The Big Freeze

Ireland is in a State of Emergency and our 'leaders' are nowhere to be found. Why am I not surprised?

We've had 20 days of freezing weather and has there been a statement from the Minister for the Environment or the Minister for Transport? Or any leadership of any kind from the Taoiseach or Tánaiste? No.

Minister Gormley is "very busy" and Minister Dempsey has been on holiday since the 29th of December.

Yes, that's right: While the country's roads have been impassable for weeks, during the worst weather in over 30 years, while Dublin Airport is intermittently shutting down, the Minister for Transport is on holiday.

Dempsey seems to think that the two weeks off at Christmas that the mere mortals get just isn't good enough for the likes of him.

Yet despite being on holiday since the 29th, the Minister managed to release a badly worded press release in which he refers to himself in the third person repeatedly, on the 30th of December.

What a man! What a leader! What an intellect!

Where is the Taoiseach? Apparently he's also "very busy" but he can't be bothered to talk to the country about the emergency situation. Or the Tánaiste? Probably off swearing at someone, somewhere.

No sign of any leadership there either. 'The Big Freeze' isn't the only problem though.

The Slovak government, who bizarrely look like gombeens in comparison to our own ridiculously overpaid amateurs, sent 100g of RDX (Research Department Explosives) in an unsuspecting Slovak man's baggage who was travelling on a plane to Ireland.

They let him on the plane with the explosives and apparently faxed Servis-Air, the baggage handling company to let them know. Fair enough so, that seems like a perfectly reasonable response.

Where is the Minister for Foreign Affairs in all this? According to security experts yesterday, if you put this much RDX under a van and detonated it, you'd need forensics to figure out what sort of vehicle it was.

Imagine what it could have done to a plane, or at any later stage in the man's journey. After all, this explosive is only stable at room temperature and is extremely volatile at low temperature's.

Which if the Irish or Slovak Governments were paying any attention (unlikely) we have in Ireland right now. Imagine if he slipped on the ice walking home? Or dropped his bag a little too heavy while taking his keys out?

In any other country in the world, the Slovak ambassador would be in before the Minister for Foreign Affairs within hours of this happening and would most probably be expelled given what has just happened.

The British or Americans would probably have invaded the Slovak Republic by now, but that's besides the point.

Again, where is the Minister for Foreign Affairs? Where is the Taoiseach? Where are any of our Ministers?

Despite the fact that the Daíl only sits for 90-odd days a year (96 in 2008) we are constantly told that the government is beavering away even when they're on holidays. Our Ministers never rest and are always working for the Irish people.

We've always known that to be a joke, now it's clearly a farce.

The only Minister who seems to be working in the national interest is the same Minister who is battling cancer.

He's the only one in his party (or the Green Party) who has both a brain and a spine, and we all wish him well and hope that he recovers fully.

If he didn't have such a long family history in the Fianna Fáil party, he would be advised to jump ship, soon. He doesn't deserve to be associated with that lot.