Thurles Information

Old Woman Of The Roads
by Padraic Colum.

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house – a house of my own
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.

One wonders if the Co. Longford poet Padraic Colum (1881 – 1972) were penning his poem “Old Woman Of The Roads” in today’s Ireland, what would be the title? “The Lament Of A Homeless Person Neglected by Government” perhaps.

“Ireland has one of the lowest levels of homelessness,” stated Mr Leo Eric Varadkar yesterday which perhaps suggests that the problem is being ignored.

You will of course remember Mr Varadkar, the Irish Fine Gael politician and now the leader of a minority coalition government since June of this year; same government which includes quite a number of Fine Gael members. Representing the Dublin West constituency and ‘people who get up early in the morning’, since 2007, Mr Varadkar has previously served as a Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport (2011 to 2014, the period that himself and Mr Alan Kelly increased train fares from Thurles to Dublin by 100%); a Minister for Health (2014 to 2016), and yes, actually the Minister for Social Protection from 2016 to 2017.

The Cabinet, which Mr Varadkar presides over, of course contain numerous individuals who, like himself occasionally demonstrate ‘Learner Driver Syndrome’, in their cases continuously failing to ‘engage brain, before operating mouth’.

Take a look at just one other example; TD Mr John Halligan, the Irish Independent politician who has served as Minister of State for Training and Skills since May 2016 and who is surprisingly an elected TD for the Waterford constituency. This same week Mr Halligan; (anxious to grab a “see me appearing to do important work” headline with the national press), threatened to visit North Korea on a diplomatic mission to halt a nuclear Armageddon.

An impressed Chairman of the Workers’ Party and the supreme leader of North Korea, Mr Kim Jong-un, (as one does in every good home these days), got his wife Mrs Ri Sol-ju to polished the silver and run their china under the tap, before laying it out in the parlour. He himself nipped out to clip the hedges and mow the lawn at the front. Now after all that effort, what happens?  Mr Halligan decides (following a rumoured kicking from civil servants at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs), not to travel. Now between you and me and without in anyway trying to cause panic; Waterford people should be keeping one eye gazing skyward, as I can confirm from first hand sources that Mr Kim Jong-un and the wife are feeling rather ‘pissed off ‘ over the whole damned affair.

I mean Mr Halligan, having failed to acquire a permanent second Catheterisation laboratory down in Waterford, actually instead nipped out to meet with the Palestinian authorities on the West Bank, not to mention the Israeli authorities on the opposite bank, just a few months previously, and you can visibly see today the almighty changes immediately brought about by his diplomacy, which focused the world on his true political ability as a possible leader in Europe.

Anyway, enough on Mr Halligan, sorry, we were chatting about Mr Varadkar and his excuse yesterday for allowing 8,374 Irish people remain homeless during the week of September 18th to the 24th, 2017, across Ireland.

Homelessness, as everyone knows, has had its roots well-watered by past and present Governments failing to legislate. Their failures to correct a broken housing system; low Rent Supplement Payments; low Incomes; forced Social Welfare reductions; Landlords selling; Bank repossessions; Shortages of property stock; Properties refusing to accept Rent Supplement in an effort to avoid Income Tax; High Rents charged by Irish Get-Rich-Quick Landlords, acting out similar sagas as that which existed when we were being exploited by England Landlords; Vulture Funds, and finally a Governments decision to cut spending on social housing by a colossal 72%, between 2008 and 2012, and which now talks about reducing taxes, while they themselves have granted themselves massive salary increases.

Surely it’s time to change our system of elections.