Cop Yourself On, Mary

On the day that Jade Goody has died, aged just 27, of cervical cancer, I want again to express my disgust that Mary Harney backed out of a plan to give a cervical cancer vaccine free to 12-year old girls.

The plan would have cost €9.7 million, and might have saved who knows how many girls from deaths as painful and untimely as Jade’s.

But Mary decided we can’t afford it. Are we really that poor now?

When the announcement was made first I wrote this. Needless to say, not one of the wasteful practices I mentioned had been tackled in the period since, but more money has been poured into the banks, incompetent gobshites have got big pay-offs and other, even more incompetent, gobshites have thrown away money taking  helicopters to work.

I ended my previous post by saying “Now Mary, have the courage to stand up for your Department, your gender and the children of your country .”

That still stands. If she can’t find a way to fund this, even just via savings from some of the waste in her own HSE, then she’s not fit to be Minister for Health.

Apparently Jade Goody’s plight has led to an increase in women presenting for smear tests. This makes her more useful in fighting cancer than Mary Harney.

Another Great Kate

Today’s post is a bit of a cheat, since I’m not doing the best of the writing.

It might make me feel a bit less of a fraud if I regard Kate Holmquist as a Guest Contributor.

It’s January, it’s freezing, everyone seems to have flu, I spent the day doing the payroll for the office and it sank home how much Leni’s Levy is going to cost me and everyone else while TDs still get unvouched tax-free expenses and six weeks Christmas holidays.

Then I read yesterday’s paper on the DART on the way home. Stuff about the recession, about job losses in Waterford, child abuse in Cloyne, death in Gaza.

And then I read this piece.It’s warm, it’s heartfelt, it’s touching, and it made me more eager to get home to see my own Tinkids (though this eagerness lasted exactly as long as it took me to say “Hi, kids!” and the three of them to say “Uhnnh”).

It’s a beautiful article which perfectly illustrates  the joy and agony of watching your children both grow and also grow away from you.

I’ve always thought Kate was a great writer, since way back when she was Kathryn and her husband Ferdia was still really ill, and she used to write about how difficult that was, but today’s piece is one of my favourites ever.

You Wha’?

Tinson1 went for his medical for the FCA on Saturday.

Mrs Tin drove him to Wicklow town, where there was an army truck parked. A man in uniform got out, ticked off a clipboard, and loaded him into the back of the truck, which drove off.

She cried all the way home.

He arrived back though with the news that he had failed the hearing test. Apparently he couldn’t hear one frequency in one ear, and this tiny imperfection means that he is unfit to be trained to fire lethal weapons at other human beings.

Seldom has the failure of any of the Tinkids at anything been greeted with such joy.

Or such sympathy. Tingirl’s drama group had an end-of-term show that afternoon (Saturday was certainly the most varied birthday I’ve ever had) and the first part was a mime. “Don’t worry Tinson, they’re not actually saying anything,” I whispered. “Stop slagging him, ” said Mrs Tin. “It’s ok, he can’t hear me,” I replied.

Everytime he’s asked a question now and says “what?” the other Tinkids fall around laughing.

Living in our house will toughen him up far better than the FCA ever could.

Sisterhood?

This letter appeared in Saturday’s Irish Times, as part of the ongoing thread concerning the scrapping of the vaccination programme for 12-year old girls:

A Chara, – The schoolgirls who will lose immunity from cervical cancer through withdrawal of the vaccination programme could acquire protection, free by opting for sexual abstention. The cost of the programme could build a few schools or several extra classrooms, or employ extra teachers, allowing younger children better educational facilities when they most need it. With judicious spending much could be achieved.

Why should taxpayers in these very difficult times be asked to pay for the damaging extracurricular activities of schoolchildren? – Is mise,

I’m not sure what it is that’s the most depressing thing about this letter. Perhaps it’s was the fact that the writer seems to believe that cervical cancer is a punishment from God for loose women.

