An Irishman's Diary

IT MUST be some relief to the beleaguered Taoiseach that, as reported yesterday, insurance companies consider the Government's pork recall as part of "the 'act of God' category of uninsurable risks".

At a time when his authority is being questioned at every turn, this is a welcome vote of confidence in Cowen. Somebody believes in him, at least; although as he prepares to approach the EU for compensation, he must be hoping that those Godless Eurocrats in Brussels do not also now take up religion.

The insurance companies' attitude is hardly a surprise, because their industry has always been famously devout. Verily, it is a beacon of faith in a secular world: its claims departments populated with modern-day zealots who would choose martyrdom rather than fail to credit God for any of his acts, and thereby have to pay out unnecessarily.

All right, I'm generalising. No doubt beliefs vary from company to company.

Judging from the small print on any insurance documents I have ever tried reading, most firms seem to be inspired by the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) tradition. But some are probably more fundamentalist than others.

The last time I inquired about a possible motor claim, several years ago, I discovered that my then insurers were members of an obscure Manichaean sect.

They believed essentially that the universe was controlled by two antagonistic powers: light or goodness on the one side, darkness, chaos, and evil on the other; that the outcome of this struggle was as yet undetermined; and that my car was not covered for damage incurred in the crossfire.

Around the same time, I had to hire a vehicle for the first time: in the God-fearing US, of all places.

After instinctively saying "No" when they offered me the option of paying extra money on top of the already excessive insurance premium, I was then handed the standard map of the vehicle listing the various dents and scratches on it already; and asked to sign an agreement whereby I took responsibility for any news ones, whether divine intervention was involved or not.

We were far from the Bible belt at the time. But as I drove out of the garage into America, disorientated by the left-hand steering, and having to remind myself to drive on the right, I fully expected the car to be smitten by an unseen, wrathful hand. I couldn't have been more nervous if they had handed me a copy of the Old Testament with the bit about the plagues of Egypt - locusts, hail, fire, frogs, etc, - underlined.

IN FAIRNESS to the insurance companies, there was something biblical about the Government's response to the pork scare, which recalled Mark V:13: "And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (there were about two thousand); and were choked in the sea."

In hindsight, it does look to have been a bit of an overreaction. But as the Belgians found out in 1999, the worst thing you can do in these cases is cover up. The Government may have reasoned that by going to the opposite extreme, Ireland's long-term credibility in overseas markets would be better served; and maybe this was correct.

The key to successfully managing food scares is the scares should not be in any way memorable. So far, at least the pork problem has not produced an image as iconic as BSE's staggering cow. Those dull, long-distance shots of the mill in Carlow will hardly linger in the memory. Also, unlike mad cow disease, the Irish pig problem has to date avoided acquiring a catchy nickname.

Any novelty element in a food scare story is bad news. Traumatic as they were for the Belgian government, most of us have forgotten the series of food scares that country experienced a decade ago, which also featured chocolate and poultry products (but not, alas, the Brussels sprout: an excuse to avoid which would have been welcomed by millions).

By contrast, mention the words "Austrian" and "wine" anywhere to this day, and chances are people will still immediately think "anti-freeze".

It came up in a pub quiz I attended recently: although the scandal in question (the addition by some wine suppliers of diethylene glycol as a sweetener) happened 23 years ago. Even then, I read that the adulterated wine would only have killed you if you drank about 28 bottles a day for a fortnight: in which case anti-freeze would have been the least of your worries.

Wine is a special case, however. One of that industry's more recent scares arose from the 2004 cult movie comedy, Sideways.

A cinematic eulogy to Pinot Noir, the film also featured an unprovoked attack on another grape variety, when one of the characters refused to drink "any f***ing Merlot". Demand for Pinot Noir soared throughout the US and beyond as a result. But contaminated by that most poisonous of dioxins, middle-class snobbery, Merlot sales have since taken a hammering.