The term REALPOlITIK is one I remember from history class in school.It conjures up images of shady negotiations across the iron curtain where ethics and ideology came second to preservation of uneasy alliances. REALPOLITIK is the difference between what we would like to do and what we need to do. The German term defines a form of politics based on practical and material things. That's not to say it is a bad form of politics. Idealism doesn't buy the dinner,address the national deficit,or placate the trade unions.
Our coalition government is preserving an uneasy alliance. The Greens have a left-centric secularist,post-modern and pro-environmental view of the world,Bless them. Fianna Fail's nationalist core is tempered by three generations of power broking, global hustling and prioritising commercial growth over moral absolutes. Dog Breeding Legislation is well down the list of priorities for a party which used to draw votes from affording special status to Ireland's racing, coursing, hunting tradition. Fianna Fail will reposition our country in a global marketplace as a pro-enterprise economy. In return the Greens will impliment civil partnership reform, animal welfare reform, carbon offset credits, water upgrades and support fiscal austerity measures which international bondholders want.And Social advancement will ultimately emerge from difficult compromise.
The full text of the 2010 Dog Breeding Legislation is well crafted political reality, combining as it does measures to raise significant revenue from the dog industry and measures to satisfy the ideals of dog welfare and population control. Department of Finance needs revenue. The black economy in Ireland in 2009 was estimated at six billion euro. Insiders like me know that the dog trade exists in this black hole of untaxed cashflow. Now in our hour of discontent, it's time to tax some of this black hole while simultaneously reforming one of Ireland's animal welfare problems, namely the hitherto unregulated puppy farm problem
The Croke Park agreement is a good example of REALPOLITIK in that it at least keeps the country functioning and our civil servants off the streets. Brian Lenihan's last budget was a brilliant example of REALPOLITIK. His first budget most definitely was not. Being politically tactless and badly prespun it elicited protests until its most austere penuries were reversed. But the most recent budget which was full of fiscal austerity and brought reduced prosperity to one and all was grudgingly accepted with barely a whimper of protest. And such is our understanding that the country needs reality politics that we have already resigned ourselves to the next budget of expenditure cuts.The Santa Claus politics of "fantasy benchmarking" and "who wants to be a millionaire social partner" are over.
The British always applied the logic of REALPOLITIK to their colonial rulings. Better to swiftly slaughter a few hundred unruly gurkhas and indulge the Maharajah's fetish for victorian china than destabilise an entire area strategic for tea, rubber or slaves.The history of Ireland's famine is a legacy to REALPOLITIK. As Ireland's wheat and beef left to feed the empire, Westminster's awkward quandary about what to do with a starving peasantry was solved by their cheap and easy exit on fetid ships.
As a small ungovernable colony, the Irish learned politics from a Machiavellian empire which once ruled half the globe. Surprising then, that Britain's new Con-Dem government has launched straight into the minefield of electoral reform, headlong into disagreement over how and what way a lukewarm electorate should vote next time. Shrewd politics would be to focus all energy on the depressed economy and all reformist enmity on Labour's wasteful expenditure. At least for the first full year. Instead Nick Clegg's overreach towards the holy grail of proportional representative voting will end in tears as Prime Minister Cameron hasnt even the tact to support his coalition partner in public. Survival instincts in Irish politics are stronger. Cameron could learn a litle reality politics from Cowen and Lenihan's handling of our banks, trade unions, the ECB and our US investors over the last 18 months.
The Irish do REALPOLITIK very well. We have a history of coalition governments held together by tenuous promise and bartered favour. The ultimate exponent of REALPOLITIK was the most cunning of them all whose singular defining triumph was to deliver the Good Friday agreement. The boy republican from Drumcondra who gave the Reverend Paisley a gift of a Jacobite Musket on the battlefield of the Boyne, finally stalled sectarian conflict in Ireland by doing what politicians often need to do as a means to an end. Real political success is the acheivement of impossible compromise. Ahern, the son of a Cork IRA man acheived that one great thing on Good Friday 10th April 1998 by painstaking brokering and building relationships to dilute ideology. Fianna Fail have always done REALPOLITIK very well; progress by process and by compromise.
