Joerg's Ramblings – Page 15 – A Foreigner in Ireland

Machine Pistols everywhere – But different consequences!

14 July 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

There were two machine pistol-related articles in TheJournal.ie last week and there are two completely different consequences coming from the discovery of these guns.

The first article on Wednesday explained that a “member of the public” FOUND a fully-loaded submachine gun belonging to no other than the Garda Siochana. The gun was in a bag in the boot of an armed Garda unit car and it fell out of the car for currently still unknown reasons. The gun was luckily brought to Store Street Garda station and was handed in.

As a consequence of the incident, “A senior Garda officer has been appointed to examine all the circumstances relating to an incident involving an armed unit in Dublin city centre today.”

The second article on Friday described that also on Wednesday a car was stopped in Drogheda and the driver of the car had a large amount of prescription tablets. She was arrested and during a follow-on search a machine pistol and a ammunition were found in a parked car in Drogheda.

The consequence in this case is that the woman will be in court tomorrow and will be charged in connection with the discovery of the machine pistol.

The two stories have nothing to do with each other. In one case it was seemingly a criminal and/or dissident republican that had the gun and ammunition in the car to be used for illegal activities. In the other case it was the law enforcement authorities that had the pistol, but lost it.

Interestingly, though, both sides have very similar weapons and I would always prefer that the law enforcers have better and a lot more weapons than the criminals. The other interesting aspect is that a large part of the Gardai (is it still the majority?) are not armed at all, while the criminals have machine pistols in their cars. Is that a good situation? Me thinks: NO!

And the final aspect: Imagine that Garda machine pistol had been picked up by the “wrong” person. I’d say the Gardai didn’t even realise that it fell out of their car until MUCH later … with no idea where exactly it fell out. :-O Clearly machine pistols are popular in Ireland and finding one on the streets of Dublin is like winning the lottery for the right criminal.

About the consequences: Clearly the Gardai were authorised to have the gun, but the loss of it will hopefully have some consequences for the careless Gardai. And the woman in Drogheda? I wouldn’t be surprised if she will be released again “and a file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecution”. If that happens you really have to wonder what a stupid legal system we have in Ireland.

Irish, Justice Drogheda, gardai, machne pistol, submachine gun

Amalgam in Tooth fillings: Harmless but DON’T use it?

07 July 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Last week a number of media outlets reported that EU had brought in a law that outlawed the use of Dental Amalgam for fillings for children under 15 and pregnant or breast feeding women. The law is from 2017 already, but it came into effect only on 01 July.

So what is Amalgam? Amalgam is compound for tooth fillings that contains Mercury. Mercury is highly toxic but for some odd reason it is allegedly harmless when in your mouth.

The Irish Times wrote in an article “Mercury is the only liquid metal and, while safe when used in dentistry, has been associated with incidents of poisoning, as in the Bay of Minamata in Japan where, in the 1950s and 1960s, a disfiguring disease was identified to be associated with industrial-scale mercury poisoning.”

So it’s safe, but causes poisoning!? How does that make sense?

The Irish Times continued and claimed that the change was part of the Government’s adherence to the Minamata Convention, a United Nations agreement dating from 2013, which aims to protect human health and the environment by reducing, or eliminating altogether, the use of the chemical element mercury.

But it might not surprise you that the Irish Government delayed the change until the very last moment and that it only did so because of a EU law change.

Interestingly Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany have banned or restricted use of amalgam already in 2011. But the Irish Government thought it was appropriate to allow the use for another 7 years! SEVEN!

Now why is this change happening? After all the Health Service Executive in Ireland said that the Amalgam compound was “a safe, reliable and durable filling material, and has been used successfully for over 100 years”. So something safe and perfect will be banned? Isn’t that odd? Bans are normally reserved for dangerous things, no?

Well, interestingly if you are older than 15 or not pregnant, you can currently still get Amalgam fillings DESPITE the fact that many other countries saw the need to ban it.

