GDPR jitters and a new-found appreciation for our councillors

IT has been a tough few months for county councillors. As summer holidays’ beckon for most, councillors, always the eager minions of their parties, are not afforded the opportunity to relax. How could they with a General Election right around the corner, or so we are constantly being told. Combine this with their areas being carved up by the Boundary Commission, local elections early next year and party conventions, where futures are decided, there have been many sleepless nights lost.

For years I have been hearing at council meetings about how much councillors’ powers are being diminished by pen pushers in Dublin. The councillor of old had within his or her armoury the ability to, at times, appear god-like. They could intervene in housing and medical matters, represent their clients’ cases and affect real change in the lives of voters. Did this go to some councillors’ heads? Of course it did. Power corrupts afterall. But the vast majority of councillors have always been loyal party members who do their best for their areas and for their constituents.

For time immemorial council chambers have been filled with men, with a few women often the lone voices of reason when the banter died down. Today a move is on to increase the number of female councillors and TDs and this has caused consternation within political parties who are trying to gain a competitive edge over their rivals.

Under the Local Government Bill of 2014 80 town councils were abolished and ever since the complaining has ramped up.

Councillors are now stuck in a half-job, paid €17,800 odd a year plus expenses and if they are lucky allowances for being on call 24/7 like political doctors, counsellors

GDPR has councillors and office workers on edge across the country.

even. One councillor I met recently said he was thinking twice about running next year. ‘I can’t go to Tesco without being mobbed by people. I had a woman lie down in front of my car for not getting her a house.’ The list goes on.

On May 28, their job got a hell of a lot harder. Where once councillors could contact companies or state agencies on behalf of an elderly person, now they are told that they don’t have the power to any more. Two councillors spoke out at a recent meeting about how it has impacted them. In one scenario a councillor had helped an elderly lady set up a phone line. This was pre GDPR. He recently went to cancel the line as she had moved into a nursing home only to be told that she had to do this herself. As she is currently unable to, the tenant in the house has a free landline at her expense.

Branding GDPR as criminal a councillor moved to have it blotted from law and the office of the Data Commissioner will have a letter to this effect later this week.

The one silver lining for councillors is that a review of the role and payments for councillors is under way. To be completed early next year, it may recommend more money as well as access to secretarial and research supports, and assistance with childcare. Also being considered are possible incentives for employers to allow staff take time off for meetings as councillors are docked pay for failing to attend. Local Government Minister John Paul Phelan said it “was necessary to avoid a situation where membership of local authorities could be restricted to the retired, unemployed or the wealthy.’

Let’s hope the Government acts to ensure this can happen.

IT’S a jungle in there. Jungle rules apply. We will come out on top… A pitiless sun. A tangle of unkempt plants all reaching for the sky in desperate competition with each other. A security fence confining the chaos. We who live in Medders Manor call this overgrown patch of anarchy The Gooseberry Plot, though the gooseberry bush has long since been squeezed out by leaner, meaner rivals.

We reckoned when we planted it that a bush endowed with such nasty thorns would be well able to defend itself but our gooseberry found itself choked and over-shadowed. Instead rampant raspberry canes have colonised much of the available area, while the rugged redcurrants fill in a sizeable corner and a batch of lolloping loganberries has taken advantage of wires strung up by Hermione several years ago.

In many ways the loganberry is the beastliest of the big beasts in this jungle, sending out prickly shoots so long extended that it is nigh impossible to trace back to where they are anchored to the ground. Though it has bulked out nicely, the loganberry struggles to make any significant impression away from the wiring, in much the same way as a locomotive is useless without train tracks.

Its cousin the raspberry is an altogether more nimble contender, as prolific as a weed, sprouting and fruiting in great numbers wherever it can. Knock down one raspberry cane and there are still scores of survivors to carry on the fight. Quite how the redcurrants manage to find a niche on the front line in the midst of this savage botanic warfare is something of a mystery but they too appear to be thriving.

The three species are so densely established that they have seen off almost all other competitors such as docks and grass and dandelions. Only a few nettles remain lurking in the undergrowth, as Hermione used to complain whenever she ventured into The Gooseberry Patch to pick fruit wearing her shorts. Now she prefers to spare the skin on her legs by commanding her husband to bring in the harvest.

Like gladiators fighting it out to the death on the bloody sands of the Coliseum, the raspberries, redcurrants and loganberries are confined to a set space. The fruit cage is an arrangement of timber posts across which is stretched netting, in order to preserve the berries and currants for the intended consumers.

Unfortunately, blackbirds have a craving for redcurrants and are also partial to raspberries, so they are keen to find a way past the defences and gorge themselves silly. Thus the scene is set for conflict between gardener and bird.

How exactly the feathered foe manages to squirm through the fence has never been apparent but squirm their way through they do. Dispatched to collect the makings of a fruit smoothie the other day, I found no less than five of the voracious beggars tucking in amongst the canes.

They all but laughed with contempt when challenged by a mere human as they thrashed around to find a way out. The intruders dodged my flailing arms and shot out through the cage door to safety.

Reinforcements were required. Send for The Pooch. Trespassers beware.

Our dog had been taking it easy in the summer heat. Our dog is a jack russell, with no trace of hunter in his makeup. Our dog has never been known to show any interest in catching rats or other vermin. It turns out that our dog was merely waiting for the blackbirds to bring out his killer instinct.

The body count has been alarming and the energy The Pooch has brought to the chase has been most impressive. He spots one of the foe inside the fence and cavorts around The Gooseberry Patch, tracking his unfortunate quarry around until it tires and eventually falls into his slavering jaws as though hypnotised. Surrender and death are practically simultantaneous.

There is no room for sentiment in this jungle. Me and The Pooch, we really will come out on top. Dear Hermione must have her breakfast smoothie.