Joe Horgan Column
By Joe Horgan
I remember not so long ago driving home one evening through a small village
a few miles west of where I live. It is a small place and though the main
road runs through it, it continues to be kind of quiet and out of the
way. As I went through the village I came across a car in front of me
moving slowly along the street.
A man was sat in the open boot hanging on to a small length of rope by
which he pulled along a small pony that trotted behind the car.
I think of it now because that road has been designated as a priority
for the newly-formed traffic corps and there is even talk of speed cameras
on some stretches of it.
I don’t think we’ll be seeing anything like the pony and the
man in the boot again anytime soon.
What it was though was something so very hard to define but something
that seems about to pass away. It was a part of a more informal Ireland.
An unofficial Ireland. In many ways a more naturally human Ireland. Even,
maybe, a more Irish Ireland.
As part of the modernisation of the country we now have an increasing
amount of regulations. Anybody working here will tell you about the sudden
explosion of health and safety practices — usually imported wholesale
from Britain — that have been implemented without any particular
regard for prevailing conditions or local peculiarities. Best practice.
The pursuit of excellence.
The Irish workplace is now as haunted by meaningless management speak
as anywhere else. We now no longer have workmates — we have fellow
human resources.
One thing about all of this creeping uniformity though is that it is hard
to make any strong representations against it.
Perhaps all of this is just what is needed in the day-to-day running of
modern life.
After all introduce something into the Irish workplace under the heading
of health and safety and who can oppose it? Who will gainsay health and
safety even as they sit there desperately searching for its relevance?
One local councillor recently spoke out about just such a thing and was
heavily condemned by all quarters.
He suggested that there was no harm in some people having three or four
pints and then driving home.
Now if nothing else he was somewhat clumsy in expressing himself. His
party even decided to kick him out. Fair enough, with road death tolls
as bad as ours no-one could be in favour of drink-driving.
But let’s think about this for a moment.
Let’s be honest. I do not know anyone who does not drink and drive.
Even the most sensible, solid people I know here will have a few pints
and drive home. That is the truth.
Why? Because that is the reality of living in rural Ireland.
However much we might like to think that across-the-board laws and regulations
can cure all and be appropriate for every situation the reality does not
support this.
Now I am not suggesting how else the law might be implemented all I am
pointing out is that for all we attempt to make Ireland a more formal
place human behaviour remains diverse, local and unsuited to blanket strictures.
That is the nature of human beings and that is certainly the nature of
a society such as Ireland where increasing urbanisation meets the stubborn
rural.
I am not at all saying drink-driving should be legalised or even tacitly
encouraged. All I am saying is that regulations are uniform but society
is not.
For instance is drink-driving through traffic in the centre of Cork or
Dublin the same as some farmer driving up and down a lane to his local
pub? Driving home through country backroads where he will meet no one
else?
Just recently here a friend told me the gardaí sat outside a backroads
country pub as the landlady told him she hadn’t seen gardaí
there for about 20 years.
Is that to increase road safety? Or is it an attempt to produce results
by catching people whose threat to road safety must be at best minimal?
I have no answer but I’d like to think we might stop for a moment
before continually implementing solutions across Ireland that were supposed
to be answers to problems in London, Manchester or Birmingham.
Traffic laws, health and safety regulations, best practice, the pursuit
of excellence and ponies being led along from the boot of a car don’t
really go together do they?
But as a leading Irish technological consultant pointed out recently we
should beware of building a society that calls for people to become more
like machines and machines more like people.
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