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The Homelessness Industry

Let's Express Posted on July 20, 2015 by John MallonJuly 21, 2015

Last Christmas we were told that, "€30,000 a year is spent for every homeless person, (http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/30000-a-year-spent-for-every-homeless-person-30804910.html). That amounts to €577 a week or €2,300 a month for each and every homeless person in the State!!!

WHAT? I'm struggling for words here! Why is someone who pockets €577 a week homeless? I brought up two kids, paid a mortgage and ran two cars for almost the same amount of money. But when you read the article you find that the middlemen are the ones pocketing the dough. 

The Department of the Environment and the HSE together spend more than €78m of your tax money to assist the estimated 2,663 people who are currently broadly described as "homeless" but the aforementioned homeless don't get that money. It is given to hotel owners who take them in and the inevitable "Charities" have their snouts in the trough as well. There are now 23 individual charities working in the area of homelessness headquartered in Dublin alone and that's a lot of snouts.

Registering as a charity in Ireland is a matter of who you know, not what you know but if you do know the right people then it is a tax-free ride at the citizen's expense. You do not have to tell anyone what you spend your grants on so all you need to do is mouth the right platitudes once or twice a year, keep your head down and pay yourself richly for fuck-all. 

With the kind of funds currently available, if you just gave it directly to the true homeless people the problem would disappear overnight, right? Well no, because you see the charities and all of their leeches would then be out of work and they would become homeless instead.

Mad, isn't it?

Posted in Life | Leave a reply

The Knotty Problem of Islam

Let's Express Posted on July 20, 2015 by John MallonJuly 21, 2015

Taken in isolation, the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the subsequent murders at the Jewish shop are to be condemned because unarmed civilians were gunned down by what can only be described as lunatic fanatics armed to the teeth. Those guys were cowards not martyrs.

It is far too easy for us here though to believe this kind of thing could not happen on our turf. One in every seventy people in Ireland claim to be of the Muslim faith. How or why they have chosen to come to this cold and wet Atlantic outpost is not at all clear but many have fled persecution in their homelands. They have brought with them their culture, food preferences, languages and religion and are free to do so. Indeed our Constitution protects their rights in this regard.

Contrast that with many countries in the Middle East where you can be physically assaulted on arrival for wearing the Christian cross around your neck. In most Muslim countries, peoples from the western democracies are tolerated because of their money or expertise but frankly, they are not wanted there. Muslim clerics warn of the dangers of being "infected" by free fun-loving westerners and our kind are routinely kept far away from the local population, particularly their women. Could you imagine us insisting on that regime for Muslims here?

Dr. Ali Selim, spokesperson for Irish Muslims, was very vocal about the Paris atrocities issuing dark threats to any Irish publication who reprinted the "Charlie" cartoons. While stating that Muslims are tolerant he claims that the cartoons give offense to them. But offense is something that is taken not given. The majority of Irish people would not take offense at such a thing. Unflattering images of Our Lord and elders of the Catholic Church are routinely published in our media and some people like that and some don't. That is the nature of the freedoms we citizens have earned. 

But Dr. Selim doesn't seem to truly understand what it all means. He says he supports freedom but I don't believe his definition of freedom is not the same as ours. Irish people are FREE to convert to Islam but Muslims in their own countries are not free to convert to Catholicism. There are about the same number of Catholics as there are Muslims in today's world. Catholics believe their God is the one true God while Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad has shown them the one true God. In that sense it is a stand-off. 

We Irish though can be dubious about things that we don't understand and have various levels of resentment buried in our National DNA. While we are rightly viewed internationally as generous and welcoming we can equally develop a short fuse for things we feel threatened by. Currently we offer an easy tolerance of others practicing any religion they choose and indeed we hear many people now on the media who profess to believe in no form of religion. Not too long ago such views would have been unacceptable here. 

Fundamentalists of the Islamic faith believe we are 'infidels' as they call us, so we are no better than dogs and this justifies unarmed christian civilians being gunned down on the basis of Jihad or holy war. Deep down then, they appear to view us as inferiors who must convert to their view of the world or be murdered. Now that, I suggest, is truly offensive. Worse than offensive though, it is damned dangerous. Muslim terrorist attacks around the world are carried out because they feel they have a right to do so. That right is conferred on them because of  a twisted interpretation by their elders and justified because we in the West are unbelievers. 

If that was the end of it though, it would be a no-brainer. Just arrest all of the Muslims and send them home. But then there is the actions of America in their self-proclaimed role as the "World's Policeman." Since the turn of the century and before, the Americans have systematically undermined and then overthrown the Governments of several Muslim countries. Their ham-fisted approach in each case has left devastation in its wake. Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are now ungovernable and the rest of the middle-east is tethering on the brink. Hundreds of thousands of young men are left without either a living or a future and are easy prey for the radical elders of Islam. Hatred of the West was spawned on all our behalves by American military action against them in their own countries and the backlash is now coming home to roost. 