So is it dangerous or not? Dentists and Health Service Executive tell us that it is safe, but how could they not do that. It would imply that they were lying all along. The ban for children and pregnant women is a clear admission that it is NOT safe.

DON’T use it and tell your dentist that you do NOT want any Amalgam fillings added!

Health System, Odd Amalgam, dentist, Health Service Executive, HSE, Mercury, Minamata, not safe, pregnant, tooth fillings

Voluntary retirement age increased to 70

06 July 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

A big change is afoot. On Thursday new legislation was agreed on by the Government that will allow all public servants to work until 70 if they want. Until now, public servants that were recruited before 2004 had a mandatory retirement age of 65 years of age. With our life expectancy continually going up and since active life should not be forced to end at the arbitrary age of 65, this change makes a lot of sense.

People that want to retire at 65 can still do that, but the people that want to work longer are now allowed to.

Public servants are all employees in the Civil Service (in government- and state-related roles), in Education, in the Health sector, in Justice and in Local Authorities. (The Defence Sector is also part of this group, but they have different retirement rules.)

Yes, there is a downside to that as well. Unsuitable employees could now stick around for 5 years longer. But they were probably already unsuitable before they were 65 and then it is not the fault of this upcoming law change.

Here are some more details about this change.

General, Politics Retirement Age

Thank you Michael D. Higgins, but it is enough!

01 July 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

You might completely disagree with me, because for some reason Miggeldy Higens, as Irish President Michael D. Higgins is also known, found a large amount of fans in the last few years, but I think he should stick to his promise from 7 years ago, when he told the voters that he will only be available for ONE 7 year period.

I was never a big fan of Higgins and it all come from one chance encounter a good few years ago when he was in a queue to go to an event I also went to. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that he didn’t impress IN THE SLIGHTEST. Since then I encountered him at various events and he never managed to change my opinion.

7 years ago he promised that he wouldn’t be glued to the role and would leave after 7 years and while he hasn’t really done anything wrong in these 7 years, I would think that at 77 it is time for him to retire.

But when I thought about it more, I was reminded that the Queen is 92 or something like that and she has as much relevance in the day to day business of a country as Michael D Higgins. And the Pope is 81 and he is also still running his show. So maybe we should leave Higgins in Phoenix Park another 7 years? Also because we don’t really have someone other obvious candidate? You know what, the more I think about it, I don’t really care if it is him or not. But PLEASE no more of his own poems, they are awful! ;-)

One thing that still puzzles me though is how he justifies in his head what he is doing: When he was younger, he was a staunch Socialist/Marxist, now at 77 he is making EUR 250,000 per year plus about 80,000 in money to run the show. Shouldn’t this cause the biggest ideological conflict ever? Seemingly not enough to give the other 7 x EUR 250,000 a miss that he could pocket. :-O

Irish, President Irish President, Michael D Higgins, Miggeldy Higens

Mayor No. 349

01 July 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Every year, Dublin City Councillors elect a new Mayor and last week was that day again. This would be a relevant event in many cities around the world, but not in Dublin. The mayor of Dublin has a big title (“Lord Mayor”), but absolutely no power to change anything. He will move into Mansion House for the year, will cut ribbons and open shops and has the BIG job of turning on the Christmas Lights in December.

Unless we get a directly elected mayor – and this should have happened years ago – he is just a figure head that we easily could do without. :-O Instead of a mayor, an unelected “City Manager” is running Dublin and he often even ignores what the Dublin City Council wants. “In the interest of the people” is different!!

The new mayor is the 349th one. Mad!

The name of the mayor is Nial Ring. Ring was part of disgraced Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s inner circle in Fianna Fail for many years, but when his party didn’t want to support him when he wanted to be elected as a councillor, he suddenly became a “Independent” candidate. In 2017 he lost his house in Clontarf because he didn’t pay the mortgage payments and had arrears of EUR 500,000, so maybe he is lucky that he can move into Mansion House now.

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Elections, Politics Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fail, figure head, Lord Mayor, Mansion House, Nial Ring