Lines, Life, Laura.

The Irish people have spoken - they have elected a new President. The youth of the Irish state as an independent state is underlined by the fact that Michael D. will only be our ninth President. The youth and inexperience of our Government was shown when they managed to foul, balls and generally make a hash of presentation of the proposed now defeated so called Abbeylara Referendum. It was badly worded, badly thought out and badly put out into the public domain. They had little clear, concise or targeted information. The Government may think we all want to abandon individual rights and throw everyone from the teller of the Bank of Ireland in Ballysomeplace to every lawyer who has every got to her/his feet at a tribunal. Well they were wrong on so many levels. What the people want is the Oireacthas to show the same care to individual rights as the courts do. We expect well crafted, worded and workable legislation. We expect a Referendum Commission which does it’s job without ice cream sprinkles and a lack of respect for the intellect of those who vote. The Government now need to go away and figure out why the Ministers in charge of getting this amendment through spent their time 1. telling us how great the DIRT enquiry was 2. making snide remarks and getting in to arguments with Noel Whelan and other members of the bar on various RTE programs instead of explaining why they needed to get the Amendment passed to the public. Sprinkles of fails on so many levels.

I have not read a book in the last month as I have been so busy lately. this worries me slightly as I am never far from a book of some sort. I don’t put this lack of reading down to being busy, I also put it down to listening to podcasts, radio, tweeting too much. And increased internet use, too much time wasting while online - which is the equivalent of day dreaming in school. This is one habit I must change.

The Irish Presidential Election has it all, Irish Americans, Herd Numbers, Ladies in Red who is fond of Photoshopping, A Man of Letters for some eyes only, Secret Organisations, A Man of the West, Serial State Board Member. And Gay Mitchell who’s dead Father has had more airtime than almost anyone else! It has got down and dirty at times and Vincent, Matt and Pat have all been in charge of the seven runners. However is it just me who thinks this election is overly Political for a non Political Office?