Ways to Prevent Sovereign Default

17th Nov 2010

As the EU announces that it is likely to bailout Ireland one wonders if even that will work. Things are so bad that even our suggestions might help save Ireland from total insolvency….

EXPORTS
The stories about waste in some parts of the public sector are legendary but you can't allow yourself to get sick of it. If you do, you might end up in a shopping trolley in the car park of one of the hospitals and have to experience the inefficiencies directly yourself.

These Finnish girls would love a bit of Cork wood for their sauna. And who wood blame them?

There's plenty of other waste though and we can export plenty of it for much needed cash. Like the hundreds of tons of wood are wasted on hurleys for Dubliners every year. They've been at it for well over a hundred and twenty years and even the latest drive to push the small ball game has resulted in absolutely nothing.

We might as well give the Dubs ash from our fireplaces instead of ash trees because we'd get the same result - the Pale are as useless at Gaelic games as they've ever been. That wood could be sold to Olli Rehn's native Finland to keep their saunas ticking over.

It's their national pastime apparently and it's where most Finnish socialising and business deals take place. It may not be compatible with how we do business here though: a nauseatingly steamy hot room with a load of scantily clad hairy men slapping each other? Let's leave that bit out of the deal making Olli - a public house and a pint of stout will do just fine.

STREET COLLECTIONS
Charities rely heavily on public donations and none more so than from street collections and 'chugging'. As the EU's bailout boys seem only weeks away from receiving a call from Brian Cowen, surely with the country now a relative financial basket case the least Europe or the IMF can do for us is to give us official charitable status. That'll allow us to send tens of thousands of young citizens overseas to do daily collections on the streets of Europe's main cities and towns.

Teams of patriotic young Irish chuggers could harass unwitting shoppers in the likes of Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Paris with sorrowful tales of how knackered the 'Island of Saints and Scholars' really is and try to sign them up to a monthly direct debit. This could net millions for the Irish economy.

"Mademoiselle! All we're asking for is a few euro a month for Liam and Bridie who can't afford to keep up repayments on their five bedroom hell ("just two hours commute from the Red Cow") and outrageously toxic four-wheel drive in Monasterevin….s'il vous plait"

Sorry sir, gotta minute for the Irish economy?!

The French are ripe for tapping up. We can hit them with 'Thierry Henry guilt' and some mockeyeah statistic about the revenue it would have generated for the country had the Republic of Ireland got to World Cup 2010.

"If only we had got to the World Cup the government would have a lot more money and all these misfortunate politicians could still pretend they live in West Cork".

They'll understand.

Repositioning Ireland in Europe: At the beach

Olli boy, tiz the weather that's gettin' us down. Either towing us south of Santa Ponza to ensure we get some decent sunshine or cloud seeding and meteorological manipulation would give us a much needed psychological leg-up.

Just as the wintery winds and dark clouds take and up their end-of-year position a thousand feet above us, this could be an opportunity to "reposition ourselves" in Europe.

Don't you hate when RTE weather presenters show golden suns over central and southern Europe while poor pale Paddy is subjected to the relentlessly rainy anti-cyclones of the North Atlantic? We'll gladly sign up to be at the "Heart of Europe" and pay back all their banks if there'd be a few more beach days in it for us. With so much unemployment we'll be doing nothing during the day anyway.

Well Olli, how about it?

Good news for emmigrants: conditions on the coffin ships have improved a bit.

EMMIGRATION
The government can't say it publically but if everyone on the dole fecked off out of their way overseas it would solve a big problem - not least because it's one less vote against them when the general election comes.

Seriously, they'd be absolutely delighted if Europe's recovery gathered pace because it would see plane loads of people jet off to emerging employment on the continent and in the UK.

Ironically Fianna Fail's Noel O'Flynn is (now that there's a whiff of a general election) talking about restricting work permits for people from other countries - we say good luck to any foreigner who comes to Ireland looking for work!

Like running up a crowded escalator the wrong way, if these foreigners make it through the hoards of Irish people going in the opposite direction at our ports then they'll be sorely disappointed when they clamber inside the rotting body of the Celtic Tiger.

If Olli says that the government's policy of not resisting emigration to reduce dole queues must continue then among the list of professions destined for faraway places must surely include politicians. They keep telling us that everyone has to take their share of the pain, right?

Ireland's politicians might be technically 'employed' but most of them will have been redundant long before Olli and the EU take the reigns at the Department of Finance.