Letter to the Taoiseach

Did Monday morning have that ‘back to school feeling’ for you, Taoiseach?  It’ll feel even more like this when Jay and Rocco come of age.  My own three were all ready to go and we took a photograph of them together before a wasp introduced chaos to the proceedings. Meanwhile, Áine at Morning Ireland opined that the return to school normally brings with it more sunshine than usual.
You will know all about it, too, Bertie when you have bought Jay and Rocco their school uniforms and PE kits, their school bags and when you have put down a deposit on ingredients for Home Economics.
School transport is another concern as is the swipe card for the canteen. No mobile phones, please. Definitely no camera phones. Keep to the left hand side of the corridor and no running.
Some think that there are plenty of wasps up at Stormont and in the Oireachtas.  But it is also back to school shortly for MLAs and TDs.  Do you think that Eamonn Gilmore will be standing in the shoes of Pat Rabbitte by the time that youse return? Did Pat really irk you with his quick wit and fondness for the soundbite?  
On the international scene, did you notice that President Chavez of Venezuela has fired a shot across the bows of the Brits by raising the Malvinas question again?  He has called on Gordon Brown to hand back the Malvinas to the people of Argentina. I do not really know the man, myself. Chavez, that is.  But I do like his style. The Latin-Americans always had style.  
I remember during the Malvinas conflict when Maggie Thatcher sank the Belgrano that the BBC advised their viewers and listeners not to eat any corned beef which had been imported from Argentina. I was a pupil at Omagh CBS at the time and I tended to take lunch as opposed to a school meal at the time. You can only imagine the filling which went into my sandwiches day in, day out until that war ended.  I have no great love for corned beef but I was helping the cause.
Taoiseach, did you read the comments of Minister Edwin Poots about the loss of Lottery Funding for the Arts and Sport in the North because the London Olympics of 2012 have carried out daylight robbery on money for good causes.  I am supporting Edwin in his efforts to get the money back.  Edwin said that ‘Northern Ireland’ is ‘not a country of its own right’ but that it is ‘a region within a bigger country’.
How is that for clarity? Which country? At least, there is some acknowledgement that the Six Counties does not comprise a nation or a country. Do you think that Nigel Worthington’s soccer team which plays at Windsor Park should be allowed to play international soccer or should his team enter an inter-regional competition of some sort?  
Were you reading Newton Emerson’s column in the Irish News. Newton is a satirical commentator who writes for a nationalist newspaper (we are told) in the North but Newton himself is very evidently unionist in his own outlook.  Perfectly allowed, of course.  But do you think that the Irish News should give such a prominent platform to someone who is all of the time poking fun at anyone who favours a united Ireland and takes up a strong position against partition?

The Newsletter in Belfast wouldn’t even give you the result of a gaelic football, hurling or camogie match.  Not even if there were 82,000 people at the game.  Not even if it was the ultimate cliff-hanger of all time.  
Back to Newton Emerson.  This is a bit like putting it up to a bardic poet and you never know what retribution will be carried out. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that. But if Newton thinks that criticising the out-workings of partition is juvenile, does the Irish News think the same?  
Final point for this week, Bertie, did you notice that Switzerland gave us no points in the Eurovision Dance Contest? Does that rule out Zurich as a holiday destination next year?
Is mise le meas
Barry McElduff



NB: Bertie Ahern can be contacted on (00 353) 1 619 4020 or e-mail [email protected].  Address: Office of the Taoiseach, Government Buildings, Dublin 2.