But the Dog Breeding Legislation? Now watered down by default so that opprtunities of revenue gathering, regulation and welfare improvement are lost for now. Fianna Fail are hardly dealing with the UVF this time.Romantic Ireland is dead and gone surely. But REALPOLITIK is with Ahern back in St Lukes, Drumcondra. Have there been Paramilitary Continuity Dog coursers and Beagle baiters darkly threatening backbenchers lest the 400 euro six bitch levy pass into law? Will we have to summon John De Chastelain to Ireland's potholed rural seats of greyhound power to clamber into battered transits and up to Paddyjoes to check who has seven bitches and who has only five OR who bought their own microchips CHAPE off the vanman at the dogtrack last night? The party that wore down the provos have given in to the dogmen!
During todays debate in the Seanad I heard one remark amidst the confusion over breeding bitches and civil partners "Anyone would think Tipperary was full of homophobic, guntoting, deer hunters". Its not, of course. The country has changed. The appetite for regulation of hunting, for conservation debates, for animal welfare advancements has fanned out across the eastern seaboard into the midlands of Ireland with the migrations of the last ten years. Bord na GCon or should that be Bord Na Con have pulled a two fold conjob. They have convinced the government by vocal lobby that their view is still a majority view in rural Ireland and they have successfully pleaded the poor mouth to avoid paying taxes which the rest of us may well now have to pay. An opportunity lost. government TDs? You've been Bord Na Conned!
Showing posts with label A Vets Life. Rural Economy.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Vets Life. Rural Economy.. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Irish Wolfhounds- echoes of a proud past.
Journeying the other day back up onto the Curragh from Naas to the junction 12 roundabout I met the new imposing ironcast sculptures now filling the eye at the gateway to the Curragh plains. I took three spins around the roundabout to admire Fionn MacCumhaill flanked either side by his impressive hunting hounds Bran and Sceolain.
Kildare people often think themselves to be living in a bland modern and almost suburbanised landscape. We assume perhaps that words like tradition and heritage fit Connemara,Dingle, Lisdoonvarna or the Giants Causeway. A reminder of the pagan, celtic and rebellious history of our own townlands might incite a bit more civic pride in the people, place and history of Kildare perhaps.
I was saddened to hear one of Kildare's county councillors on the radio complaining that Fionn MacCumhaill's aculpture shouldnt have been paid for out of Newbridge town council's parking funds.I disagree and believe in fact that cultural pride, identity and a sense of dreaming the possible can lift people to think above the everyday and believe themselves capable of better.
Civic Leadership needs to excite again. People need to be asked to believe in themselves and their country, to strive for a noble cause again and to rise above the mundane. Leadership is effective when it incites to what Maslow, an early psychologist, called "self-actualisation".
The presence of Fionn MacCumhaill, Bran and Sceolain towering over that motorway junction is an echo of Ireland's mythology and awakens in me a sense of patriotism. And a sense of identity that allows us as an Irish people to define ourselves apart from the euro-mush and globalised Americana that dominate our lives now.
Legend has it that Fionn MacCumhaill was a Kildare man. His grandfather Tadhg the Druid had a fortress and lands on the Hill of Allen. Fionn was the lovechild of Tadhg's daughter Muireann and Cumhaill, the leader of the Fianna. Fionn was reared in the Slieve Blooms but returned to Allen to claim his grandfathers lands.The title of leader of the Fianna was bestowed on him in Tara as his father's legacy.
His two favourite hunting hounds were bewitched warriors imprisoned in animal form.The theme of humans bewitched into animal form was a common part of Irish celtic mythology. My view is that these stories educated people to have respect for nature.The closeness of the link between man's fortunes and the cycle of nature was a core belief of celtic druidism.
