Sorry, but stupidity does not entitle you to leave your car in a disabled parking space
FEW Garda initiatives give me more satisfaction than ‘Operation Enable’, which has been running since March.
Stupid parking is always annoying, but deliberately taking a space intended for disabled drivers is criminal.
The “I’ll only be a minute” brigade, who consider their business vastly more important to anybody else’s, whether it’s dropping their precious children to school, popping into the supermarket, or avoiding a few steps in the rain, rarely stop to think of the consequences.
The genuinely disabled find it deeply frustrating to see a non-badged car taking up the one space that would allow them and their wheelchair egress safely.
The clampdown is having an effect. Parking in a disabled bay can collar a fine of up to €2,000 while displaying a fraudulent disabled badge (even worse, as it’s so calculated to deceive) can result in even higher charges.
The man responsible for the success is Sgt Peter Woods of the Dublin Traffic Corps, who secured 26 successful convictions in Dublin courts in the first six months of the scheme. He found multiple people using one permit in some cases, and one person even using their dead mother’s permit in another. The excellent @GardaTraffic Twitter account posted a variety of mindboggling photos which would be funny if they weren’t so idiotic.
My own solution for years is to keep a selection of printed leaflets in my car which I put underneath the wipers of offending vehicles: “Stupidity may be your Disability, but it doesn’t entitle you to park here”. Sometimes, I stay and watch the reaction.
Time to get off the fence, Leo
SO, the Citizens’ Assembly, which was specifically set up as a kick-to-touch brigade by Enda Kenny’s government, turned out the ‘wrong answer’ on the Eighth Amendment repeal. It voted for a pro-choice position respecting women’s right to choose bodily autonomy, with termination on request to 12 weeks. This would still leave Ireland among the most anti-choice countries in the world.
The conservative backbenchers would have far preferred the assembly to say there should be no referendum, or indeed, no abortion at all. So, it went to an Oireachtas committee hearing.
Unfortunately for the Taoiseach, who has stated conservative views on the topic, it too strongly recommended a referendum with the 12-week option. This is because it actually listened to evidence, women and men deeply affected by our anti-choice laws. It was heart-breaking testimony in many cases. It was real and personal. So the members voted the only way they could.
So now, Leo, instead of falling off the fence firmly behind his own Government’s findings, is wedging himself on both sides. He can “see” why the recommendations were made, but has a different “view”.
There’s 21st-century leadership for you. In reality, he can hold whatever view he wants, and indeed, vote in whatever manner he wishes (there’s no whip), but as head of Government and the party who set up both committees, he has no choice but to line in behind the decision.
Those fence posts must be uncomfortable!
Love a good book? Join the club, boys
ONE of my great joys, especially on cold winter evenings, is my book club. Nine of us (all women) meet once a month to argue, bicker and disagree. It’s fantastic fun.
We’re not terribly high-brow, veering between classics and fairly decent fiction, and tend to give anything on the po-faced ‘Man Booker’ short-list a wide berth.
Mostly, it’s an excuse for a girly get-together, and while we take the book seriously, we certainly don’t take ourselves so.
Some of our other halves cynically refer to it as the wine club, but I suspect they’re jealous.
For lots of avid readers, it’s a great way of expanding your reading habits, maybe getting out of the thriller/chick-lit/biography rut that you might be in and forcing yourself to look at different authors.
The best books are those that create the most discussion, not necessarily the ones we all liked.
We also share news of kids, life, work and gossip, solve general world problems and eat delicious food at the same time. Friends who are in other book clubs report a similar vibe.
And yet, I’ve never heard of a men’s book club. Is there one?
Reading may be a solitary exercise, but if all the discussion is taking place in your head, then you’re missing out big time, boys.