Government Efficiency

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few weeks about the mysterious assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai and the use of fake Irish, British, French & German passports by the assassins.

Despite their fulsome denial; "Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies", lets call a highly organised assassination by Mossad a highly organised assassination by Mossad. The Israeli government did it.

There are a lot of ethical questions raised by this case, not least about state sponsored assassination and the identity theft of passports by a foreign government.

But we'd have to be incredibly naive to believe that governments around the world don't do bad things and break international law whenever it's in the interest of their country. That's what governments do.

The Americans do it; the British do it; the French certainly do it. And however many rules of ethics they may breach on a daily basis, you have to give it to the Israeli secret service: they're efficient.

However for some reason I can't imagine Mossad agents being turned into a worldwide movie franchise like MI6 assassin James Bond.

But lets imagine for a second that the Irish government were to decide that it was going to willy-nilly bump off those who threaten it's interests and indulge in some international sabotage/ skulduggery/ assassination.

Then lets say, hypothetically speaking of course, that the former Minister for Justice and False Sworn Affidavits (his official title) Willie O'Dea, hired a young man and sent him on a mission to rid the earth of Ireland's enemies, to banish them to Hades, shuffle them off this mortal coyle.

How do you think that would that work out, given the known-knowns that we now know about the Irish government and how it operates?

Why don't I tell you (hypothetically speaking of course)?

Unlike the Israeli's, the Irish Secret Service would first fail to train their agent sufficiently (cutbacks don't you know.) But sure the Irish are a quick-thinking bunch; "ye'll be grand" they'd say.

They would first send their agent to a bear colony in Alaska; them to a ship building yard in Malta (after all former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pointed out that our economy was ruined by the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns.)

On the discovery of their mistake and gross ineptitude, their agent would then be sent to the Appalachian mountains to see if there's any truth in the rumour that "there's money in them thar' hills."

After all, Lenny says the coffers are running a bit low at the moment and the government is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to generating revenue and jobs.

As it turns out the Irish Secret Service's intelligence was severely flawed and the agent would spend the guts of a week trying to evade capture and violation by a crowd of banjo playing, toothless rednecks.

Finally our wonderfully efficient government would send a telegram (the civil service computers being on a work-to-rule at present) asking their agent if he could visit a quarry in the Ukraine to "see how much rock-salt you can get for €78. Stop. Gormley says it's going to snow again soon. Stop."

Once the agent returned to Dublin, broken physically, mentally and spiritually; a mere shell of an individual incapable of doing anything worthwhile; he would be deemed sufficiently trained to take up a position in the HSE

This is all hypothetically speaking of course. I'm not suggesting that I've been on a state-sponsored assassination attempt/wild goose chase for the last three weeks. Oh no.

I could tell you where I've been. But then I'd have to kill you.

George Lee's Resignation

More on this to follow, but for now here's the full text of George Lee's statement:

"I wish to announce that I have resigned from the Fine Gael Party and from my seat in Dáil Eireann today Monday 8th February 2010.

It has been a very difficult decision, but it is one that I have taken after a great deal of reflection on my position and on the role that I have been playing in Fine Gael since I joined that Party in May last year.

The nine months since then have been a period of enormous economic upheaval. Throughout that period I have done my best to play a positive role in contributing to the national debate and to efforts to find a solution for many of the country’s economic problems.

The reality, however, is that despite my best efforts I have had virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at this most critical time.

The role I have been playing within the party has been very limited and I have found this to be personally unfulfilling.

When I entered politics last May I made it clear that I was doing so because I wanted to try to play a new role contributing to economic policy formulation. After nine months of trying within the political system it is now my considered view that the role available to me within Fine Gael is not a role I am happy to play.

I would like thank most sincerely all those who campaigned for me, for all of their efforts and support. I would also like to thank my Secretarial and Parliamentary Assistants for all of the help and work that they have provided to me.

I particularly want to thank the electorate of Dublin South who voted for me in such large numbers last May. It has been a great privilege and an honour to serve on their behalf.

However, I do not believe I would be serving the electorate honestly if I were to continue allowing my efforts and mandate to be used to promote and market economic policies into which I have had no input"