What Will You Do With Your Oil Money?

27th Mar 2012

That has been the question across the city and county for the last fortnight since Cork was more or less declared the top oil producing state in the world. Most oil-rich countries, especially those in the Middle-East dole out royalty payments to citizens every now and to try to prolong their brutally corrupt regimes. Expect nothing different here.

As an oil barron you will probably struggle to find ways to spend so much money so here are our top tips:

5. Pay a Fianna Fail councillor or TD to get land rezoned for a Funfair
This is what some really rich Cork people do and it makes them even more wealthy than they were before so for your long term security you simply gotta get some land rezoned. Do you own a nice gaf in an estate in the leafy suburbs of Cork that is currently in atrocious negative equity?

You could set up your ferris wheel near Roches Point so you can glug at all the sailors from Crosshaven in their fancy yachts. You could also just buy a yacht.

Pimp the land’s value by bribing your local Fianna Fáil representative to have it rezoned for hyper-commercial activity like a twenty-screen cinema, a shipping container storage facility or a permanent funfair with a Ferris Wheel that allows patrons to look directly into the bedrooms of all your tormented neighbours.

There is a slight hitch though: Fianna Fáil aren’t exactly thriving on the aul’ electoral front so you might be short a couple of bribed councillors to get your motion passed in the next few decades.

Indoor beach: Could Mallow be the next Santa Ponza?

4. Build Your Own Indoor Ski Slope
Of all the most outrageous acts of environmental terrorism running an enormous fridge freezer the size of a couple of cathedrals so people can go skiing even though its forty degrees outside is a must for any oil rich city like Dubai so Cork really needs to keep up with the Jones.  

However, as we are regularly battered with icy weather in Ireland perhaps a giant half-mile long indoor tanning salon with a fake sandy beach, cocktail bar and wave machine would be more along the lines of what Corkonians would flock too.

Actors dressed as track-suited cider swilling scobes with tinny sounding techno on their annoying phone speakers could be employed to give that genuine sunny Cork beach experience even though it’s a miserable fourteen degrees and lashing rain outside in this dreary grey industrial estate near Mallow. It’s a party inside though!   

Blue Demons fans getting carried away with themselves again

3. Set Up Your Own TV Station
One of the first things that any oil rich state should do is to set up its own state television service and scramble all other incoming foreign signals from places like Dublin. This would prevent the likes of RTE broadcasting programmes to us about fat people crying in fields because they won’t stop eating and TV3 from forcing steroid slappers from Tallaght with more body refurbishments than Pana down our throats.



Even just a channel just dedicated to Cork sport would be fantastic and as you are a private individual you can decide to only show victorious Rebel victories and not have to bother broadcasting any defeats for “balance”. Last Sunday’s clobbering of The Cats in Pairc Úi Chaoimh could be shown on rotation for months on end.

2. Build your own Nuclear Enrichment Facility
Obviously it has to be for (cough) “peaceful means” but it’ll keep the likes of the French and Germans on their toes in negotiations about Ireland’s catastrophically large debt. Our worryingly large stock of weapons grade uranium would be a handy bargaining tool at the ECB and sure isn’t west Cork supposed to be the best place in the world if nuclear war breaks out anyway?

Somewhere like Newtownshandrum near the Limerick border would be an ideal location for this operation as missiles could be tested to the north to deter that city’s gangsters and other unsavouries from moving south.

Chrischt, tiz dish button to cool the reactors Tom isn't it?

1. Set Up Your Own Charity
Even though almost all the obvious important bases like homelessness, poverty, suicide, cancer care and so on are being addressed by superb local charities and their volunteers, now that you are a wealthy Cork oil barron you need to come up with a quirky idea for a charity of your own that not only makes Leeside a better place but massages your wealthy ego too.

Who wouldn’t relish a life of cheese and wine receptions where everyone wants a slice of your pie and you know the social photographers by name?

There are a number of extremely pressing issues on the streets of Cork that you could pour your new found megabucks into – all you need to get started is a name and the all important tag line.

Here are a few suggestions:

“The Trolley Union” – reuniting destitute and abandoned shopping trolleys with their supermarkets.

This poor abandoned trolley needs to be reunited with its owner

“The Emigration Trust” – proudly paying to send scobes abroad forever.

“The Light” – being there when you really need someone who has a lighter to spark up your fag.
 
“The Disc Runners” – urgently bringing parking discs to people who haven’t signed up for phone parking but are miles away from a shop selling them.

“The Marsh Foundation” – a group of volunteers who stand against buildings on Castle Street and North Main Street to stop them falling over.

All good causes because they improve life for Corkonians. Go forth and spend comrades!