Bran and Sceolain were Irish wolfhounds. However the early writers often termed this breed of huge dog a wardog or deerhound/wolfhound.They were fit for purpose and could kill a wolf by snapping its neck. A pair could bring down a bear of which there were many in the Irish iron age forests. The Fianna were footsoldiers who went into battle with their hounds at heel and as the dog would fight to the death with his master and guard the homestead at night they were a revered and treasured possession.
Roman historians of the second and third century AD write of these hounds being brought in cages to be exhibited in Rome and to fight in the Collosseum. The ship that brought a young St Patrick out of Ireland carried a cargo of hounds to Britannia. There is evidence that there was a thriving trade in the export of the Irish wardog to the continent.
We believe that the Romans never came to Ireland. However it is more accurate to say that they never established an occupational presence in Ireland. They certainly traded with the iron age Irish and pre christian celts. A Roman temple and baths in Gloucester today has a life size statue of an Irish Wolfhound which dates to 365AD. I would like to think that the fearsome indigenous footsoldiers of Celtic Ireland who went into battle with their loyal and savage wardogs at heel provided a strong deterrent against Roman invaders.
The Fianna disbanded within a few hundred years of St Patrick's christianisation of Ireland. The land lay open to Viking, Norman and then British invasion as the millenia passed and the landscape, culture and genepools of Ireland were altered and diluted over time. Fionn, Bran and Sceolain on the roundabout are an echo of what Irishness might once have looked like.
When you next drive by there picture Fionn, leader of the Fianna standing on the Hill of Allen, watching his favourite hounds Bran and Sceolain as they hunt the Curragh plains below.
Kildare people often think themselves to be living in a bland modern and almost suburbanised landscape. We assume perhaps that words like tradition and heritage fit Connemara,Dingle, Lisdoonvarna or the Giants Causeway. A reminder of the pagan, celtic and rebellious history of our own townlands might incite a bit more civic pride in the people, place and history of Kildare perhaps.
I was saddened to hear one of Kildare's county councillors on the radio complaining that Fionn MacCumhaill's aculpture shouldnt have been paid for out of Newbridge town council's parking funds.I disagree and believe in fact that cultural pride, identity and a sense of dreaming the possible can lift people to think above the everyday and believe themselves capable of better.
Civic Leadership needs to excite again. People need to be asked to believe in themselves and their country, to strive for a noble cause again and to rise above the mundane. Leadership is effective when it incites to what Maslow, an early psychologist, called "self-actualisation".
The presence of Fionn MacCumhaill, Bran and Sceolain towering over that motorway junction is an echo of Ireland's mythology and awakens in me a sense of patriotism. And a sense of identity that allows us as an Irish people to define ourselves apart from the euro-mush and globalised Americana that dominate our lives now.
Legend has it that Fionn MacCumhaill was a Kildare man. His grandfather Tadhg the Druid had a fortress and lands on the Hill of Allen. Fionn was the lovechild of Tadhg's daughter Muireann and Cumhaill, the leader of the Fianna. Fionn was reared in the Slieve Blooms but returned to Allen to claim his grandfathers lands.The title of leader of the Fianna was bestowed on him in Tara as his father's legacy.
His two favourite hunting hounds were bewitched warriors imprisoned in animal form.The theme of humans bewitched into animal form was a common part of Irish celtic mythology. My view is that these stories educated people to have respect for nature.The closeness of the link between man's fortunes and the cycle of nature was a core belief of celtic druidism.
Bran and Sceolain were Irish wolfhounds. However the early writers often termed this breed of huge dog a wardog or deerhound/wolfhound.They were fit for purpose and could kill a wolf by snapping its neck. A pair could bring down a bear of which there were many in the Irish iron age forests. The Fianna were footsoldiers who went into battle with their hounds at heel and as the dog would fight to the death with his master and guard the homestead at night they were a revered and treasured possession.
Roman historians of the second and third century AD write of these hounds being brought in cages to be exhibited in Rome and to fight in the Collosseum. The ship that brought a young St Patrick out of Ireland carried a cargo of hounds to Britannia. There is evidence that there was a thriving trade in the export of the Irish wardog to the continent.
