In the red corner: Fianna Fail, The Progressive Democrats.
In the blue corner: Fine Gael, Labour, The Green Party.

The Winner? To be decided in a few weeks on a Thursday, so that anyone working from Dublin or attending University is unable to vote in their own constituency. Fianna Fail have smarts… It’s going to be another low-turnout election.

I was leafing through the newspapers here today, and looking back on all the drama of the past two weeks. It’s a fascinating spectacle. First our current Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern, is hit by allegations of receiving (well, his partner apparently) a large sum of money from some dubious character. Since that news broke he has steadfastly refused to explain anything, the one thing guarenteed to outrage the electorate.

Then we had the whole thing where criminals in an Irish “maximum security” prison seemed to have developed a fondness for ringing up radio shows with their mobile phones. Our Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, went all out on this one. Somehow he managed to get a spot on the same radio show with 15 minutes of free air time where he was neither interrupted, questioned, nor any after-comments allowed. Now how the guy can swing that kind of deal with Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, is beyond me.

Finally, we have the whole Health Service in a mess from a Nurse’s “work to rule” protest. Just today I heard the Health Service Executive is threatening them with salary deductions of up to 30% over their protest actions. It’s so cool to see negotiations going so well.

I wonder what’s next? Maybe when Enda Kenny (defacto Opposition Leader, and leader of Fine Gael) stops giggling at this marvellous run of luck for his coalition of parties Gerry Adams will sweep the Polls and we’ll end up with Sinn Féin looking for a place in Government. Yep, that’s all we need. The Inept Party and the local Terrorist (“But we’re now political!”) Branch announcing an alliance to lead Ireland into the 21st Century…

Anyway, just to moan a little more… I’m hoping Fine Gael have the right stuff to get elected this time around. If they do I’ll be watching for some kind of improvement.

1. To get the screwed up, ill managed, Health Service running in some halfway decent manner. It’s practically pathetic living in a country which has a second-rate Health Service which thinks it perfectly normal to make people wait months for test result on ailments like cancer. Not like a fast diagnosis has any value, eh?

2. Meeting some kind of Environmental Standard. I’ve been told Ireland is a signatory to Kyoto. I also know we’re never going to meet it, or any other target the EU sets. Fact is, the current government has no motivation to do so – since they’re rolling in my tax dollars they think it’s cute to do nothing and just pay for whatever carbon surplus the rest of Europe has instead. It would also be nice if the west coast got clean water (anyone intending to visit Galway should carefully watch the local water situation unless you like little critters called cryptosporidiosis).

3. Roads. Big roads which have more than four lanes of traffic. Roads which aren’t packed day and night with traffic jams and those frackin’ toll booths – tolls! For sitting in a traffic jam! Trains. Yep, trains which go faster than 40 mph. Maybe one of those fancy mainland ones that go like…over 50mph? God, do you guys have ones that go faster??? Is such a miracle possible??? ;) If we really make the big time, maybe we’ll get a few extra buses which run more frequently than once every 3 hours? I could be reaching too far there…

4. Broadband! Ah, my time honoured complaint for year after year… If you live where I do you have two choices. a) Get a satelite connection for €100+ per month, or b) wait until hell freezes over for the local telecom (well, technically it’s national…and a monopoly to boot) install a digital exchange. If all else fails, one can pray that a radio mast pops up within a few kilometers, has a direct line of sight, and doesn’t involve building a radio telescope on the roof. Broadband…a man can only dream of ever seeing such a wondrous technology…

5. Proper road signage. I live on a small road you can fit one car up (anyone you meet needs to be very good in reverse ;) ). According to the local council the speed limit for that road is a humble 80Kph. I keep expecting the Gardaí to pull me over for living on the edge doing half that.

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