Professor Niamh Brennan is obviously a highly educated woman but unfortunately a good education does not guarantee what I would call an informed intelligence.
Brennan was on the Marian Finucane Show yesterday (Sunday) commenting on a number of matters and it was clear from listening to her that she has no idea what life is like outside of her ivory tower.
On industrial action by public servants.
They should be grateful for the fantastic jobs they have and should be contributing to helping to get us out of this mess.
Clearly, Brennan is unaware that thousands of public and civil servants are living on a pittance and it is those people the Government has targeted for the biggest pay cuts.
She had nothing to say regarding senior civil servants, judges, army officers, and academics like herself who have all received special treatment when it comes to pay cuts.
On the HSE and professor Drumm’s bonus.
Professor Brennan is in agreement with some guy called Gerry Robinson who thinks that professor Drumm should be paid €2 million.
She further defended Drumm’s bonus by saying it was a contractual entitlement and related to a period well before the current public sector pay cuts.
It’s curious how this argument is valid for professor Drumm and the rest of the governing class but invalid for the great unwashed.
On the Government.
According to the professor the rest of the panel were being unfair to the government. She thinks the government is being very effective in speedily recalibrating public sector costs.
If, she continued, the French government took the same action there would be riots. Bizarrely, she suggests that our ability to talk things through, to engage in public soul searching is keeping the rioters at bay.
On the Irish Glass Bottle site scandal.
Professor Brennan is chairperson of Dublin Docklands Development Authority and clearly finds the position a little unnerving.
When asked about the Irish Glass Bottle site scandal she seemed shocked when telling listeners that it cost €412 million but was now only worth €50 million.
Apparently about a third of the remaining €360 million went to Dublin Port and the rest went to a guy called Paul Coulson, who, Brennan tells us is now a fabulously wealthy man as a result of the transaction and, not surprisingly, no longer lives in Ireland.
Dublin Docklands Authority has a curious feature on their website where they publish interesting facts about the area. Here’s the current piece.
Docklands Fact
A downtrodden Leprosy hospice was located on Misery hill, hence its name! It was believed lepers were “the unclean” and would be walked to the hospice on Misery Hill with a man tolling a bell and another carrying a 40 foot pole to keep everyone at safe distance. Today this is where we get the expression “I wouldn’t touch him with a 40 foot pole!”
Ironically, this piece is a perfect metaphor for the position of the taxpayer after the glass bottle site debacle.
All the leper taxpayers are up on Misery Hill paying for the stupidity and greed of the DDA and there’s not a businessman in the world that would touch such an incompetent body with a 40 foot pole.
On child abuse by the Catholic Church.
Brennan was ‘uncomfortable’ with the panel’s criticism of those involved in the child abuse holocaust.
Like most defenders of the Catholic Church she labours under the delusion that only a minority of priests were involved in the horror.
This suggests that she disagrees with the Murphy and Ryan reports which between them found that abuse was systematic, widespread and well planned.
They also found that church authorities went to extreme lengths to cover up the horror thus condemning hundreds, if not thousands, more innocent children to torture and rape.
It really is time professor Brennan came down from that ivory tower.
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