We love a bit of irony here in Emissions Towers. One particularly delicious example was recently pointed out to me by one of the herd of servile minions I keep here. So delicious, indeed, you could have slathered it with cheese and called it a pizza, writes Kilian Doyle
There is growing concern in UN circles about the rising number of crashes involving aid agencies in Africa. Accidents involving aid workers, mostly pasty Western folk unused to cruising round dusty desert tracks behind the wheel of a massive 4x4, are on the increase. Not only are they killing themselves, but are often flattening the people they have supposedly come to help.
"We're not just delivering aid, but killing the children we're trying to feed," said one UN official. And then there's the environmental impact. About 60,000 vehicles are being operated by African aid agencies at any one time. Some of those yokes produce enough emissions to choke a hippo. And choke hippos they do. And cows and lions and antelopes and humans too, one assumes.
All of which brings me neatly to another paradox, namely Irish aid to Africa. Our government spends an average €1.5 billion a year of our taxes on aid to Africa. Much of which is presumably extracted from the pay packets of decent folk like your good selves. Which is nice. But what does some of this cash go on? Yup, dirty great SUVs.
But that's not the ironic bit. The irony is that the only reason we have so much surplus cash is because Ireland is now rich. But because getting rich has come at a terrible cost to our environment, the more money we have to give away, the more damage we are doing to the regions we are sending it to. Have a guess who will be worst hit when the sky falls in, who will experience more frequent droughts and failing crops?
The good folk of Africa. Ireland's emissions are 23 per cent over the level they were in 1990 when we were all living in tenements, 17 to a bed, surviving on a diet of pureed newspapers.
I blame Dick Roche. A man who'll never let the fact that he's been tasked with protecting the environment get in the way of somebody making a quick buck. Take this for example. Roche had a ball during his address to the recent Fianna Fáil ardfheis, accusing the Green Party of being "jihadists" trying to send us back to the economic Dark Ages with their policies.
"Ironically the Greens, while preaching green policies, have opposed the creation of the type of infrastructure that Ireland needs to deliver environmental progress," said Mr Roche, a man who obviously has no grasp of the concept when one considers he's a member of a Government that's in love with cars and other vehicular polluters, one that spends €9.4 million a day on roads in a country with a third world public transport system.
On a roll, and surely boosted by the self-satisfied guffawing of the FFaithful, he then lashed out at Labour, accusing them of being in thrall to Pyongyang, home of tinpot tyrant Kim Il Yong. "On the environment all we get from Labour is red-faced finger-wagging indignation - all huff and no puff!" he reportedly said.
It wasn't reported whether or not Roche arrived at the ardfheis in his massive 3.5-litre chauffeur driven Lexus limousine. Which, hybrid tho' it may be, produces more than enough puff for any man. Did I tell you I love a bit of irony?