OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Dublin Report Taxed for ideas during the silly season

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By John Kelly

There are times in Ireland when you just have to sit back and breathe deeply with the surprise of it all. This can happen even in the middle of the silly season, as journalists drearily describe high summer when everybody is away. Nothing happens and even the tabloids are as torpid as damp flags in a tropical heat wave.

But when you think about, the only surprising thing is that anybody should be surprised at all.

For example, it was not surprising to learn that the British government had to fork out an estimated _3 million just to pay for the security operation at Drumcree. An expensive attempted march, that was.

When you take into account the fact that the most controversial part of the Orange parade would entail little more than a 5-minute walk at normal pace, you might be encouraged to take out your pocket calculator. The conclusion would be that the absence of each Orange step cost the British Exchequer _5,000 or thereabouts.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The estimated _3 million does not take into account the huge loss in potential tourism to the North. Nor does it consider the possible loss in business investment. And it certainly does not take into account the cost of last year’s debacle, conservatively estimated by the British to have been in the region of _13 million.

Follow us on social media

Keep up to date with the latest news with The Irish Echo

Still, who’s going to bother about such paltry sums when you weigh them against the pageantry, the color, the rich tradition, and firm religious resolve that propels every Orange step in the height of a Northern summer?

At least, it gives the journalists something to do in what is indeed the silly season — in every sense of the term when it comes down to Orangism.

The brave boyos really shot themselves in the foot at Drumcree. Never has the world witnessed such blatant sectarianism and fossilized religious bigotry in 20th century Europe. The old joke about the Orange calendar has been taken out of the closet and is now been told with new relish throughout Dublin.

You know the one about the 12 months of the Orange calendar? January, February, and March, March, March . . .

Alas, it is not the only Irish joke that has brightened an otherwise horrendous summer with its persistent heavy rain and oppressive gray skies.

Some joker of a civil servant has encouraged a nameless government figure to throw out a feeler to the silly season-starved press. Tourism, it seems, is “buoyant,” to use the official Bord Failte speak. In other words, the cead mile failte bods are reaching the occupancy figures they want to reach.

Watching packed tourist buses perambulate around the rain-soaked cobblestones of Ould Dublin, listening to the English, American, French, Italian, German and Spanish accents bounce around the narrow alleys of Temple Bar, might convince you that they have it just about right this time.

So, with beautiful timing and customary aplomb, some government person, in a very loud whisper, has made it known to the press that we could lengthen the strides of the Celtic Tiger by putting a small tax on tourists, say three Irish punts.

I kid you not. It could throw another few million annually into the State coffers. Now that one, I must admit, made be sit bolt upright in surprise.

Think about it. Readers of the Irish Echo are the customers who helped Aer Lingus to make a record _46 million profit this year. You are the people who fly both ways. You want to visit your mother. You want to see your pop. You want a holiday. Or you are going to a wedding, or a funeral. Officially, therefore, you are listed as being a tourist. So the Irish State is toying with the notion that you should fork out a mere _3 for the privilege.

It’s not much, a little more than the price of the average pint of Guinness. And the Irish economy can add another few million to its balance sheet as the result.

But just think about the principle of the thing. You are an Irish citizen who cannot vote in general elections because you are an emigrant. And now, the Irish government thinks you should also pay a few quid for the privilege of returning home.

Has the Celtic Tiger gone roaring mad through the forests of the night?

The worst part of it is that RTE, with its interminable low-budget talk shows fondly described as “audience consultation,” has obligingly thrown out the feeler. And many who ring in to people like Joe Duffy to voice their 10-cent opinions are clearly in favor. Not alone, it seems, should tourists to the Emerald Isle be plagued by the inclement weather; they should even be charged for the privilege of coming here at all.

But it’s only _3, you might protest. After all, who would miss 3?

You remember the old caveat about taxation?

Only two things are certain in life, taxation and death. Let me add one more certainty about taxes. They defeat the law of gravity. They never come down.

The Irish State can be had on its beleaguered citizens — that’s for sure.

Many years ago, it left be stunned at a very unhappy period in my life.

I had just brought a body back in a coffin from New York City. And, of course, it had to be passed by the Customs and Excise geniuses in Dublin Airport. On it was placed their customary stamp. “Goods of no dutiable value,” the label read with disarming callousness.

In the coffin was the body of my father.

He had left Ireland as an emigrant when he was only a teenager and had worked all over the world, regularly sending his hard-earned cash back to his parents and then to his wife. The money is classified in the annual Exchequer accounts as “Invisible Earnings,” and it amounts to a tidy sum of millions, just like tourism revenue.

“No dutiable value . . . ”

Indeed.

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese