20mio, the Catholic church is paying and the rest is paid by the state. So then it is 12mio instead of 32mio! In addition, the 32mio is not that huge in comparison to recent state visits: When Obama and the Queen where in Ireland, the combined visit did cost 36mio and of that amount about 15mio were paid DIRECTLY to the Gardai.
Interestingly, most of the 32mio will be paid to people and for services or products in Ireland, so that means the money is staying in the economy and then cycling money is often an important process to stimulate the economy. And why is the whole thing costing that much, well because close to 600,000 people have to be accommodated and a international guest has to be protected.
Look at it this way: The promoter of a big “popstar” has discovered that there is an audience that wants to see that performer. The promoter is certainly keen to run the gig and bring the performer to the country. If no one had requested tickets, there would be no gig in Phoenix Park!

2) Nobody wants to see the Pope, but he will cost us lots of money.
When the invite went out at least 500,000 tickets were requested and this is a lot more than “nobody”. Now protesters will tell you that they all have requested 12 or 24 or thousands of tickets and have no intention to use them. You could argue that this is not very tolerant and open minded, but let’s look at it from a different angle. If we assume that the cost of the visit is 32 mio and 600,000 tickets have been given out, then the 24 tickets a protester might have secured will cost 24 x 53 Euro. So complaining about the cost and sitting on tickets sounds a little hypocritical.
If the fans buy up all the (free) tickets, then the promoter has to prepare for a BIG gig. He can not assume that half of the fans won’t appear.

3) Because of the Pope homeless people will have to stay off the streets over the weekend.
Actually I would be surprised if the Pope had requested or even demanded that!! But maybe it is our government who doesn’t want to seem to have nothing done in that area. So why are people criticising the Pope over the homeless situation this weekend and not the government?
Yes, I know, the 32 mio could have helped a few homeless, but it is not that we would provide housing for everyone if these 32 mio hadn’t been spent. Last year we didn’t know yet that the Pope would come and we still didn’t spend 32mio or even 2 additional mio. It is not the Pope’s fault that the money is not spent where it is needed.

4) It is the Pope’s fault that I can’t get out of my house on Sunday.
Ohh, did he make the plans for traffic diversions and restrictions? Sure if he didn’t come, there would be no traffic restrictions, but the traffic restrictions are caused by the large amount of people that MIGHT come (including the unused protester tickets!) and also by the Gardai in Ireland. Not by the Pope or by the Church! Oh and by the way, the Phoenix Park neighbours who complain so loudly should just for a GAA weekend swap with people around Croke Park to realise how good they have it ALL year every year apart from the odd Pope visit every 40 years or so.

There are LOTs of things you can have a serious issue with the Catholic Church over, but people should stick to the real issues like child abuse and hypocrisy and the attitude to women and LGBTs etc. Yes you can get outraged about all that and you have every right to be. But getting outraged with a person or an organisation over nonsense like road closures etc is just weakening the correct and important discussion about all the other issues.

On Monday the Pope is gone again, I wonder what will cause the next wave of outrage. :-O

So, that’s my outrage sorted! LOL

Catholic, Dublin Pope

Scandalous Church!

18 August 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

It is less than a week now until the Pope will be in Dublin and up to 500,000 people from all over Ireland will assemble in Phoenix Park for a mass (which seems to me far above the number of normal weekly mass goers, but that’s only an unimportant side observation).

It will probably be the biggest event in Dublin in my lifetime and in addition it is free, but I have decided that I will not go to Phoenix Park. I would have access to tickets and I even could have sang in a humongous 5000 people big choir that sings at the Phoenix Park Mass or in a 1000 people strong choir in Croke Park, but I will stay at home instead.

It is not the Pope that gets me to stay away, I actually think he is one of the most progressive Popes (if these two words “progressive” and “Pope” are even compatible) that ever was in that job. But I also think that he is heading a rotten organisation that refuses to see its own rottenness.

I am raised catholic, I would call myself somewhere between “a la carte” catholic and “spiritual” (whatever that means!) and even go to mass regularly because I am involved with a Gospel Choir, so I am definitely not a church hater. I even think that the community that a grass roots church provides is a positive thing, but so is a community that a sports club or music club or even an atheist group provides.

But the thing that gets me really upset and annoyed is when there is hypocrisy.

300 priests in Pennsylvania abusing thousands of kids and a few years ago the scandal in Boston and all the cover ups and Ireland had its own scandalous Church. How can these animals look in a mirror?

I know plenty of great and caring priests and nuns and I know that not everyone is like that, BUT an organisation that can have that level of horrible behaviour that even condones or at least covers it up is rotten to the core and should be broken up!

