In The Name Of God Who Needs Road Safety ?

Mother Nature badly let us down this year, well her and that interfering busybody and Chairman of the Road Safety Authority, Gay Byrne.

As a well respected Tipperary councillor, I feel it is my duty to remind you all that earlier this month Gay Byrne, accused the Government and in particular the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, of having little or no interest in road safety. Mr Byrne said that the lack of emphasis on road safety by the Government in general had him downcast and completely depressed. He also said he believed that Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has about as much interest in road safety as Gay himself did in snipe shooting. Byrne said: “Last year was the most successful year in terms of fatalities but it looks like now, steadily before our eyes, all the gains we’ve made in the last six or seven years are being lost.”

Now Gay, while you might be the most famous of broadcasters in Irish history and have had more influence on changing life in this county, than certainly any of our Tipperary political leaders, road safety issues in this area are something you do not want to be getting involved in.

Understand Gay, due to those 15 days of dry weather back last July, Mother Nature, as she is normally wont to do, failed us miserably in hiding completely all our road signs from the public gaze this year. You must be familiar with the Shakespearian phrase “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” You see Gay if we were to make our road signs available to the public’s gaze; the next thing that would happen is an influx of those nosey tourists sniffing around.

Here in Thurles, thanks be to God, due to no proper Tourism funding, poor marketing and North Tipperary Tourism Company Ltd (NTTCL), we never have to worry about tourists, and it helps when we as councillors also do our bit in making it difficult to drive around, through the use of concealed and confusing road signs. You can see from one directional sign in our video above, we cut one kilometre out of the centre of North Tipperary County Councils measuring tape, in the hope that the extra 1km would prove just 1km to far for outsiders.

North Tipperary Tourism Company Ltd are helping also by printing a new brochure again this year. No one has told them about the Internet yet and they haven’t worked out that if no visitors actually come to Thurles, there is no one to pick up their poor quality publication. Certainly tour operators at junket trade shows are not interested in our humble offerings of Thurles “Home of Erin Foods,” latter which closed down some seven years ago.  Ah yes we here as councillors manage to successfully confuse most of the more daring of our would be world wayfarers, by pretending we still have a factory called Erin Foods left in the town. I personally believe if its Bisto gravy, Oxo gravy or Campbell’s soup these people are looking for, let them find out the hard way, before moving on elsewhere, hopefully never to return.

Yes there are some misguided, easily led individuals who have been fooled into placing adverts on the Internet, but ask yourself Gay, without laughing, if you were looking for a good bed & breakfast near Thurles on the Internet, would you type into Google’s search engine the words “Cantata2.” or Bed & Breakfasts Thurles, in the hope of finding one?

Thank God for Section 46 of the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000, which gives the Irish government an excuse for failing to use a Slash Hook around our local road signs, all in the interest of wildlife Health & Safety, during the months from February to September. What further proof do we need, yes “you sure can fool all the people all of the time.”

Just a thought; has anyone read a manual recently, explaining the operational mechanics of a Slash Hook and is there a Health & Safety Course available I wonder?

P/S. I hope my party colleagues Noel Coonan & Allan Kelly don’t see this, as they Key Fob Out and skip home early on some Friday evening. No I don’t think they will, sure they haven’t been seen or certainly contributed anything to Thurles since they were both elected.