We believe that the Romans never came to Ireland. However it is more accurate to say that they never established an occupational presence in Ireland. They certainly traded with the iron age Irish and pre christian celts. A Roman temple and baths in Gloucester today has a life size statue of an Irish Wolfhound which dates to 365AD. I would like to think that the fearsome indigenous footsoldiers of Celtic Ireland who went into battle with their loyal and savage wardogs at heel provided a strong deterrent against Roman invaders.
The Fianna disbanded within a few hundred years of St Patrick's christianisation of Ireland. The land lay open to Viking, Norman and then British invasion as the millenia passed and the landscape, culture and genepools of Ireland were altered and diluted over time. Fionn, Bran and Sceolain on the roundabout are an echo of what Irishness might once have looked like.
When you next drive by there picture Fionn, leader of the Fianna standing on the Hill of Allen, watching his favourite hounds Bran and Sceolain as they hunt the Curragh plains below.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Ultra-Marathon Man leaves his mark
When I drifted away from race-riding eight or nine years ago after having too many falls, riding too many slow horses and eating too few good dinners over the previous ten years ( !)there was a void in my life for a while. I needed a competitive outlet and a routine of self-challenge and outdoor exercise. I began to run. First a few miles at a time, then seven or eight miles a few times a week. Given the mind and body of the man in question it wasnt long before I turned to Marathon running. Thus began the first of many journeys. Most of those journeys ended with a medal, a sense of self reaffirmed, an extra lesson learned, and ended at the finish line of another 26 mile run in a city or on a mountain somewhere. There is a spirituality in the mindset of the self-improvement, the self-discipline that becomes part of the runners' world. Like the separateness that becomes part of the life of the committed cyclist or jockey. It was an odd type of separateness for a gregarious open communicator like myself, but it was part of a routine of challenge and endeavour that had been part of my life since I first sat on a horse. And I suppose I am no more or less of a contradiction of a man than anyone.
I read a book several years ago that inspired me and led me to deliver several motivational speeches about the power of goal setting. The story of Dean Karnazes, possibly the greatest endurance runner since Pheidippides. A man more than ordinary who inspires in ways that the untouchable great athletes fail to inspire a mere mortal athlete of flat feet as I indeed was; Dean inspires because as an ordinary advertising executive at the age of 30, he turned his face to finding what he looked for in life, and did so as a family man and fundraiser, with the focus, but without the selfishness that typifies many great acheivers.
Dean's creed;
Run when you can
Walk if you have to
Crawl if you must
Just never give up
I will post my speech about the power of goalsetting some time. I will also post the tale of the journey to the finish line in the Dublin Marathon 2003, my first full marathon finish.
For today though the story is of a bionic hip. The runs and falls have taken their toll; I have to have surgery to remodel my right hip joint in a few weeks. The next marathon I finish will be at a walk! Somebody famous said" Its not the years, its the mileage..." A phrase definitely applicable to me in my current broken down lame state.
But ask me was it worth it?
Every step of the way!
I read a book several years ago that inspired me and led me to deliver several motivational speeches about the power of goal setting. The story of Dean Karnazes, possibly the greatest endurance runner since Pheidippides. A man more than ordinary who inspires in ways that the untouchable great athletes fail to inspire a mere mortal athlete of flat feet as I indeed was; Dean inspires because as an ordinary advertising executive at the age of 30, he turned his face to finding what he looked for in life, and did so as a family man and fundraiser, with the focus, but without the selfishness that typifies many great acheivers.
Dean's creed;
Run when you can
Walk if you have to
Crawl if you must
Just never give up
I will post my speech about the power of goalsetting some time. I will also post the tale of the journey to the finish line in the Dublin Marathon 2003, my first full marathon finish.
For today though the story is of a bionic hip. The runs and falls have taken their toll; I have to have surgery to remodel my right hip joint in a few weeks. The next marathon I finish will be at a walk! Somebody famous said" Its not the years, its the mileage..." A phrase definitely applicable to me in my current broken down lame state.
