While the Brits have laid out their plans regarding what they’d like, i.e. a ‘seamless and frictionless’ border between us, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is sceptical, warning we should prepare for a hard Brexit. Rightly so, given last week’s statement from the UK, which I have to say reads more like a shopping list than a credible, reliable and viable policy.
You see, (and I don’t mean any disrespect to my British friends, readers, or indeed my husband…ya know I love ya darling), I really do worry that our lovely neighbours have sat down, had a cup of tea and a hob nob, composed a wish-list as opposed to a well thought out strategy that’ll firmly define their blueprint for Brexit – and hoped for the best. Now that’s just downright dodgy and – dare I say – disrespectful to us.
This latest development regarding the Irish border (delivered in a much-anticipated statement), leads me to pose the question; just how delusional are these jolly hockey sticks Brexiteers, and just how thick do they think we are? I mean, why in their wildest dreams would they assume we’d be so obtuse as a nation to agree to them leaving the customs union without having a customs border? Not only will we not wear it, the EU won’t wear it either.
You see, while we do not want a physical structure-type border on this island (it would be disastrous), while we want – and indeed while we are entitled to – to travel across this country freely as Irish citizens, the enthusiastic Brexiteers cannot reap all of the benefits of the customs union and the single market and expect to have none of the costs or restrictions that go with it. It’s just not gonna happen.
However, what has become clear is this. The UK appears to be unprepared to explore and come to terms with the whole reality of Brexit and are instead unaware that the consequence of their wish-list, (which is to refuse to entertain the idea of either a sea border or a physical border) will see us all living in a smugglers’ paradise with Irish jobs, Irish businesses and Irish citizens being the clear victims. My suggestion: go back to the drawing board chaps and, keeping in mind our ‘special relationship’ and the Good Friday Agreement, come up with a credible and doable plan to solve a problem that you created.
Ooops, I think he did it again!
Another week, another Trump story! Yes readers, it appears the US president’s combative and unrestrained botched response tactics, (which have only served to embolden white supremacists) knows absolutely no bounds!
I was sickened that in the wake of the Charlottesville riots, the bimbo wrangler unapologetically engaged in his usual and ignorant ‘this is my opinion, deal with it,’ manner and quite literally communicated to the world that there is in his tiny mind, under that multi-directional matted weave with more flyaways than Aer Lingus, a place for racists, Nazi flag flyers and the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump and his views are mind-bogglingly distorted to the extent that he is an individual who cannot and who will not be stage-managed. He is an individual who is a loose cannon. He is an individual who has no political knowhow and he is an individual who has absolutely no sense or knowledge of his country’s history. And yet, alarmingly (at the time of writing) only a mere forty per cent of Americans think this idiot deserves to be impeached, removed from office and sent back under the rock from whence he came. For God’s sake America, when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is congratulating your president for what he calls his “courage to tell the truth”, I have to ask you if there is something seriously twisted with your society when, given the stats, the majority of you are still supporting a creep who refused to unequivocally condemn criminals and racists who engaged in behaviour that was, in all honesty, a national and shameful tragedy.
I’m sick of our decayed and defective health system
Did you know we pay the third highest per head of population for our health service compared to taxpayers in the EU? For example, if you want it broken down, we actually pay 15 per cent more per head of population than they do in France. However, I bet the French don’t get the abysmally poor return for their money that we do.
I make this comment given last week’s revelations by the Irish Dental Association who said ‘the public dental service is failing children who are waiting as long as 12 years for their first dental screening.’ As a mother and a taxpayer, I think this is a disgrace. Through no fault of our own, we are saddled with a health service that’s not only dysfunctional but has nobody’s interest at heart except for its own vested benefits within its own decayed and defective system. Just sayin’.
