Archive for January 2010
Almost a week in the life of a TD
Posted on January 29, 2010
I have got a couple of questionnaires recently asking me for the percentages of my time I spent on this that on the other. How much of my time do I spend visiting my constituency the latest one asked – I live there I wrote in big letters across page! It’s real guess work and I wonder about the scientific validity when all these questionnaires are collated. Some of the questions are straightforward, others you really are just making a stab at answering. Questions that ask me to put in order of preference who influences my voting decisions, my constituents, the country, the party – it depends! How many times a year, a month etc. do I meet with this type of group or that type of group. I suppose I am glad to be asked although those questionnaires are time consuming in themselves. Anyway, having been frustrated at the task of splitting up my work into imaginary percentages of time, I thought that I would for my blog tonight do an outline of how I a TD spent my week, this week, so far. Just for the record, in case of interest, and for when I write my memoirs.
All Politics is Local
Posted on January 14, 2010
Political decisions however high brow and noble they might seem ultimately matter because they affect people and people live their lives out locally. There is no real separation between national and local issues because they intertwine, overlap or arise from or give rise to. But we still get the debate about the need to stop us national politicians from talking about local issues.
Driving home this weather
Posted on January 07, 2010
It took me just under 6 hours to drive home from Leinster House this evening. I left at 4.30 and drove in my driveway at 9.50pm. It’s not the first time this has ever happened to me but I think that is the longest time driving home. You start out not minding too much, listening to the radio, singing along to upbeat songs. Then after about 2 hours and still in town you look at the other drivers around you and feel your common humanity and we are all in the same boat. People are ringing in radio stations to say where they are stuck and request a song and you smile at their predicament and the radio banter about it. But then when 4 hours have gone and you’re only just getting out of town the hunger sets in and the boredom and frustration. Many people had started a long walk home and but for the terrible cold that could have seemed a better option than driving to Lucan. My sister texted me at 8.55 to say she had just arrived at her home having left work at 3. I spent some stationary time in mobile phone correspondence with a voter about the state of the country and the politics that has got us here.
