Here we go again....

Let's look at another Green classic shall we?

You all know that we are about to receive a 5% hike in ESB charges this winter. The timing could not be worse, the reasons for this being self-explanatory. The main cause of the increase is the levy surcharged to support the burning at our peat-burning power stations, for which there are various legislation that insists we must operate. Typically, this is to ensure that we have an independent power source in case our importation of fuel sources are ever shut off.

This perspective is of course, so 1970's. The Russians are not going to turn off the gas, OPEC is not going to shut down oil supply and we are busy building inter-connectors to the UK and beyond for nuclear power amonst others.

So what do we know about electricity derived from burning peat?

Well, we know that it is the most expensive format we have in producing electricity.
We know that it is the worst polluter and CO2 transmitter of all our energy sources.
We know that the EU has legislation and is bringing in further restrictions to reduce and then stop the use of peat bogs for fuel purposes as per the various EU directives on the protection of habitats.

Eamon Ryan has been the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources for over three years now. He is perceived as the least incompetent Green TD, and certainly as an able minister compared to John Gormley.

And yet, one would think that the first thing a Green Minister of Energy would do is seek to repeal the archaic laws on peat burning stations. After all, it's too expensive, it's too polluting and it's environmentally unacceptable. So for three years the minister sits on his hands while his colleague, Mr Gormley, fully enforces EU laws on protecting habitats by making it unlawful for turf cutters to cut their turf on their own land.

This is a perfect synopsis of Green policy. They don't get the big, medium or small picture. They don't understand basic ideology and policy changes that deal with big issues and conveniently ignore small ones (like small time turf cutting and use of commercial vehicles).

They are the worst, hypocritical, Neanderthal, moronic policy makers in the history of this State, because unlike FF who enact policies to make FF look good whilst lining the pockets of themselves and their friends, they enact policies or make statements that they firmly believe in, without actually thinking them through.

Please ensure the extinction of this species at the next election.....

Not buying the Sindo anymore

In the end it was an easy decision to make, helped in no small part by having access to the Sunday Business Post last weekend, the comparison was inevitable. We do love reading our Sunday newspapers and the kids are trained to tip-toe around us in the morning while we digest the news. Funnily enough, if you asked us on Monday what we actually read, it's unlikely we'd be able to tell you anything and any great detail.

The fact of the matter is the Sunday Independent (Sindo), is now only successful because it has a high readership. The page after page of adverts for multiples proves this, the money follows the readership figures, and that's all what it's about.

The sad demise of Alan Ruddock certainly doesn't help in terms of stories or content. The big beast is now confused, it knows it has to reflect the mass of readers who can't stand the government or its policies and therefore promotes the collective outrage, because it has to remain popular. And yet it still wants to remain truthful to its FF leanings, and therefore continues to use patriots like Larkin and O'Dea to push a friendly sanctuary all hoping for a return to favourable opinion polls, where it can then go back to its normal full-on support.

We don't need this as a country, in fact, the Sindo is a direct reflection of our country and its politics. Too big to fail? That's the Sindo. Lazy dogma and ideas thrown in with no great attention to detail or consequences? That's the Sindo. Relying on a rump of support in its rural strongholds? That's the Sindo. Like FF, the Sindo doesn't understand the necessity for statesmen rather than politicians, it is a rural backwater of gombeen relationships sprinkled with Benny-Hill moments to try and keep its readership numbers maximised.

Will people cop-on and consign this rag to the dustbin? Sadly, unlikely to happen in my time, no matter how long that might be. But even the longest journey has to start with the first step, and in this instance, I'm taking mine next Sunday.....

John Gormley, Grandmaster Quisling and Hypocrite

Minister Gormley is in the process of putting the finishing touches to banning Stag Hunting in Ireland, a 'vital' component for the current program for government. Of course, this ban will not stop stag hunting in Ireland, because deer will still be shot and killed both legally in terms of culling numbers, and illegally for those hunting trophies.

