Hello everyone, Yes it's been a while since my last confession. Mainly down to the fact that I got a job and had college work to do etc, etc.
So what has me at the keyboard at such an late or early hour?
I came home from work this evening to discover my mail included a letter from the nice boys and girls in the Garda Siochana (The Police, if your reading this from outside Ireland). The letter was notice of a fixed penalty fine being issued to me for parking on a double yellow line on the main street of my home town of Bray.
Oooh you naughty boy your probably saying and normally I'd agree with you. But what has really irked me is at what time the ticket was issued.... 0:00.. Yes midnight on Friday 2 weeks ago....
What in the living daylights was a guard thinking when he gave me the ticket. Who in gods name worries about getting a parking ticket at midnight!!!!!!!!!!! The only type of guard to issue tickets at that time of night is a bloody minded Jobs worth, with nothing better to do. That is an unmitigated lie... Of course he has something better to do at that time of night.
He or She at that time of night is charged with keeping the streets safe for people leaving the pubs on the main st and making there way home. They are certainly falling down on the job if a woman is attacked at mugged or sexually assaulted while this dipstick is wasting his time and mine filling out a bloody parking ticket.
Bray isn't exactly a hot-bed of crime, it's the largest town in Wicklow and the first major town you come to south of Dublin. It has a drug problem, a problem with street crime especially at night when the pubs and clubs close, we're regularly visited by the Garda Chopper late at night. But in the midst of all this crime, one stupid moron from the sticks with just enough cop on to graduate from Templemore (Garda training college), decides at midnight on the 20th of November to stop his beat protecting the main street, to put a ticket on a car which was not obstructing a driveway or the entrance to a hospital or fire station...
I'm a supporter of the guards my late Uncle was a guard, my second cousin is one, actually based in Bray. I have a good friend who is in the Garda reserves and I'm friends with a number of local guards too. But past two weeks haven't been good for the Garda PR machine, last week they were severely criticised in the Murphy report into Child abuse allegations in the Dublin Diocese, for basically looking the other way when there was overwhelming evidence of children being a bused by local priests. Then this week there were reports of the unlawful arrest and detention of a member of the public by two plain clothes officers in Dublin recently. Why?
The member of the public was walking home through the centre of Dublin a couple of weeks ago, when he witnessed a car mount a pavement and almost knock him down , so it could take a short cut. He remonstrated at the vehicle with his hand. Five minutes later the same car screeched to a halt next to him as he continued on his way. The two men intimidated the man and then cuffed him for no reason and manhandled him into the car. At no stage did they identify themselves as guards until they got him in the car and drove him to the local Garda station. In the process of cuffing him and putting him in the car they broke his finger... His only crime showing his disapproval at the actions of a couple of jumped up boyo's who thought they were Dublin's answer to Crockett and Tubbs, more like Crocked and tubby ...
So what do I have to do know, at a time when I'm short of cash I have to find €40 to pay the fine, at this time of year I don't see why I shouldn't be able to hand over a receipt showing I'd made a donation for the amount in question to a deserving charity. Instead it goes into the coffers of a corrupt and useless government, who couldn't organise a Christmas party in a brewery and whose inept style of leadership is obviously rubbing off on the guardians of law and order in our society.
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