Jobless Paddy

Féilim Mac An Iomaire is desperate to get a job so he can stay in his home country of Ireland. But after 100 failed job applications he decided he had to do something dramatic to get anywhere.

So he's advertising himself on a huge billboard on one of Dublin's busiest streets, at a cost of £1745 for a fortnight's exposure.

He doesn't want to be one of the 50,000 Irish citizens due to emigrate this year to find work, nor one of the 400,000 jobless* in the Republic.

He's already worked in the States and Australia, but doesn't want to work abroad again. Despite the grim economic situation in Ireland, his roots are still firmly in "the Old Sod".

The poster has led to a flood of sympathetic emails and messages, but as yet no job offers. He may still have to leave the country.

People try all sorts of bizarre tactics to get employment. They walk the streets with sandwich boards, offer their services for nothing, and buttonhole chief executives, not to mention stuffing their CVs with bogus skills and experience. When times are hard, ingenuity is called for.

Fruitless job-hunting has to be one of the most disheartening experiences there is. Month after month you send out the applications, only to get polite letters "thanking you for your interest". Or no response at all, just a deafening silence. I got my present job after over two years of searching, and what a relief it was. Persistence does seem to pay off eventually.

So what's in store for Féilim? Will he be gainfully employed in Dublin or will he be heading back to Oz? Watch this space.

* That's 14.7% of the workforce

How does he pronounce his name? That's a good question, I'm glad you asked me that.

A note on the post title: the pic doesn't show the bottom of the poster which gives his email address as joblesspaddy@Gmail.com

PS (Thursday night): I read that Féilim now has dozens of job interviews lined up and is likely to get a job offer very soon.

PPS (June 16): Féilim has been offered two top marketing jobs and is deciding which to take. Emigration cancelled!

Drink problem

Regular readers will know I'm baffled by people who habitually drink huge quantities of alcohol and habitually get appalling hangovers. Where's the attraction, I ask myself. Why is ten pints better than half a pint?

Keen drinkers on the other hand are equally baffled by me. Why is Nick such an abstemious tight-arse? Doesn't he know how to let his hair down and enjoy himself? Doesn't he want to lose his inhibitions and anxieties for a while?

I don't think the two factions will ever understand each other. Especially here in Ireland, where heavy drinking is regarded as absolutely normal and (13%) proof you're a paid-up member of the human race.

Alcohol comes to mind as I watch with interest England's latest attempts to curb the huge social, medical and financial costs of binge-drinking.

Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, has banned alcohol on the entire London Transport network. The British government has announced that young children found drunk by police will be ordered into rehab and teenagers frequently caught with alcohol will be given ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) imposing curfews and alcohol bans. Parents may be sent on parenting courses and may be prosecuted if their children are still misbehaving.

Well, these measures are a well-meaning response to an increasingly ugly problem, but they don't tackle the root cause of alcohol mayhem. Which is the increasing belief that a night out can't be properly enjoyed without a tsunami of alcohol, plenty of broken glass, pools of vomit and a mangled brain.

Somebody explain to me why a few like-minded people with sharp brains, a crazy sense of humour and some juicy gossip aren't more than enough for an entertaining evening, with or without fermented grapes.

Spine chiller

Can you believe it? A 12 year old girl has a rapidly worsening spine disease which requires an urgent operation. The Irish health service stalls and delays and refuses to do anything. Eventually a businessman has to offer 100,000 euro for the operation to be carried out in London.

How come one of the richest countries on earth can't arrange a vital operation for a child who is in so much pain that even the heavy doses of painkillers might cause her death?

Her mother is in constant agonies watching her daughter suffer, yet the health authorities give excuse after excuse as to why she may have to wait 12 months for the 'urgent' operation.

Bernadette Kelleher, who lives in Cork, is so furious with the way her daughter Ann-Marie's scoliosis has been dealt with, she has spent six months lobbying her TD (member of parliament), health officials, doctors, the media and a major charity to get things moving.

The list of reasons for not performing the operation has grown and grown: lack of beds, lack of specialist staff, long waiting lists, the complexity of her problems. What all this really amounts to is management incompetence and lack of political will. There's certainly no shortage of money, the country is awash with it.

Now it looks as if the health service will pay for the operation in London. But don't hold your breath - next week there might be yet another U-turn. Why is it so difficult to give sick people the treatment they need, as soon as they need it?

All I can say is, I hope I don't succumb to any major disease that needs extensive medical treatment. The UK health service is not much better than the Irish one when it comes to treating you efficiently and promptly. They're just as ready with excuses and cop-outs and foot-dragging.