But ask me was it worth it?
Every step of the way!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Rip off Ireland.... not RIP just yet.
At Groome PetVets I have reduced the price of many of our key services in the last ten months.
I began with a pre-Christmas offer of a free microchip with every booster.
In February I looked at our price list critically and reduced the price of six key services by one third. In July I addressed the fall off in week-day customer numbers by introducing a deal of one third off everything -for OAPs- on tuesday and wednesday. In August I have begun a campaign to reverse the decline in preventative pet health care ( for example Vaccination numbers are well down) by introducing a Loyalty card for booster vaccination and puppy primary vaccination and a clubcard for Propak pet food.
The unfortunate fact though is that the only reason I can afford to make these price changes is because my pay roll costs have halved by my reduction in staff numbers from 15 , just a year ago, to only 8 working in the practice now. Those now working at Groome PetVets provide a better sevice to our clients in many ways and do so more efficiently and cost effectively. That I can now identify those improvements is symptomatic of the difficulties the entire economy created for itself by the high cost-spiral which we all contributed to and accepted- then passed on to customers. That I was able to radically shift business strategy and realign staff to new behaviours and a new business culture is a reflection of the flexibility that small private sector business can take advantage of when there is a will and need for change.
However I am only in control of parts of my own cost base and most of my costs of doing business have not reduced and some have even increased. Animal remedies and medicines comprise about thirty percent of my costs. The major medical wholesalers and manufacturers increased prices by between 4 and 8 percent in September/October '08 and have not reduced prices since. The markets two main specialist pet foods increased prices in October 08 and april 09 respectively and needless to say did not reduce prices as the economy further shrank into deflation this summer. Energy and communications costs are often cited as having fallen this year. In practice however I have found that the newer entrants to these markets tout for business with lower base charges but running charges will amount to about the same month by month- and I have tested this by moving my service around. Despite the ongoing lowerECB base interest rates, Bank overdraft rates and business charges remain punitive within the big two in the Irish bank market. Commercial rates have not reduced as budget-stressed local authorities seek revenue from the limited sources available. Many small businesses are simply unwilling to pay rates this year and will remain in arrears of rates, I predict into next year and the year after, as the rates bill joins a pile under a paper weight on the owner-manager's desk. My PRSI contributions have not reduced, neither has the rate of VAT I am required to pay and then pass on to my customers. Rents have reduced as the smaller commercial property owners have become increasingly anxious to keep their tenants- though unfortunately many retailers and other small business tenants are now falling behind in their rents, while in many sectors the concept of upward only rate review remains the norm. Rising waste disposal costs, implimentation of parking charges even in small towns, consistently high motor fuel costs, road toll costs and so on- these all form parts of the cost base of the Irish small business and can broadly be blamed on either the pressures of the macro-economy OR the pressures of government costs- boh of which are being brought to bear on the SME sector as externalities beyond our/my control.
In the macro- economy world business forces are governed by multinationals with revenues often in excess of a small country's GDP- these forces now must extract the penalty for share-holder driven growth strategy from wherever they can. In the case of our budget obsessed Irish government; government and public sector costs- driven up by years of appeasing unions amidst complacency about ongoing revenue- will be brought down by Bord Snip implimentations , but will be brought down slowly In the mean time small business have been targeted to foot the bill.
Recent media reports about the demise of "rip-off Ireland" may be greatly exaggerated. I believe balance within our economy cant be acheived until Banks, Government, Government employees, Trade Unions and Share-holder driven Big Business bring their own cost base and ransom-like tariffs into line with the new economic reality that small businesses envisage.
