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Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

The An Garda Siochana, the Irish Police Force, is – like every other police force in the democratic world – the one and only enforcer of right and wrong in the country. They are not the judge if it is REALLY right or wrong, that’s what we have the judiciary (the courts and judges) for, but the police has to enforce the laws.

If you enforce the laws, however, you should also be obliged to stick to the laws. It increases your credibility tremendously and you set an all important example. If the rules don’t apply to the enforcer of the laws, then people behave like the children of parents that don’t stick to the rules they spout out. They become unruly and break the rules.

A small example: It is wrong for the Gardai to be allowed to use/handle mobile phones when driving, as long as all of us are not allowed to use mobile phones. And I think that EVEN if the mobile phone use is exclusively in the pursuit of their job….because we all know that it is NOT only in the pursuit of their job when they use the phone.

This is however a really small example and the Irish Gardai do it better:

1) Over the last few years they claimed that they carried out 1.9mio roadside alcohol test, but the Medical Bureau of Road Safety only knows of 1mio. How can there be a discrepancy of nearly a million? (RTE Report)

2) 14,500 people were prosecuted for road traffic offences and will have their convictions quashed because the gardai screwed up. They were brought to court without getting a fixed charge notice first. Not ok! (How come it took so long to come out?) The people that now get their money back and points removed because they drove 3km/h too fast (I got 3 points for that. Grrr!) are ok in my eyes, but what about people that committed serious traffic offences and who will also go without any penalty now? (RTE Report)

3) The Sergeant Maurice McCabe saga that is also called the Garda Whistleblower Scandal where Maurice McCabe lifted the lid on Garda corruption around the penalty point system and was threatened within the police force and a cover up was attempted is still not completely sorted. 5 years after it started!

4) This week it emerged that there are financial irregularities at the Garda College in Templemore. They had 50 (!) bank accounts for the college and used money for entertainment and presents that should not have been used for that. (RTE Report)

5) And now the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan indicates that this might not be the only falsifications there are.

Can we really trust our Police Force? I am sure (and know) there are many Gardai that can be trusted but if there are soo many problems, there seems to be a huge systemic problem and if you need LUCK to get to deal with a “good” Gardai then that doesn’t instill confidence in the enforcer of right and wrong in our country.

Dublin, Justice, Odd, Politics, , , ,

30 km/h Speed Limit on all Residential Roads!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
30 km/h Speed Limit on all Residential Roads!

You might think it is an April Fool’s Joke, but such nonsense is just day-to-day business in Dublin: From 01 April there is a 30 km/h speed limit on all residential roads between the canals all day, every day. I am totally on favour of 30 km/h speed limits near schools, in areas with a large amount of pedestrians and in other danger spots. But a blanked speed limit of 30 km/h is total nonsense.

Dublin City claims it will save lives, but they don’t seem to substantiate that with clear numbers that tell us how many people actually died in traffic accidents between the canals in the last 12 months or the last few years. And out of these fatal accidents, I would like to know how many involved a speed of the car of more than 30 km/h. I bet Dublin City has NO such numbers or statistics, so they just use the emotional argument that lives will be saved, expecting that everybody will shut up then.

Speed limits should make sense, then the majority of people will stick to them. But where they don’t make sense, the “30” signs are a waste of effort and the speed limit will have absolutely no effect.

At the time of writing this, the new speed limit wasn’t in effect yet, so we will have to see after 01 April if the “residential road” classification was applied to the right streets, let me know if you find streets that are in the speed limit zones that shouldn’t be. Oh and if you think it won’t affect you because you don’t have a car, think again: Every bus and every taxi will also have to adhere to the limit. (Only cyclists don’t have to! They can now easily overtake busses and cars at any speed they like because they can’t be taken to task when exceeding the limit.)

Dublin, Traffic,

Britain and Ireland are SEPARATE countries! Northern Ireland Border to return?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Britain and Ireland are SEPARATE countries! Northern Ireland Border to return?

It is just a few more days until Britain will declare its departure from the European Union. A totally nonsensical move in my eyes, but (happily!?) mislead by some populist politicians like Nigel Farage and too arrogant to consider that it could all end in a disaster, the British old people and (uneducated?) lower class is forcing Britain to take its hat in March 2019 and say Goodbye to the EU.

(In a pre-poll survey of the Independent, 21% of people below the age of 26 voted for Brexit compared with 69% of people over the age of 65. And 64% of graduates were planning to vote to remain compared with only 25% of people with no formal qualifications at all. Source: www.independent.co.uk)

Some people in Ireland think that without Britain in the EU, Ireland will be in trouble, others hate the EUR for a variety of reasons and others again don’t care much about the EU and the opportunities that it should provide to Irish businesses because they put (nearly) ALL their focus on selling their goods to Britain and ignoring the 25 other markets in the EU.

