Things we now know

Thanks to some amazing work byPaul "not just at election time" Gogarty, we now know what we should be calling government TD's next time we see them.

We could start with just one or two if we pass them in the street and were pressed for time, or if they call to our door or otherwise try and engage us in conversation we could use the whole lot, some of them twice:

• Brat
• Bufoon
• Chancer
• Communist
• Corner boy
• Coward
• Fascist
• Gurrier
• Guttersnip
• Hypocrite
• Rat
• Scumbag
• Scurrilous

And of course one of my favourites for this particular exercise: Yahoo.

All of the above are perfectly legitimate and extremely accurate descriptions of Deputies, Cowen, Harney, Coughlan etc, but due to the rules governing Dáil speeches, opposition politicians are prohibited from using them in reference to fellow TD's while in the Dáil.

The brave Dublin Mid-West TD today brought this incredibly useful information to the attention of the electorate when he squealed "Fuck you Deputy Stagg, Fuck you" at Labour's Emmet Stagg today.

It seems neither Oscar Wilde nor Winston Chirchill could ever hope to match Deputy Gogarty for political discourse or cultured witticisms.

What could deputy Stagg have done to deserve such a reaction? It must have been particularly horrible for such a foul mouthed outburst in our national parliament nonetheless.

Had Emmet questioned the sexual morals of Deputy Gogarty's mother?

Had he suggested that the Green party TD tortured puppies for fun in his spare time? Or perhaps he suggested that Deputy Gogarty was somehow in favour of the carryings on in the Murphy report?

I mean, whatever it was it had to be momentously horrible, spectacularly bad.

Not quite. What we're forgetting in all this is that it's Paul Gogarty we're talking about here.

This is the same Green Party TD who rolled around on the floor and played dead when listening to a speech he didn't like the sound of and likened being in government with Fianna Fáil with prostitution.

(A good description actually, but perhaps not when you're the one who's selling themselves.)

And of course it's the same Paul Gogarty who decided to resign a position as chairman of a Dáil committee on Education on principle no less, but refused to give up his wage for the job.

Such principles.

As it turns out all Emmet Stagg did was question the sincerity of a Green Party TD wringing his hands at social welfare cutbacks while voting to implement them.

Deputy Gogarty then replied with the now infamous words, later trying to justify it on a technicality like some petulant, wailing teenager.

While I am no fan of political correctness, it has to be pointed out; this our national parliament.

This outburst is hardly surprising as the Green Party have let their voters down repeatedly following their post election sellout.

Since coming to power they have no more advanced a true Green agenda than any of the other mainstream parties who now pay lip-service to sustainability.

Some of them even got a taste of the Ministerial high life (John Gormley's long trip by car in the UK springs to mind)

We are already well aware of how pathetically inept our current government is, and while the Green's can't be held culpable for the disasters of the last decade, they are responsible for propping the FF yahoo's up (yes, I went there.)

They can be held responsible for wasting our money, ignoring the will of the Irish people for a widely sought election and now of disrespecting the Irish people and the Dáil.

The best thing we can do as citizens is to ignore Paul Gogarty and his party. Gogarty is a desperate, attention seeking charlatan who deserves to be ignored, and his party's irrelevance cannot be overstated.

This most recent outburst is symptomatic of a TD and of a party desperate to stay in power at all costs.

When will the Irish electorate cop on to the fact that this is a Republic and that the Irish people are responsible for what goes on in their parliament?

If we stop voting for the lazy, hypocritical, self-important gombeen's and vote instead for politicians who have some respect for the Irish people, then we won't be stuck talking irrelevant rubbish like this on a regular basis.

Call me cynical...

It's easy to poke fun at politicians in Ireland at present, especially our current government.

After all, when the plaudits are rolling in from a lazy, unquestioning media for an over inflated, property bubble economy, they are more than happy to take the credit for it.

But with the bluebird of happiness long gone and the chicken of depression perched on our windowsill, our glorious leaders are happy to tell us that all of our problems are due to global market economies.

Not anything they may have done, oh no!

In fact the sports writer who used to run the country blames the whole economic mess on the collapse Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers, in a case of passing the buck that must surely be without parallell.

How could we possibly have ever taken him seriously?

Speaking of sports, when I learned today that one of the many perks open to members of the Oireachtas is a free Fitness Centre I was a little perplexed.

After all, if one thing is clear from a look at the government benches, it's that over a decade in government has left the midriff of most government TD's somewhat the worse for wear.

If they had been paying for a gym over the last four years, they should ask for a refund. As it is, it's the electorate that's short-changed.

The Oireachtas Press Office informed me today that over 318 people had gone through an induction for the Oireachtas fitness room as the gym is open to staff as well as elected representatives.

Sadly they were not willing to tell me which government or opposition members have done so (although it's pretty easy to guess which TD's didn't take advantage of the facility.)

They did admit that "expenditure to the amount of €34,438 was incurred in 2008 in relation to the operation of the fitness room."

The figure may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but due to the fact that our TD's are among the least hard working in Europe and that the Daíl only sat for a total of 96 days in 2008, the total number of hours per week the gym operates is between 18 and 1/2 and 28 and 1/2 hours per week.

Not only that, but the service is serviced solely by the taxpayer with no contribution whatsoever by members of the Oireachtas or Oireachtas staff. None. Not a penny.

If the 318 people had paid the going rate for a gym membership in the city centre (€300) there would be a net benefit to the exchequer of over €60,000.

Instead, this is yet another case of this government approving a scheme that costs the taxpayers, to the sole benefit of these so called public servants.

The real hoot however, is the reason given for the scheme; "to counterbalance some of the negative lifestyle aspects of working in parliament."

Negative lifestlye aspects? Would that be the subsidised (by the taxpayer) bar in the basement of Leinster House?

Or the many, many rich lunches and dinners in expensive retaurants around the city centre paid for (again) by the taxpayer?

Perhaps they're talking about the really tough trips abroad that all those beleagured politicians have to make?

Here's a simple, cheap, income generating idea to "counterbalance some of the negative lifestyle aspects of working in parliament."

Why don't our government ministers, TD's and former ministers give up the chauffeured government limo's, the rich lunches and the cheap booze, get off their fat arses and either take the bike or walk to work?

It's perfectly acceptable for lots of politicians in democracies around the world. You'd look a lot better, you'd be more in touch with the electorate and perhaps, just perhaps, we might have some respect for you.

Actually I lied about that very last point. That ship has sailed.

'It was only resting in my account'

The Catholic church and some of it's priests in particular have had a particularly bad reputation in recent years and often with good cause.

Campaigning against contraception, rallying against divorce and women's rights were bad enough, but then came the really bad stuff.

If only the dodgy priests of the bad old days were more a little more like Fr. Ted, Fr. Jack and Fr. Dougal and a little less like Gary Glitter we'd be so much more willing to accept their frailties...

It's somewhat refreshing then to find a priest in front of the authorities

for something that doesn't involve little children.

That he later told the waiting press that Revenue Officials are "the biggest shower of bastards on the planet" makes it all the more entertaining.

Forget about apologising for Fr. O'Donovan's comments: If Archbishop Martin has any sense he'll make this guy the posterboy for the church...