The ban in stag hunting will affect the only stag hunting club in the Republic, the Ward Union Hunt. The WUH maintains a 150 strong Red Deer herd in Co Meath. The hunt, of which there are several a year, takes place by segregating a healthy adult deer from the herd, transporting it to a set location, and then chasing it down using hounds with the intention of capturing it again. Is this cruel? Absolutely. And as we have seen, there have been incidents of stags having to be put down or entering into public or private lands and giving rise to potential injury or death.

However, isn't it astonishing that the minister is taking such an enthusiastic zeal in dealing with what is after all, an anachronistic event involving a bunch of would-be-toffs that has absolutely no abiding consequence on the deer population in Ireland? Mr Gormley has spent well over a €1,000,000 of taxpayers money in an attempt to shut down this hunt, including losing €300,000 alone in one failed court case. Would this money not be better spent in doing something constructive about the deer population in Ireland?

Nobody is in a position to give a definitive answer on what the deer population in Ireland is. One hunter of national prominence has indicated that the deer population in Ireland may well be between 30 and 40 times its sustainable level. The difficulty in verifying this is because the minister, who is now three years in office, has failed to do the one basic action everyone has been asking for - a national deer census. He's perfectly happy to count frogs thanks to EU directives, but when it comes to compiling basic facts that you can draw conclusions from, he's happier spending money off on wild legal goose chases.

Let's be clear on this, even the most ardent deer lover is prepared to admit that the deer population is out of control over large portions of Ireland, a particularly bad spot being the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains. The NPWS organises hunting (culls) sanctioned and increased by the minister since he has been in office to try and control the population, but with no census, we have no way of establishing if this is having the desired effect. Even worse, the illegal hunting of deer is on a scale equivalent and even surpassing the legal activity. It's quite lucrative in that hunters both in Ireland and abroad will pay substantial sums of money to be given the opportunity to hunt deer. Of course, the problem with this is that they are mostly interested in hunting stags because they are trophy hunting, and this has little lasting effect on controlling deer numbers.

In the meantime, our rampaging deer population (one assumes as we have no census) are doing millions of Euros worth of damage to crops and indigenous flora, which has a knock on effect on native fauna. You may wonder why there is little native hardwood forestry in Ireland? Well the reason is that the little blighters will chew and strip every sapling they can get their teeth and tongues into by preference to anything else, and ring-fencing the trees is too commercially expensive in spite of the grants made available. So the deer quite happily reside in their Sitka Spruce mono-cultural night residences only to forage down from the mountains where and when they want.

This is the sheer hypocrisy of John Gormley, he wastes hundreds of thousands of Euros tackling the irrelevancy of the WUH to appease the anti-hunting element in the Green Party, thus making it a Green central plank on the PfG, but completely fails to deal with the bigger, more overriding issue of deer control. A competent minister would start the ball rolling with a deer census, then get all the stakeholders together and drum up a steering group, with the express aim of coordinating the conservation, maintenance and control of the national deer herd for betterment of one and all. The minister's hypocrisy is helpful to no-one, save his own ego and stupidity.

In the meantime, I note Mr. Gormley in his best quisling role taking on a photo shoot of the first Red Kites born in this country for over 200 years. The minister has been in charge for three years, and yet he has done nothing to protect the attempts to reintroduce Red Kites, Golden and Sea Eagles in this country from rampant poisoning. Indeed, this is the worst year on record, happening directly on his watch. No new legislation, no random searches of farms, no random searches of suspect areas identified from tracking tags, no arrests, no prosecutions. NO. NOTHING.

This is a minister of self-serving drivel, a man of inaction, worse, a man whose few actions are counter-productive and inconsequential, because his limitations in ability and aptitude blinker him from realising simple, basic, tasks and legislation. He is a failure in common sense, a failure as a representative of the Green Party, and the sooner the country is rid of this hypocritical quisling, the better.