Just how stupid do you have to be to be astonished by Frank Dunlop's revelations before the Flood Tribunal, or which particular part of Mars have you been living on for the past 20 years? For if you genuinely think that local councillors have been putting a coach and four through county plans for philosophical reasons, allow me to tell you that my name is Paul Getty, and for every hundred pounds - in used, non-consecutive notes - you send me in an unmarked envelope, I will send you the title deeds to a diamond mine in South Africa.
You are interested? Good. I have many such deals to offer. A thousand pounds, for example, will entitle you to hundred square miles of a Kuwaiti oilfield, and for £2,000 pounds I will let you sleep with my little sister, Michelle Pfeiffer. You want a threesome with Michelle and Madonna? Why, of course! Another thousand will get you that. In cash preferably, though a draft on a reputable Swiss bank will do.
Queen Victoria
Or perhaps your taste runs to more exotic recreations? No problem. Ten thousand pounds will enable you to have your wicked way with my grandmother, Queen Victoria - in a somewhat mouldy condition, but a goer nonetheless. What? You want youth and beauty? I can supply that as well. For ten thousand - again, in used notes, none over £50 in value and not consecutive please - I will arrange for you to spend a night with Britney Spears, who'll do anything for her dear old Uncle Kevin.
You believe I can do all this? Good. Then lend us a tenner to be getting on with. Thanks. Back in a jiffy.
The rest of you are probably less credulous. You probably know that in paddyland.com everything is for sale, and has been for an awfully long time, and you must have been sunbathing on the Sea of Tranquillity or have a memory like Marie-Antoinette after the guillotine had finished with her to have thought otherwise. If you think we've heard the worst, wait, just wait until the seething sea of maggotry called Fingal is explored; that will make the Book of Revelations According to Frank Dunlop read like Louisa May Alcott's Ten Healthy Tips for Teenage Girls.
The worst, in essence, has been evident in the pages of this newspaper for a decade or more - not always spelt out in detail, because of our ludicrous libel laws, but there for those who chose to see it. The corruption has been largely Fianna Faildriven, but some noble assistance has been forthcoming from elements of Fine Gael. And you didn't have to be a reader of this newspaper to know that the planning processes in north Co Dublin were as fragrant as a Howth trawler in a heatwave. Everyone in north Co Dublin was aware that many councillors were for sale. Indeed, the whole process has been almost commendably open.
North Co Dublin
In other words, we got the politicians and we got the politics we both wanted and deserved; though had we been living on a desolate tract of Mongolian tundra, the damage that was done would perhaps not have been too awful. But we are not living on tundra. Few capitals in Europe had on their very doorstep an area so enchanting as north Co Dublin which, 10 or 15 years ago had many hundreds of houses with thatched roofs, and numerous enchanting hamlets that had changed little for over a century or two. Here was a legacy beyond price, preserved in the last years of the 20th century in the acid bog of kindly regard and economic stagnation.
But those villages, those buildings, and the vast expanse of open field and market garden did not survive the onslaught of corrupt politicians, working in harness with that volume of witlessness bound in plastic covers known as Bungalow Bliss. The ancient housing stock, there for centuries, is now gone for ever, wiped out by an epidemic of ribbon development and sub-suburban sprawl. Nor is the problem just Fingal's: right across Ireland, conscientious public servants have seen their carefully drawn-up county plans repeatedly violated by councillors who were delivering just what the public wanted.
Irish countryside
That is the tragedy - not the corruption as revealed by Flood, but the violation of the Irish countryside, honesty and openly done. Never mind the private debauchery of our political life by the slurry of builders' money washing round council chambers. Far worse was done, openly and honestly. How many of Ireland's most beautiful places been ravaged for all time by the construction of the ugliest houses and the vilest housing estates anywhere in western Europe? That is far more depressing than any of the scandalous findings emerging from Flood.
If, however, you are genuinely surprised at the revelations there, perhaps I could interest you in a little timeshare apartment in the Canaries? For more information, send me £500 in unmarked Swiss francs. An unrepeatable, once-in-a-lifetime offer! Too good to miss! Send your money, plus your charming teenage daughter, now!