RADIO REVIEW:HE WOULD say that, wouldn't he? On This Week(RTÉ Radio One, Sundays) Eamon Gilmore called for an election. Why does this stuff even make the news? "We need to get these people out of office," he told Gerald Barry in an eight-minute infomercial.
Infomercials are short on substance, high on platitudes, buzzwords and vagueness, mesmerising in their banality. The only thing more depressing than the forecasts emanating from Leinster House last week was the Labour leader’s response to them. He had his chance in 2007. Why doesn’t he raise a white flag for some cross-party brainstorming if he cares that much? This is no time for a general election.
“We need to see an increase in credibility from people outside the country, particularly from investors, and we need to see an improvement in our competitiveness,” Gilmore said. What about actual solutions? “How do you keep people in employment? How do you up-skill?” Did he say up-skill? “The type of example that the Labour Party has been advocating has been an earn-and-learn scheme where you can keep people in employment two or three days and people go back to school, college, up-skill, for the other two or three days.” He did say up-skill. He then went on to say cuts must be part of a package to “reboot” and “re-stimulate” the economy.
While one man was making the economy sound like a faulty PC or car engine, one stoic woman lifted the political curtain on the reality on The Sunday Business Show(Today FM). Joan Mulvihill was Senior Manager of Family Business Services at BDO Simpson Xavier. In October, her boss called her in. She told Conall Ó Móráin, "I felt like I was in slow motion as if I could see my car about to crash and it was like, 'Omigod! I'm about to lose my job.'" She was shocked, stunned, devastated – yes, all three – and angry at everything and everyone. She said she felt like a "dead woman walking". Though a P45 is better than death row any day.
But Mulvihill was also honest to a fault, acknowledging her own middle-class, third-level expectations. “I did everything I was supposed to do. I had gone to university and got my degree, my Masters, had a good career . . .” Going into town was tough. “I was looking around at the smug employeds and I hated them.” Signing on the dole was tougher. “My mum rang me and said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m in the Department of Social Welfare.’” Her mother said she’d call her back. Having colleagues was something else she has missed since that fateful day. Nevertheless, Mulvihill got her groove back and will co-host a networking conference this week.
The Breakfast Show(Newstalk 106-108, weekdays) was all over Wednesday's data from the Irish Auctioneers' and Valuers' Institute like poison ivy. House prices in Dublin declined 16.5 per cent last year, while second-hand apartments in Dublin dropped 20 per cent. (Note how I didn't use the word "plummet".) Claire Byrne did that Irish thing of taking bad news . . . and turning the knife. "In 2007 a friend of mine was just about to buy and decided against it," she said. "Good decision," chirped Ger Gilroy. On rentals, she added, "From talking to people who own houses they will take what they can get at the moment." Newstalk texters must love being riled up.
Next up, dasdardly petrol stations. “Fuel has increased in Abbeyleix,” Gilroy said with the same gusto as if he were reporting on Gaza.
“One of the benefits of the worldwide economic turmoil in recent weeks has been the swift fall in fuel prices,” Byrne said, introducing this deadly serious item. “We’re told they’re at their lowest in four years, but they seem to be going up.”
David Horgan, managing director of Petrel Resources, told the early birds, “The oil prices have fallen from too high a level to too low a level. The bad news is it’s not going to last forever.”
If we apply that to all of the above, isn't that the good news too? On Wednesday's The Tubridy Show, there was what-for about a more serious economic disaster: Cuba. Ryan Tubridy had on Tom McGurk. Tubridy asked him to give a brief history of Cuba "as a geographic ent-" But McGurk was off: "There's a delicious irony at this moment," he boomed. "Fifty years after the revolution, Comrade Fidel and brother are still in charge and Western capitalism collapsed all over the place."
McGurk didn’t want to talk Bay of Pigs. He had something else prepared: “Let me talk to you about my experience of Cuba . . .” It was a place where there was hardly any trouble. Tubridy ended up calling him a student union leftie.
McGurk was never going to humble himself to be the obedient guest of “Young Ryan Tubridy.” Tubridy said that Cuba is falling apart. McGurk replied, “The buildings are falling apart, but they don’t mind too much in that sort of weather.” Tubridy finally said, “How long will it be before they all realise that they have been sold a pup and then they get democracy and everything will be fine?” Silence. Nervous laughter.
McGurk said, “I didn’t come in for a sixth-form debate, I came in for a discussion.” La Tubs shot back, “Well, I didn’t come in for a third-level debate either.” Where is there a Havana-style, city-wide electricity blackout when you need one?