That might not matter so much if it's an insurance claim that's at issue, but health is crucial to our quality of life.

Photo: Woman with back pain. I couldn't get photos of Bernadette or Ann-Marie.

Irish contradictions

Since many of you are Irish or claim an Irish identity, I thought I should say something about my own view of the Irish.

I must say I find the Irish very contradictory. On the one hand they praise the Irish culture and the Irish way of life and say they wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but then ten seconds later they'll be running the place down and saying Ireland's going to the dogs.

They'll lay into the transport system, the health service, the roads, the cost of housing, materialism, TV programmes, the Catholic church, Dublin Airport. Nothing seems to be safe from a storm of frustrated invective.

The tourist industry gets it in the neck too - the shamrocks, Oirish pubs, the ubiquitous emerald green, silly hats, paddy wagons, leprechauns - it's all a travesty of the real Ireland that only mindless trippers would swallow.

There doesn't seem to be much left that the residents actually enjoy unreservedly. Though if they're pushed to defend their homeland, they'll spend a few minutes waxing lyrical about the music, the literature, the art, traditional values, the craic, the scenery, the sense of community, the friendliness.

But you get the feeling that sometimes that's more a sales pitch than genuine enthusiasm, put on for the benefit of those arrogant Brits who've dismissed their perfect country for so long.

As soon as you're out of earshot, they'll be on again about that waste of space Mary Harney and how she's f**king up the health service. Or that bastard Bertie and his dodgy piles of unexplained cash. I really don't understand the mixed messages. Will the real Ireland please stand up?

Sources: Irish Times, Irish Labour Party, Irish TV (Prime Time, Questions & Answers, The Panel), Irish blogs.
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Update: Re the British government's plan to ban paid sex, a BBC poll found that 52% of respondents thought it should be banned and 65% thought buying sex exploits women. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 65% thought paid sex should be banned.

Abortion limbo (2)

The embattled Miss D, the Irish 17 year old who sought an abortion but was doggedly obstructed by the Health Service Executive, has now thankfully been given the go-ahead by the Irish High Court.

The court says she is free to travel abroad to have the abortion (which the law forbids her in the Republic).

They've ruled that the HSE was acting quite improperly in preventing her from carrying out her decision, and confirmed that there is no statutory or constitutional bar to her leaving the country for this purpose.

The HSE is left with a large quantity of egg on its face, while Miss D can at last decide the future of her baby without outside interference.

I wish her well and hope she has the emotional and psychological strength to deal with the loss of her potential child.

Of course this whole legal wrangle wouldn't have occurred if it was easier to get an abortion in the Republic and the Church didn't still have such a stranglehold on all those in a position to change the situation.

The Church's censorious view on abortion doesn't even reflect the general feeling of the Irish people. Since 1967 an estimated 45,000 pregnant women have voted with their feet and travelled to Britain for terminations. They are prepared to defy the law and lie about their nationality to achieve their wishes. Just how long will this desperate exodus continue?

(see also Abortion Limbo)

Abortion limbo

The Republic of Ireland may be rushing into the future at breakneck speed and shedding its insular past with gusto, but when it comes to abortion, attitudes are still remarkably strait-laced.

Miss D, who is 17 and four months pregnant, is asking the Irish High Court to restrain the Health Service Executive from stopping her going to Britain for an abortion.

She has been told her baby has a medical condition which means it won't survive for more than three days after birth.

Her mother supports her wish for an abortion, but the HSE has opposed it, informed the Gardai (police) and actually prevented a passport being issued so she is unable to travel abroad.

The reason she wants to travel to Britain, like many other pregnant women before her, is because abortion is still illegal in the Republic, except when the mother's life is at risk or she is suicidal.

As Breda O'Brien writes in the Irish Times: "A police state where women suspected of being pregnant could be prevented from leaving the country would be utterly repugnant."

It is still not accepted in the Republic that it is up to women to decide whether they want to continue a pregnancy or not. The State and the Church still insist on getting involved, despite the widespread opposition of women who have increasing autonomy in virtually every other area of life but not in this one.

It may well be the case that some women who have had an abortion later regret the fact and feel profound grief and remorse. They may also suffer medical complications that mean they cannot conceive again. But the risk of traumatic consequences is no reason to take away a woman's right to control her own pregnancy and decide whether or not she wants her baby.

The High Court is due to make a decision sometime this week. I sincerely hope they decide in Miss D's favour. But how absurd that this issue is on their agenda in the first place.

PS: Here in Northern Ireland the law on abortion is so confused the Department of Health is about to issue detailed guidelines on provision for it. This follows pressure from the Family Planning Association which is working to increase women's reproductive rights.