Or perhaps it’s the fact that the writer is a woman. The sheer spite that she’s directing toward other females (12 year-old ones, at that) is staggering.

Yes We Can

Next year Revenue in the Tinhouse will show only modest growth. I’m due a review in January, but I don’t expect anything fantastic given the times that we’re in.

In the meantime outgoings will increase. I will be doing my patriotic duty by paying Brian’s Income Levy, the VAT increase will have raised prices and I will be getting less tax relief on my Medical Bills. I also confidently expect Stealth Taxes like  increases in rail fares, postage, Bin Charges, etc.

So Mrs Tin and I will draw up a fairly tough Budget to manage our finances. We might cut out things like going to the cinema. We might not go on holiday, or perhaps not for as long, or perhaps not as far away. We might scrap any plans for changing the car or TV, or doing work to the house. I might even (and this illustrates the true depth of the Economic Abyss facing us) not go to the pub as often.

Some things will be left untouched, however. When the Tinkids need school books we will buy them. If they have to go on school trips we will pay for them. If they – or indeed either of us – are sick we will pay to go to the doctor, and will pay out for whatever medication or treatment she recommends.

In other words we won’t fuck with Health or Education. In no household budget do people make cuts right across the board. Some things are, and always will be, sacrosanct.

So when Mary Harney says that we can’t afford the €10 million Vaccination Programme that we were going to introduce in Primary Schools to protect young girls against a virus that causes Cervical Cancer, I can only borrow the phrase of the moment and say yes we can.

Sell This

As long as our Government Jet is unsold, then yes we can. As long as we still have the three Junior Ministries that were only introduced last year by Bertie to keep more backbenchers sweet, then yes we can. As long as we could afford not to increase the Duty on beer in the last Budget (even I, as a committed and enthusiastic beer-drinker, was expecting and accepting the need for an increase) then yes we can.

Tax This

As long as TDs get paid unvouched, untaxed expenses, then yes we can. As long as Ministers get what in effect are Company Cars without paying Benefit-in-Kind, then yes we can. As long as there is an upper limit on PRSI, and as long as Public Servants pay it at a lower level than we do, then yes we can. As long as we’re still renting space to store those bloody voting machines, then yes we can.

As long as Tax Breaks for the very rich continue, then yes we can.

Crush These

As long as we look forward to next year’s local elections without seeing is there any way we can do with fewer councillors for the next few years, then yes we can. And as long as we pay ministerial pensions to TDs while they’re still in office, then yes we can.

In other words, when we’ve cut every single penny from every other department, and raised as much money as we can as fairly as we can, if we still can’t afford it, then we’ll tell a bunch of 12 year-old schoolgirls that we can’t give them a vaccine that might save their lives.

Until then, though, yes we can.

Now Mary, have the courage to stand up for your Department, your gender and the children of your country by telling the rest of the Cabinet that.

The Big Bang

It’s 8.57 in the evening on September 18th, and the first firework of the autumn has just gone off on the hill at the back of the house.

So that’ll be it now, six weeks of nightly noise provided by people who think that a loud bang and four seconds-worth of pretty colours is the height of entertainment. A better bang for their buck, in fact.

To hell with the dogs. To hell with the elderly. They’re having fun.

And they know it’s Ok because, come Halloween, many of the adults in the area will themselves flaunt the law by having firework displays in their gardens. And they’d be horrified and outraged if the Guards did anything about it.

Because, like, it’s only havin’ the craic.

I know I sound like an old fart. ( As do some of the fireworks).But adults who buy fireworks really piss me off. Fireworks are illegal because they’re dangerous. Every year children get injured. That’s why the law is there. If you don’t like it, campaign to change it. Until you do, it’s not up to you to decide which laws you’ll obey and which you won’t. Because that teaches your children that they can do the same.

Do the words grown up mean anything to you?

