JOHN O'Sullivan may be the only sensible Irish person around. Other than from him, almost every issue that has arisen for public discussion has been the subject of sustained blather. On Sunday night/Monday morning last, the daughter of John O'Sullivan, Sonia, got sick in the middle of an Olympic race and had to retire.
This was proclaimed on television by Ball O'Herlihy, John Treacy and Eamon Coghlan as a national tragedy. Tom O'Riordan in the Irish Independent said it was "a nightmare of unbelievable proportions". John O'Sullivan said: "It Was only a race, nobody is dead, we will all get up and go to work in the morning.
He may have been a little optimistic on the latter score but his sense of proportion was impressive when all about him were losing theirs. On one night last week, Bill O'Herlihy subjected Bernard Allen, our unlikely Minister of State for Sport, to an inquisition over the building of a 50 metre pool. Bill thought that this was a "defining" issue for Irish society after Michelle Smith's remarkable victories in the Olympics. His line was that if we failed to provide one we would be "diminished" in the eyes of the sporting world.
Mr Allen demurred. He should have told Bill to get a grip. In the scale of priorities for spending public money, a 50 metre pool should not get into the top 10,000, perhaps even the top million projects, if there were that many. If we are "diminished" in the eyes of the sporting world as a consequence, all the better.
But, unsurprisingly, the most blather emanated from Dail Eireann, and the greatest blatherer, by a fingertip from Liz O'Donnell and John O'Donoghue, was Gay Mitchell. Gay Mitchell has been one of our foremost blatherers for several years and his re established eminence in this sphere is no surprise.
I was poolside on the Dail press gallery last Thursday when Gay Mitchell won gold but, strangely, I had no sense of euphoria or pride. It was so . . . expected. No one else present (five deputies in the Chamber, one other journalist on the press gallery and a few people in the public gallery) seemed to pay much attention either. But Gay himself was greatly impressed.
He has the interesting mannerism of rising on his tip toes and bouncing back on his heels when he feels he has made a telling point. He did this a lot on Thursday. Every time he did it I thought I had missed the point but on reading the speech in this newspaper on Saturday I realised I had not.
THE speech is an amazing miasma of nonsense, interspersed with self serving references for the need for "courage" to say the kind of thing he was saying. His remarks about the judges, although as foolish as everything else he said, at least stated a discernible opinion and, incidentally and unintentionally, raised a few issues worth pursuing.
He said: "The judges have got away with murder for long enough. They have a well remunerated, difficult job and are honourable, but they must be called to account. As they are paid out of the public purse we are entitled to require that they deliver a proper service. Furthermore, they should get out among the people whom they do not live among.
"We are entitled to say to the judges that we have had enough of their interfering with the legislature and the executive. The tail will have to be wagged a bit and judges will have to change the way they do their business. That is what is called established order."
Now we know. First, just a few questions.
If the judges are getting away with "murder", how is it that they are "honourable" and, anyway, in what way(s) are they getting away with "murder" - should any of them be assisting gardai with their inquiries?
In what ways does he think that judges should be "called to account" without interfering with judicial independence?
Sure, we are entitled to expect that the judges' deliver a "proper service", but would it not have been useful (even courageous) to state in what way they are not now doing this and should be doing this?
What is this about the judges getting out among the people they do not live among? Does this mean they should not get out among the people they do live among? Anyway, to what point, should judges do this, and how? And, incidentally, to what lengths should judges go to get out among the people they do not live among? What if the people they do not live among don't want them?
What or whose tail will have to be wagged and" in what way wagged?
IN what ways will judges have to change the way they do business?
The bit about judges interfering with the legislature and the executive raises an interesting constitutional point - whether our constitutional structure should include judicial review. If there is not to be judicial review of legislative and executive action, it is difficult to see how constitutional rights can be vindicated when such action infringes them. But it is also the case that giving judges the capacity to review such actions accords judges enormous powers. And it is troubling, from a democratic point of view, that such power should be exercised in a manner that is entirely unaccountable.
This problem could be overcome, for instance, by subjecting judges to an election process every now and again. The main argument against that is that judges would thereby be subjected to the whims of public opinion on fundamental rights in a manner that would undermine the constitutional protection of such rights - a not entirely convincing argument. But at the very least, accountability should be instituted by a public examination of the legal and ideological predilections of judicial nominees before they are confirmed in office.
There are other issues to do with the judiciary that are worth raising.
This includes the "lingua franca" of the courts, which fails to acknowledge the republican and democratic nature of the state ("my lord", "may it please your lordship" the "praying" for justice).
The hours and times of court sittings. There are no good reasons why courts should not sit for six or seven hours a day, instead of four, as is usual. Yes, it is true that judges need time to work on judgments, but that is a reason for allowing time between cases taken by judges, not for opposing the extension of the time courts sit. The same argument applies to court holidays - they take almost as much time off as do TDs. There is no argument for holidays of more than five to six weeks annually.
Wisdom is sometimes spoken out of the mouths of blatherers.