Pat Carey/Irish Independent/etc

Our new Junior Minister for Drugs Pat Carey seems to have upset a number of people because of his proposal to have all mobile phones registered with, a view to curbing the activities of the drug dealers using the anonymous pay-as- you- go mobile phone system for their rotten business.His senior Civil Servants were first out of the traps,telling him that the proposal was unworkable,and then we had Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent ridiculing him.I must say, straight away ,that I believe Bertie Ahearn' s ploy in increasing the number of Junior Ministeries to 20 (there were only 3, allowed for, originally in our constitution)to allow him more leeway when handing out jobs-for-boys,was ,even for him,a very cynical move. But a minister ,having been legally(?) appointed should be given an opportunity to, at least try, to do something,before his suggestions are strangled at birth by the opinion-formers in our society-allowed to make his own mistakes ,if you like.
The Minister is the person who will be blamed if nothing is done,or if things go wrong in that area,not the Senior Civil Servants or for that matter Kevin Myers or other hurlers-on- the-ditch.
Lets talk about the Senior Civil Servants,the real permanent Government,or the''Sir Humpries'',as they seem to enjoy being called.They are the people who came up with the cunning plan ,now known as 'Benchmarking',under which increases were given(during the Dot-com boom) to bring Civil Servants' (and all other public servants')salaries to the level of private companies employees.
No records of this exercise were ever kept(to ensure confidentiality apparently),but nevertheless the result was...Civil Servants,and in particular Senior Civil Servants were ...deemed to be underpaid in comparison with the dot-com boys,(incidentally many of whom suffered a drop in salary or loss of jobs when the dot-com boom ended).But the S.C.S's go from strenght to strenght salarywise(including ''benchmarked'' pensions that continue to increase in line with the rate for the JOB ,even years after retirement,an arrangement devoutly to be wished by all outside the public service)
The same S.C.S. seem to be able to nobble a new minister but still retain an anonymity and unaccountability in the eyes of the taxpaying public.

And Kevin Myers?A good and, for the most part ,interesting journalist,but recently,like many of his colleagues in Independent Newspapers,he is beginning to pall,particularly his confusing and hyperbolic attempts at humour.
Our criticism of Government Ministers should be severe but also we should retain a capacity for seperating the man(or woman) from the job.
An example....a good few years ago on a family holiday in Ballycastle,Co. Mayo,listening to the local news one morning ,I heard a report,that local politician Pee Flynn was giving up his job as a primary school teacher.Now ,this man had been a T.D. for many years,A Junior Minister ,a Senior Minister in various ministeries, an M.E.P.,and was at that time a European Commissioner.On hearing this I immediately started moaning(real moaners NEVER go on holidays) to my long-suffering wife about the greed of politicians holding on to their teaching jobs and pensions long after there was any material need to do so and denying some young graduate an opportunity for a permanent position.
Later on that morning we were in Ballina for the Salmon Festival and happened to meet the aforementioned Pee Flynn out and about with his family.Handshakes and greetings were exchanged and we all moved on...but my wife kept muttering something out of the corner of her mouth about me being a hypocrite,how I was able to make all those comments about him behind closed doors but too cowardly to say it to his face.In my defence I could only say that I could not say what I thought on front of his family but that in the proper forum I could(and have said) say what I felt.....I obviously would not make a good politician..../etc