Our columnist Frank Brandon responds to a reader’s queries about Government spending, discusses the final stages of the World Cup and All-Ireland action, praises a shout-out for Creggs on SKY TV, and more!
It’s another beautiful Sunday morning as I write these words. Last night, I watched the chaotic, entertaining, and exciting football match that was the third and fourth place play-off game in the World Cup, which nobody wanted to play in, and which ended in a 6-4 win for England. And even after all that, us sports-mad people have an amazing day of sport to look forward to yet!
In the afternoon, we have Galway’s attempt to win the Liam MacCarthy Cup when they play Limerick in Croke Park, and later on, it’s the final of the World Cup between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Yamal’s Spain.
At the risk of offending my F1 fans, I’d better not forget the Belgian Grand Prix, while for golfers like myself and Duff (my brother), there is also the last round of the British Open… although it will require a miracle for Shane Lowry to take the title.
Talking of titles, myself and Duff almost got our maiden victory on our tour, when we led my son Mark and Ger Dowd by three with just three to play in Mountbellew on Friday evening. Sadly, like England against Argentina, we went on the defensive and ended up with only a draw. I suppose we at least escaped with a draw after initially taking the lead… so if Thomas Tuchel can hang on to his position, maybe Duff can still be captain of our team! I’ll let you know fairly soon.
And yet, while those things are pretty much all that’s bothering me this Sunday morning, it appears that other things are on the mind of at least one (maybe the only one) of my readers.
The waste of public money – or as he says, “our money” – is causing him huge concern. In a lengthy message to me, this reader highlights the extraordinary story of the 98 electric buses worth €58.3m that must remain in storage because of the failure to deliver the charging infrastructure needed to put them into service.
The ordinary Joe Soap (maybe there’s not enough ordinary Joe Soaps in politics) would have everything in place before he, or she (Josephine Soap) splashed out big money on a new electric vehicle, but it seems the Government didn’t bother. And to add insult to injury, the cost of storing these buses will run to more than €8m more before any of them hits the road.
Apparently there were issues with the planning permission for the necessary chargers, and also with the tenders for contractors to install them. But despite all kinds of excuses being offered by the National Transport Authority, the bottom line is that this is yet another example of outrageous waste of the taxpayers’ money.
By then, my reader was only getting started however, because the NTA are also responsible for another even bigger fiasco: the complete loss, or write-off, of the staggering sum of €50m over a failed attempt to put a proper Irish Train traffic management system in place.
Seemingly a contract was entered into with Spanish company Indra to design and roll out a new system which would effectively be the brains of the rail network. After several missed deadlines, failed safety testing, and being more than two years behind schedule, the whole thing was deemed unsuitable for the Irish network, and the €50m already spent was written off.
On top of that, due to some intricacies in the legal side of the contract, we, the taxpayer (maybe that should just be you… don’t think an OAP pays much tax), have to pay €100,000 every week while the powers-that-be figure out how to terminate the contract, with the Government to spend €200,000 on a review to work out how all of this took place.
By now, my reader was on a roll. I thought I would never get to the end of the message, because he went on about the €54m, plus another couple of million storage for the scrapped voting machines in 2009, then the bike shelter, plus a security hut at the Dáil costing more than €1.5m, then ventilators we paid €81m for during Covid (most of which were never delivered), and finally he simply said “don’t get me started on the Children’s Hospital”.
By now, after realising all the money that these failed projects have cost us, I am wondering how the country can keep going at all. But I suppose as long as we keep ink in the printing machines (although come to think about it, didn’t we buy a big printing machine once that wouldn’t fit into the place it was bought for?), all we have to do is keep printing money. One of those machines would be handy – must look up Done Deal to see if there might be a second-hand one for sale!
Anyway, that’s my political assessment as presented by my reader, so I’m off to Mass to pray for a Galway win and hope there’s enough in the exchequer to pay my pension on Friday – I’ll let you know later how I get on!
Games (almost) over
It’s now Monday morning (as I write), and it seems that my prayers for the Galway hurlers went unanswered.
I hate to say it, but the truth is that we were really up against it. While I was slightly disappointed at the result, I wasn’t very surprised.
I have got most predictions wrong this summer, but on Friday night at the Friday Night Club in Mikeen’s, I said we would lose by between 10 and 15 points, and we lost by 11! Now I know I shouldn’t be saying stuff like that, but this Limerick team is maybe the best of all time, and their sheer size, physicality, and hunger made it an almost impossible task to beat them.
It’s a long road back, but the youth on this Galway team can learn from this experience and hopefully build on what – up to Sunday – was a surprisingly successful year.
On then to Sunday evening, and after what was, for the most part, a very entertaining World Cup, the final between Spain and Argentina was a torrid affair. The only good thing was that Spain won it.
Eight games in a few weeks is too demanding, and both teams (but especially the Argies) looked as if they were out on their feet.
I missed the nearly half-hour half-time music show, which may have been the highlight of the whole thing, but at least we were spared the agony of going to penalties. On balance, Spain were the best team in the tournament, but I still think England could have won it if they had been a bit braver against Argentina.
New Zealand, having easily beaten Ireland in the rugby on Saturday morning, also had a big win in the golf to celebrate, as Robert Fox (son of All-Black rugby legend Grant Fox) was an unlikely winner of the British Open, while I’m told that Antonelli took the prize at the Belgian Grand Prix.
And so it’s now up to Mayo, and after this Sunday, the sports calendar will be very empty – no more county hurling or football, no rugby, no World Cup! What will I do?
‘Up Creggs!’ – Sky’s the limit
I have told you umpteen times about Martin Logan, born and bred up the mountain, and co-presenter (along with his wife Annette) of the programme ‘The Irish in the UK’ on Sky TV, channel 588.
Now, for a good while, that channel went missing from my telly – and not only did I lose Martin’s show, but I also lost Paul Claffey and Gerry Glennon’s Mid-West show, as well as that hosted by Michael Commins, all of which promote country and Irish music and are programmes I would love to watch.
Now in fairness, Martin used to send me on his programme every week, and I could watch it on the phone, but my auld phone is from the dinosaur era and the picture wasn’t great.
But for the last couple of weeks, 588 has miraculously reappeared, and this week it featured, once again, the London Galway Association President’s Day Golf outing across the pond in Mill Hill Golf Club. It was also a Remembrance Day for Sean Burke, formerly of Mullaghmore, Moylough, who was a driving force of the Galway Association for more than forty years. Sadly he died in 2020, and the prize for the winner on the day is the Sean Burke Memorial Cup. As it happens, our own other great Creggs man, Seamus O’Grady, is both President of the Galway Association and Captain of the Golf Club Association, and himself and Martin had a great chat for the programme.
Now both of them are huge success stories over there in England, but have never forgotten their roots. So, in a lovely show, the highlight for me was to have both of them say ‘Up Creggs’ as they finished their talk.
Now I know it mightn’t seem a lot, but to hear ‘Up Creggs’ on Sky TV, in a show that is watched by huge numbers, is something that all of us who are lucky enough to live here (in my case, for nearly all my 75 years) really appreciate. So thanks Seamus and Martin for never forgetting where ye came from!
And finally…
What about the poor Spanish footballers, who had to share their moment of triumph as they received the World Cup trophy, with Donald Trump, who seemed to think he was part of their team?
That other excuse of a President, the FIFA one, Infantino, tried to usher Trump off the podium, but to no avail!
He might be losing popularity and the war with Iran, but Donald Trump must have won a World Cup medal!
‘Til next week, bye for now!
