CIAN TRAYNOR'Ssideways look at Election 2011
Why cherry-pick when you can just scoot up a ladder?
THE PRACTICE of politicians erecting posters without being charged has been satirised to show how local businesses are expected to pay in excess of €1,000 to do the same.
Peter Byrne, chief executive of South Dublin Chamber of Commerce, and Con McCarthy, chairman of local business GT Energy, highlighted the folly of putting up a poster “the legal way” at Greenogue Business Plaza in Dublin yesterday.
“People are amazed at why the simplest job in Ireland costs a fortune,” McCarthy told Campaign Trail. “Politicians and their workers go out with a ladder under their arm and put the posters up for nothing using a bit of common sense. The minute they get elected they preside over a system that makes the rest of us abide by ridiculous guidelines.”
McCarthy criticised the bureaucracy involved in training people to put up posters, undertaking an assessment of potential hazards and traffic management, issuing method and safety statements as well as hiring a cherry-picker and low-loader, given you cannot use a ladder to put up anything over five feet high.
“Having to state things like, ‘my man will arrive in a van; he’ll park it in a safe place’. It’s nonsensical stuff!”
Website offers simple compatibility test for undecided voters
A WEBSITE that matches political views with individual parties is helping floating voters decide for whom to vote. Votomatic.ie presents visitors to the site with 25 questions on topics such as transport, education and health, using a scale of agreement that correlates answers with the policies of the five largest parties contesting the election.
Although there is no allowance for giving priority to one issue over another, each page of questions features a healthy debate in the comment section below. Some complain there is no option for defaulting on Ireland’s debt repayments or voice concern at the presence of a Fine Gael advert on the page.
Yet despite drawing over 10,000 participants by Thursday, the site’s ease of use is still no match for apathy, with one user commenting: “Once Fair City and Vincent Browne stay on the air, I’ll be happy.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: JOHN GORMLEY
"Well, I could come in here and present this show. It would be an absolute doddle. I can read that [autocue]: 'The news is next; tensions are rising in Bahrain.' I can read that no problem, you know? No problem Green Party leader John Gormley tells TV3's Mark Cagney what he will do if he loses his job after the election
ELECTION ONLINE: THE BEST BITS FROM YouTube
The campaign song of Michael F Dolan, Fianna Fáil candidate for Galway East, tries to win over listeners with the breeziness of lines such as “Don’t go blaming Michael F, sure he wasn’t there at all.”
tinyurl.com/4rn7p6s
Micheál Martin struggles to sidestep a pensioner who insists that he give a Yes or No answer to the question: “Could you live on €230 a week?”
tinyurl.com/4uysywo