We in Ireland have not had any experience yet of radical Muslim action and indeed, in recent years I have met and befriended some Muslims here in Cork. You'll meet good ones and bad ones as with anything else. But even though one of the guys I met was an Arsenal supporter, I was willing to treat him as just another guy but if he'd thumped me for being a Christian I would most certainly have got back up and returned the compliment. And what would that prove?

Where does that leave me then? I'm sixty, white and Irish living in my own country. I do not support what America is doing in its own interests around the world but I also condemn radical Muslims for what they do. As Christians I believe we have a responsibility in Europe, (and therefore Ireland too), to the unfortunates refugees from the Middle East and we should take some of those poor people in. But let's not be fools for the worst of them either.

Posted in Life | Leave a reply

Watering It Down

Let's Express Posted on July 20, 2015 by John MallonJuly 21, 2015

In my parents and grandparents time they always had running water in their homes. When the British left us there remained behind a Victorian water supply structure and the new Irish State simply assumed control of it. The workers who operated the supply remained in their jobs and the water continued to flow.

In those days each citizen paid their taxes to maintain the State and the lump sum of those taxes were doled out to the various arms of the State from central taxation. For water services this meant a subvention to the local authorities around the country to cover the cost of providing local supplies. It was never free because it couldn't be and rates of taxation went up as each arm of the State incurred increasing costs. So your parents and mine all paid water taxes through they were never given that name. The money just came out of the tax take.

If you think about it though, how could it ever have been free? Somebody had to pay for it and the politicians do not have any money that we don't give them through our taxes. So the ordinary citizen has always paid for their water. This then is the underlying fallacy about "Irish Water," the new so-called utility. It is a brazen effort to extort a water tax twice. Over half of the population has seen that and refused to pay. Since the beginning of this fiasco the Government has bluffed and blustered in an attempt to bullshit us into it. They have lied, threatened and pleaded with us to no avail. They have walked themselves into a crisis, (for them), through this effort at extortion. It is no exaggeration to suggest that Irish Water could end the hopes of this coalition for re-election.

Contrary to popular opinion, water is not a precious commodity in this country. Fresh water rains down on us all year round and it has a natural system of re-cycling itself. Our Atlantic position ensures this will continue. Ireland, in fact, could become a huge exporter of fresh water to those countries that have a real shortage and thus earn itself the kind of real money that could offer us all free water here for the first time in the history of the State. That would be an imaginative solution for all.

But our bureaucrats don't do imaginative. Instead they set up a company that seeks to punish us for their own short-sighted stupidity. Given the go-ahead yesterday for the company to borrow another €550M the total borrowings for Irish Water now stand at €850M. In their first round of invoicing they took in just €30.5M, (http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/water/irish-water-crisis/total-debt-at-underpressure-irish-water-now-tops-850m-31387172.html). Had that €850M been given to the Local Authorities to improve the infrastructure then progress could have been made already. Instead this money has been pissed away.

It is critical to understand that Irish Water does NOT supply you with water. Your supply is coming from where it always came from. Irish Water is an expensive "Metering & Billing" company, pure and simple. They have been authorized to send you an invoice for something you already pay for through your taxes. Irish Water is a scam on a grand scale. What is truly telling however is that Irish Water is being treated by Government almost as if it is a State or Semi-State company whereas it is an off-budget item supposed to be a self-supporting private company. You do not need to be a cynic to see that it is being fattened up for quick sale to a foreign investor. To understand just how frightening that could be, I urge you to read both of these articles, (http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2013/04/22/human-beings-have-no-right-to-water-and-other-words-of-wisdom-from-your-friendly-neighborhood-global-oligarch/), and (http://action.storyofstuff.org/sign/nestle_water_privatization_push). If Nestle or its like were to gain control of a private Irish Water then all of us will suffer, take my word for it. As the articles suggest, "Safe water will become a privilege only affordable for the wealthy."

It may have started out as a water issue but it has developed into a political problem and the Government are terrified of backing down in the face of so much opposition. It has become Enda Kenny's ego and political legacy versus the good of the electorate. (http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/theyre-losing-the-game-but-they-have-to-fight-on-31387177.html). It is laughable that so many many people gratefully accepted the €100 grant/bribe to pay the charge and yet they took in less than they paid out in that bribe. As such then the big question is, will the Irish Water debacle puncture Enda's ego at the General Election. As the man might say himself, It is a hard decision," I don't think.

Posted in Politics | Leave a reply

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