Cork does humble but can Fianna Fail?
Posted on September 4, 2006
Filed Under Outside Dublin, Asides, Cork, Politics, Rant, bureaucracy, funny ha ha, nature, work | Comments Off
I attended a conference in the Burlington Hotel today. There were a lot of Cork people there, including the Cork Hurling team, but, thankfully I didn’t have to talk to them. I did, unfortunately, have to listen to Batt O’Keeffe. He’s a Fianna Fail politician from Cork and a Minister of State for very important stuff.
The opening session was chaired by an Assistant Secretary of a Government department. He showed a deft diplomatic touch, even though he is a civil servant. He welcomed the foreign delegates and noted, drily, how those hotel guests who were in and around the hotel bar the previous night had a unique opportunity to experience the Cork way of celebrating, even in defeat. In plain English, that probably meant the Gardai riot squad were called in at 5am when the Murphys Stout ran out. No doubt the taxi strike was the real reason why the room was half empty until 11am.
Next up was Batt O’Keeffe who tried to win the room over by noting how Cork’s defeat to Kilkenny in the All-Ireland Hurling Final gave Cork people an opportunity to be humble. I’m not sure if the room smiled or sneered at this observation. He spoke for about 20 minutes about how ‘his’ Government were spending millons and millons of Euro updating the nation’s infrastructure. Minister, the word is million. There is an i at the end of the word. Ya langer. Not sure what else he said because, as I’ve said before, whenever a politican talks, it’s just white noise to me.
After the Minister’s address, the Assistant Secretary said Minister O’Keeffe couldn’t stay long as he had another very important engagement. And the engagement? I now know he went to Dublin Castle to announce that Westport had won the Tidy Towns competition. With a salary in excess of €100k, it’s nice work if you can get it.
Oh, by the way, where are Fianna Fail having their annual ‘think-in’? Err, Westport.
Shurely some misthake!
I wonder if Minister O’Keeffe travelled to Westport in a helicopter or airplane? And I wonder how he’s going to offset the CO2 emissions generated by his trip. I’m just wondering, like.
It would be an odd thing if a socialist used an aircraft to fly 120 miles (?) to visit his comrades, like Bertie. But maybe not. In our boomer economy, I’m sure Bertie, our Dear Leader would agree (e.g., heil-bertie).