Nobody knows what the outcome will be. It will probably take another 10 years until we do know and by then, many of the people who caused Britain’s exit will not be around anymore. :-O

Apart from the economic impact, there is one question causing distress in Ireland and it is a surprising issue: It is the question about the border to Northern Ireland.

I am well aware of the historic circumstances, the 800+ years of occupation of Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Treaty from 1921 and the “Troubles”, which were a lot more than just “troubles”, but no matter what your political preferences are you have to accept that by international law, Northern Ireland is part of Britain and NOT part of Ireland. You might want to change that and that wish/goal/preference is absolutely legitimate, But any change needs to follow formal procedures until it becomes reality.

With that in mind, I can understand why people in Ireland don’t WANT to have a border again between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but I can’t see a single reason why there shouldn’t be a border once Britain leaves the European Union and as long as Northern Ireland remains part of Britain.

The fact that both countries are on the same land mass, is definitely not enough of a reason. The history? Not enough of a reason either!

The area I come from in Germany was for a while French, then German, then French again and it is German for a long time but only about 20 minutes by car from the French border. The same happened – in reverse – to the area close to the border in the French side. German, then French, then German and now French. The change in “ownership” always happened through occupation. Both parts were separated by a border until the European Union tore down borders through the Schengen Agreement. But if Germany or France left the European Union, it would be totally normal and understandable that a border with check points etc would be re-built.

Why should the situation be difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland?

Yes, I get it, some think that Northern Ireland SHOULD be or OUGHT to be part of Ireland, but that is as wrong as if you think your neighbours house SHOULD be yours. It will be yours once you agree to it OR the courts decide that your neighbour took the house from you illegally and has to give it back. But until that formal process is completed, it is owned by someone else.

Elsewhere, Politics, , , , ,

TheJournal.ie removes ability to dislike comments

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
TheJournal.ie removes ability to dislike comments

TheJournal.ie featured very lively discussions since 2010. After nearly every article (there were some exceptions) readers could express their opinion and once an opinion was expressed, others could give a Thumbs Up or a Thumbs Down to that opinion. It meant that some opinions found huge support, but it also meant that stupid comments were punished by the public vote.

On Wednesday, however, they announced that the commenting option would change dramatically. You can still LIKE (Thumbs Up) an opinion, but you can NOT express your dislike anymore. A change that will make the discussions a lot less attractive and a move that is heavily criticised by the reader community at TheJournal.ie

In an astonishing #AlternativeFacts approach, the removal of the “downvote” has been presented to readers as an improvement. Instead of the downvote you can now “mute” a commenter, hide a comment or report a comment. NONE of these three options gives a reader the opportunity to express his/her opinion to the original commenter, so TheJournal.ie just killed one of its most liked features.

If you are not a TheJournal.ie user, imagine this: If a contentious comment was made in the past, that comment might have received 250 Thumbs Up and 250 Thumbs Down and other readers clearly saw that there is a divided opinion. With the new system, there will ONLY be Thumbs Up and a comment with 250 supporters and no visible opposition will appear as supported by a large part of the commentors. You see how misleading it will be?

www.thejournal.ie/journal-comments-section-changes-3286318-Mar2017/

Other, ,

Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

The Wax Museum Plus is on its way back (or will be back soon), but oddly it won’t be a museum anymore, according to its director. I wasn’t invited to the launch (which happened without a single wax figure!), so I can only go by what others wrote about it, but it seems that the Wax Museum Plus (the plus stands for museum elements that were not wax figures) will re-open its doors again soon at a different location, but still in the City Centre.

The museum originally started in 1983 on Granby Row, near Parnell Square. That building was sold around 2000 and replaced by a hotel. The content of the museum was also sold to a Patrick Dunning and in 2009 the museum re-opened at Foster Place off College Green. In December 2016, it had to move again because the Irish Stock Exchange bought the building and now in Spring 2017 (probably around April) it will re-open in Westmoreland Street in the former Manchester United shop (later the the Lafayette night club).

In his article on The Journal.ie, Daragh Brophy describes an early media tour. He explains that there was no single wax figure in place yet and that the owner and director tried to convince the reporter that this is a museum that is not a museum, but was a museum but is now not a museum any longer. :-O He also mentions that there will be a new features, like an Augmented Reality aspect where your mobile phone will bring some of the figures to live. The article also includes a picture of Bertie Ahern with his wax figure…that doesn’t look like Bertie Ahern at all. :-O

 

Dublin, Events, Tourism, ,
 
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