What a start to the new year it has been!
15 months on and Lucinda Creighton still hasn’t come up with a brand name. At least, she’s admitting the formation of a new political party unlike her denials back in late 2013 when she loosely described the Reform Alliance as a “loose alliance” and not a political party. The #RebootIreland appears to me as a bit flimsy and poorly thought through- is it a political party, a brand name or a social media conversation? Their temporary manifesto on the Get Involved page presents bullet points to some contradictory ideologies but the key message that has come across is that they’re looking for €1m – maybe they’ll raise it and then give it to the same marketing consultancy that charged Irish Water €1m for coming up with the brand name, wait for it: Irish Water.
The second rude awakening to 2015 is the crisis within our A&Es across the country. Hardly a previous unknown but it seems now the only way to get media coverage, the public and media up in arms about basic human rights and services is to capture inefficiencies and appalling service on a hidden camera. Then you’ll get the coverage and the resources. I’d like to know what the heck had the editorial departments of every media outlet in the country planned to run in the first week in January if this scoop hadn’t appeared because there were few alternatives in the mainstream media.
Then lastly but by no means least, the Charlie Hebdo horror where unfortunately more than a dozen families have learnt that the pen was not mightier than the sword for their lost loved ones this week in Paris. I could write all about freedom of speech and expound on Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité but the global media did police officer Ahmed Merabet a huge disservice by broadcasting his final moments/execution. One of our great poets, Máirtín Ó Direáin, wrote a poem entitled “Dignit an Bhróin” about the dignity of grief – what about the dignity of death? Are there no holds barred anymore?