Big Bully Belarus

The government of Belarus have imposed a worldwide ban on children affected by Chernobyl travelling abroad for medical treatment and holidays. This affects children like the one pictured. It reflects shame on the government of a country who’s fault the disaster was, and, if we don’t stop them, it will reflect shame on all other countries too.

The ban was imposed after one 16 year-old girl refused to return to Belarus from the US after what was to have been her ninth and final visit. Basing your government policy on the wishes of one child is not to be recommended unless you’re looking for every day to be Christmas and a total ban on broccoli. Anyway, Belarus should still be so apologetic for what happened that even if half the children who go abroad don’t return, they should just grin and bear it.

Over fifteen thousand children have visited Ireland since the Chernobyl Children’s Project was started in 1991, for holidays, rest and treatment. These will no longer be able to travel if this ban is lifted.

According to one line on their website:

“Research has shown that each child taken from their radioactive environment to Ireland is ‘returned’ two years of life.”

Many of them come to the fantastic Barrettstown Castle, founded by Paul Newman, but most go to towns and villages around the country where ordinary families take them in. The charity also operates now in the UK and USA.

It’s not just because CCPI is an Irish phenomenon, founded by the wonderful Adi Roche, that we should be outraged. Everyone, in every country should be outraged. And because it ought to be everyone, from every country, surely it will be simply sorted. Because of the actions of one child, they’re bullying all the children. So let’s bully them.

Adi & Ali

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin says the Irish ambassador to Belarus will travel to Minsk next week “to try to persuade authorities to lift the ban”. To hell with that. All 27 EU ambassadors, as well as those of any other country which thinks this is wrong, should all turn up together to demand the lifting of the ban. It should be explained exactly what will happen if not. Week one, a ban on all passenger flights into and out of Belarus – if the kids can’t travel, why should anyone else. Week two, the withdrawal of all diplomatic ties. Week three, the ending of all sporting ties. Three weeks gone, they feel like Pariahs, and we still haven’t hit them economically, since it’s always the poor that gets hit most by that. Make it clear that such possibilities as future EU membership are totally off the table while this continues.

If we can’t change this, then bodies such as the UN, G8 and the EU really are useless.

Hey, Belarus, leave those kids alone.

Think of the Children

I watched an “Al Murray – Pub Landlord” gig on TV the other night. At one point he talked about when his first child was born. He said he felt pride, humility “and a burning urge to hang all paedophiles whereas before I hadn’t given them a second thought.”

How right he is. Having children immediately ends one’s laissez-faire attitude to the world, and makes one more right wing than Adolf Hitler.

I reached adulthood in the early eighties, when the posturing of Reagan and Andropov made nuclear war seem more probable than possible. I remember a friend of mine pointing to the top of her forehead and saying “I hope the bomb lands right here” and us all agreeing with her. We didn’t mind dying, we just didn’t want the radiation.

All that as changed now that we have become parents. I hate warmongers with a passion. I hate people whose greed, lust for power or mistaken religious beliefs might endanger my children.

Where once I tolerated dope smoking, I how hate all drug takers and sellers, as they might lead my children down that path.

In fact, I now hate: paedophiles, drug dealers, vandals, people who can’t handle their drink, drunk drivers, speeding drivers, motor bikers, smokers, bullies (whether bullied themselves or not), racists (my daughter has a little black friend and the idea that anyone would insult this child is sickening), people who think the laws about fireworks don’t apply to them, any eejit who’d buy a quad bike for their kids, laser pens, several species of dog-owner (people who let their dogs shit in the street, people who let their dogs bark at or run at people, people who own ridiculous breeds of dogs like rotweilers), Arsenal (nothing to do with my kids, just don’t like them), middle class gits who take soft drugs, SUV drivers (not because of the environment, because SUVs are killing machines), bad teachers, people who obtain drink for children, anyone who says people who commit random acts of violence deserves a second chance, and the makers of South Park.

In short, everybody.