The Labour TD Joe Costello has, notes Kevin Myers, been getting exercised about the contrasting actions of gardaí in Mayo and Dublin towards publicans who break the law.
Very unreasonably, he points out that whereas in Mayo 53 pubs have been shut down because of violation of the licensing laws, only seven have been closed In Dublin.
This is the sort of criticism the Garda Commissioner and those who run the force in the capital should treat with the contempt it deserves. Joe Costello clearly hasn't got a clue about what is important within a capital: is it better to close down massage parlours, where adult males pay for sex from adult females in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, or is it better to act against pubs which are serving drunks and under-age drinkers, fuelling the violence and the chaos that makes midnight in Dublin seem like a bad day in Baghdad?
Well, we know the answer. Operation Gladiator has effectively closed down the massage parlours of Dublin, and there were a damned sight more than seven of them. In those cases which came before the courts, it was quite clear that none of the adult participants had any complaints about the nature of the transactions: the girls were paid according to tariff, which was far better than what happens in street prostitution. It was victimless crime: and of course, it had to be stopped, So Joe Costello is so unfair - do you hear that, Joe: unfair - to compare Mayo with Dublin. Mayo has a population about one tenth that of greater Dublin - which, you might think, makes the vigilance of the gardaí there, and their success rate in bringing about successful prosecutions, all the more astounding: the equivalent, say of 500 pubs in Dublin losing their licences. And that, by God, would shake the publicans up. Maybe Joe would have to revive his old Prisoners Rights Association, as he visits all his weeping publican members in the Joy.
It's this simple. Dublin publicans are following their central philosophy of life by serving juniors, and drunks, and violent thugs: for they are slaves to the maxim, I serve drink, therefore I am. In showing apparent latitude to the publicans, but not to the ladies of the night, gardaí are being entirely reasonable: they are putting Descartes before the whores.
And maybe that's the vital difference between Mayo and Dublin. There are no knocking shops in Mayo, though no doubt the occasional sex tourist has left Knock a disappointed man. Much the same in Ballywhoreness. For Mayo is a county blessed either by sexually abstemious men or sexually voracious women, though some might consider that the sheep look a little, well, shall we say, careworn? Whatever the reason, there is no sex industry in Mayo.
So this will surprise you, but the Belmullet peninsula is not the Cocacabana. Few visitors mistake The Kiltimagh Blocklaying Contest with the Cannes Film Festival. Is that the explanation why Mayo publicans live in terror of breaking the law, because the gardaí have nothing better to do?
Or is it because the law means the law there, and is enforced simply because the local gardaí regard that as their duty? The latter, I suspect.
Meanwhile back in Dublin, where daring undercover work has closed down the massage parlours, violent crime is up by 20 per cent. Still, the clear-up rate has improved also. But what are these crimes which are cleared up? Do they include the young couple who, thinking they were alone at midnight in Croke Park, decided to have sex, but before anything happened, were spotted by a woman garda, charged, prosecuted and clobbered with a whopping fine? That was a good night's work! That set the capital's vast criminal underworld back on its heels! This was policing at its most effective! Never mind for the moment that it is almost impossible to walk around the centre of the capital at midnight without the Niemba ambush being re-enacted about your person. The really important thing is that the blessed turf of Croke Park was kept free of sexual activity. Which is the essence of good policing.
When the Dublin gardaí have concluded this splendid project of clearing up the capital's morals - though this might take some time, so we should be patient - they might then turn their attention to the relatively trivial problems of pubs breaking the drinks law en masse, and then unleashing drunken gangs on the streets.
No doubt you were as surprised as I was that the present law doesn't allow gardaí to operate undercover to check that publicans are keeping within the law. Which can only mean that neither various Garda commissioners nor Ministers for Justice over the years thought the licensing laws important enough to warrant enforcing by sophisticated policing.
Instead, over much of the country, they were implemented by traditional RIC methods: a big boot in the door at 1 a.m and warnings all round, before the raiding party sits down and has a few pints to show there's no hard feelings.
Policing works. Efficient, intelligent, crime-preventive policing has reduced New York crime to levels below those of European capitals. Seamus Brennan was personally responsible for saving dozens of lives before Christmas by insisting on a penalty points system for speeding. A comparable assault on the pubs of Dublin - and Galway and Cork, which are going the same hellish way - with law-breaking pubs closed and licenses being permanently forfeit, would radically transform night-times in the cities.
But only, of course, after An Garda Síochána has eliminated all sexual impropriety. First things first.