Catholic Church, Pope

Weather Shambles in Ireland!? Can we handle the weather?

11 August 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Before I start into this article, let me state – for the avoidance of any doubt – that neither the Irish government nor Irish Water can be made responsible for the weather. Irish politicians would probably love to lay claim to organising the most suitable weather for their constituents and Irish Water is never at fault about anything at all anyway, but we will have to let them off the hook regarding their weather responsibility. :-)

The question that I came across during the week does, however, have something to do with Irish authorities and with their ability (or not!) to forward plan and to do what we need them to do when it comes to weather challenges.

Weather is an important topic in Ireland! We love to talk about it and even more to complain about it. We don’t really have any weather extremes, but you wouldn’t know that if you listen to weather news or read just a normal newspaper.

Oddly, though, we seriously struggle as soon as something out of the ordinary (i.e. 13 degrees and scattered showers) happens. If we have 2 cm of snow, the country comes to a stand still. Traffic collapses, schools close and the country stops operating. On the other end: Give us around 20 degrees for a few weeks with no significant rain fall and we are (nearly) running out of drinking water.

Is this normal? Well, there are countries in Europe that regularly have significant snow fall and just keep going. And there are other countries where they know they will have hardly any drop of rain from Spring until end of Autumn and still, people will water their lawn and drinking water is plentifully available.

We claim that we are not used to it and therefore we struggle dealing with it. Hmmmm, Middle Europe (around Germany) had temperatures of above 35 degrees for well over a week and they are also not used to it, but life continues. Water is still there despite very little rain this year. Mallorca, Fuerteventura and the south of Spain (just to mention a few popular places) have no rain at all in the summer, but there doesn’t seem to be a hosepipe ban. And if we look at the other end of the year: Snow is never guaranteed in parts of Middle Europe. But if there is snow, then they deal with it and continue!

When will we start to prepare for increasing temperatures, lack of rain and occasional snow? The holes in the water pipes need to be plugged asap, we need more deep wells to get better water than surface water and we need to think about water desalination.

But what about winter time? We now do have salt and we have snow ploughs and still there is panic and mayhem. Do we need new rules? Make Winter tyres compulsory? Make it compulsory that house owners clean the footpath?

What do you think would fix the problems in summer and in winter?

Environment, Odd, Politics Ireland, Irish Water, Weather

Gardai taking revenge! But is it ok?

04 August 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

The Journal.ie reported about a Tweet and its story on Thursday here: While Gardai were carrying our speed checks at the Limerick tunnel, a man drove by in the other direction and decided in his wisdom to beep and to make a “choice hand gesture”. (Whatever that is and more about that later!)

No matter what the guy did, it was stupid, childish and not justifiable in the slightest. He was clearly happy that the gardai didn’t get him, but you must be some sort of an idiot to react the way he did.

Being an idiot though, is not normally a punishable offence. But in this case, the gardai who did the speed check wanted revenge. They spent a “number of days” to identify the driver (using the camera recordings from the Limerick tunnel operator) and to issue him with a fine for “a combination of dangerous driving offences including not watching the road while travelling at high speeds”. EUR 80 and three points was the punishment. In addition they felt it was necessary to tweet about it here twitter.com/GardaTraffic/status/1024904377075748864 and decided to add a “choice hand gesture” from the series Friends.

As I clearly said, the guy was an idiot. BUT we also know (or SHOULD know) that revenge is never a good motivator. In the same way as the driver should have just celebrated quietly that he wasn’t caught speeding, the gardai should have just called him an idiot and should then have continued with their work. Beeping and a hand gesture are NOT enough to spend days of work.

And the offence? I wouldn’t be surprised if a judge would remove the penalty if he went to court. If beeping and making a hand gesture is a dangerous driving offence, then EVERY driver should get a EUR 80 fine multiple times every day. So I am really not sure if the gardai in this case affirmed their moral superiority. Instead it seems as if they lowered themselves to the level of of idiot driver. Their “choice hand gesture” was in the tweet and it was no better than the drivers stupid reaction.

I am actually disappointed about the reaction of the gardai! Nobody should ever have to endure being insulted by idiots when they do what is part of of their job, but revenge is NOT what I would expect gardai to spend days of their work on.

(By the way: We can only guess that the driver was showing the middle finger because the term “choice hand gesture” is NOT a term that is anywhere defined. If you search for it on Google, you will find no explanation but you will find MANY links to media articles about the same event. It didn’t make much sense to use this term!)

Traffic gardai, Limerick, revenge, speed check, Speeding