A List For Mick

24th Feb 2020

It looks like a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition is now on the cards and talks are currently underway that may see Cork’s Micheál Martin elected Taoiseach while Sinn Féin feel like the MV Alta banging up against the hard rocks below in Ballycotton - abandoned and toxic. 

It’s being referred to as a “grand” coalition. That’s probably because that’s likely to be the very most we can expect from it with a more-of-the-same-just-different-faces in charge of housing, health and justice. It’ll be grand. Will even be that though?
 

This is no time for small mickeys

Whatever happens with the important headline policies, if Micheál Martin becomes first choice full forward, Corkonians should have very high expectations as to what he will deliver for Cork outside of the headline policies. For years, we’ve had Lowry pulling strings for Tipperary, the Healy-Raes milking it for Kerry, and more recently Leo and Pascal leveraging loot for Dublin. Now it's Mick bash and he needs to turn the Cork dial up to 11 if he is crowed king to have any credibility on Leeside: 

Thank You Ferry Much
Stripping Cork of its access to other European ports has long been a tool of the Dublin regime to oppress the Rebel County in case it makes a break for independence. The long awaited direct flight to the U.S. is gone and the ferry to northern Spain from Ringaskiddy was recently moved to Rosslare with hardly a murmur from Cork’s politicians.

In talks about a programme for government Micheál must let Leo choose four out of five new ferry routes to exotic pro-Cork locations such as: Santa Ponza, Rio de Janeiro, Jamaica, New York and Trabolgan.

We already have a new ship ready to go that can service one of the new routes, it’s currently undergoing regular ’inspections’ in Ballycotton by the local teenagers.
 

"I think you'll find you have the biggest forehead, you little Dublin langball"

We’ll Take Two Event Centres
The way to get this blasted, curse of an event centre thing done is surely to open up a second front in the negotiations between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Big Mick needs to ramp up the demands and say we now want a second event centre (everyone knows that the old show grounds in Ballintemple, where the Marquee lives during the summer months, would be perfect especially if accompanied by a large hotel) and that can be used to play hard ball with the owner of the INEC concert venue in Killarney currently trying to scupper the event centre on South Main Street.

Luas For Cork
As long as it’s better than Dublin’s LUAS we don’t really care what it’s called (LUAS means ‘fast’ in Irish so how about ‘LUASER’, just to wind up the Dubs?). As well as being faster, it’ll be cleaner, more comfortable and have less drug addicts per square foot asking you for “two euro for a hostel” than up in the Pale.

If a simple event centre is taking more than ten years to come to fruition, imagine how old you’ll be when Dublin finally releases the funds for a massive project like a light rail system for Cork. Mick needs to lean in hard during any negotiations with the Dub Varadkar and get the dosh for this fairly lively. 

Hard Shoulder Laser Beams
Automatic windscreen-penetrating red hot laser beams that can sizzle the retinas of drivers who use the hard shoulder to undertake long queues of cars at Cork’s notorious traffic hot spots would be a great coalition deal breaker – at least that’s how it feels when you’re having The Rage at 8:10am on a stormy wet Monday in February and some langball feels his lateness is more important than everyone else’s lateness.

Any driver coming from Rathcormac thinking about cheating his or her way onto to the Dunkettle ahead of everyone else will think twice about it when they see the road sign informing drivers that the lasers are in operation. After all, it might be the last thing they ever see. Thanks, Micheál.
 

"Honestly Micheál, the hair loss gets way worse when you're dealing with Brexit day in, day out"

After All na bhFiann
With some moderate Unionists quietly looking south to weigh up whether they want to live in country where the prime minster couldn’t be trusted to tell you the time of day or in one with a Sinn Féin Taoiseach, then the prospect of Cork’s Michéal Martin taking charge might seem like the least worst option.

If Unionist parties demand a new neutral national anthem to endorse a united island, then any Corkman negotiating a possible coalition for government should push for the Frank & Walter’s hit ‘After All’ – a song about two people who don’t always get along but who should really be together – to take its place. It’s either that orDe Banks – let them take their pick, Mick.

Time To Wind Dublin Down
There should be signs put up at all the slip roads off the M50 in Dublin that say “Full”. The Pale is like the Town End Terrace in Semple Stadium on Munster final day it’s so packed. Cork keeps losing many of its brightest and best to Dirty Auld Town because the country’s policy is to pile as much public and private investment into the capital as possible at the expense of everywhere else.

Micheál needs to demand an end to this catastrophic county-wrecking policy and encourage Corkonians currently taking the Dublin soup to come back to the Rebel County when their companies are moved out of their current hell to the sanctity and peace of the People’s Republic.

Prodigal sons and daughters will always be welcome back home - as long as they’re not one of those “former Corkonians” that adopted the local nasal twang and go to “the odd Dublin football match” because they “love the atmosphere on the hill”. We’re grand for them.

If he becomes Taoiseach, Big Micky needs to make sure he’s a Cork Taoiseach first, Ireland second.