There is an appetite for change of the political landscape in Ireland and some debate on the need for a new radicalism in political thinking. I believe that radicalism needs to come from the centrist mindset of middle society. Those who believe in neo-liberalism but wont stand for free market control by the big business economics of the Thatcher, Reagan, Karl Rove/Bush tradition any longer. This is very much radicalism with a small r. I believe we must be very careful not to allow the debate for change to be ambushed by Left , or right, ideological forces who if allowed grow to become relevant could polarise the electoral process, create dysfunctional and paralysed coalition government and alienate much needed foreign investors. In the face of the body politic's poor handling of public relations, seeming imperviousness to the plight of indigenous small business, tardy decision making and those continued embarrassing revelations about expenses and God knows what else opportunists on the socialist fringe in particular now have the climate to thrive. But I believe as a small business owner and employer that their agenda for self-interest would prove as damaging as those big business forces now hoist by their own petard, though still looking for the rest of us to pay!
Des Groome.
I began with a pre-Christmas offer of a free microchip with every booster.
In February I looked at our price list critically and reduced the price of six key services by one third. In July I addressed the fall off in week-day customer numbers by introducing a deal of one third off everything -for OAPs- on tuesday and wednesday. In August I have begun a campaign to reverse the decline in preventative pet health care ( for example Vaccination numbers are well down) by introducing a Loyalty card for booster vaccination and puppy primary vaccination and a clubcard for Propak pet food.
The unfortunate fact though is that the only reason I can afford to make these price changes is because my pay roll costs have halved by my reduction in staff numbers from 15 , just a year ago, to only 8 working in the practice now. Those now working at Groome PetVets provide a better sevice to our clients in many ways and do so more efficiently and cost effectively. That I can now identify those improvements is symptomatic of the difficulties the entire economy created for itself by the high cost-spiral which we all contributed to and accepted- then passed on to customers. That I was able to radically shift business strategy and realign staff to new behaviours and a new business culture is a reflection of the flexibility that small private sector business can take advantage of when there is a will and need for change.
However I am only in control of parts of my own cost base and most of my costs of doing business have not reduced and some have even increased. Animal remedies and medicines comprise about thirty percent of my costs. The major medical wholesalers and manufacturers increased prices by between 4 and 8 percent in September/October '08 and have not reduced prices since. The markets two main specialist pet foods increased prices in October 08 and april 09 respectively and needless to say did not reduce prices as the economy further shrank into deflation this summer. Energy and communications costs are often cited as having fallen this year. In practice however I have found that the newer entrants to these markets tout for business with lower base charges but running charges will amount to about the same month by month- and I have tested this by moving my service around. Despite the ongoing lowerECB base interest rates, Bank overdraft rates and business charges remain punitive within the big two in the Irish bank market. Commercial rates have not reduced as budget-stressed local authorities seek revenue from the limited sources available. Many small businesses are simply unwilling to pay rates this year and will remain in arrears of rates, I predict into next year and the year after, as the rates bill joins a pile under a paper weight on the owner-manager's desk. My PRSI contributions have not reduced, neither has the rate of VAT I am required to pay and then pass on to my customers. Rents have reduced as the smaller commercial property owners have become increasingly anxious to keep their tenants- though unfortunately many retailers and other small business tenants are now falling behind in their rents, while in many sectors the concept of upward only rate review remains the norm. Rising waste disposal costs, implimentation of parking charges even in small towns, consistently high motor fuel costs, road toll costs and so on- these all form parts of the cost base of the Irish small business and can broadly be blamed on either the pressures of the macro-economy OR the pressures of government costs- boh of which are being brought to bear on the SME sector as externalities beyond our/my control.
In the macro- economy world business forces are governed by multinationals with revenues often in excess of a small country's GDP- these forces now must extract the penalty for share-holder driven growth strategy from wherever they can. In the case of our budget obsessed Irish government; government and public sector costs- driven up by years of appeasing unions amidst complacency about ongoing revenue- will be brought down by Bord Snip implimentations , but will be brought down slowly In the mean time small business have been targeted to foot the bill.
Recent media reports about the demise of "rip-off Ireland" may be greatly exaggerated. I believe balance within our economy cant be acheived until Banks, Government, Government employees, Trade Unions and Share-holder driven Big Business bring their own cost base and ransom-like tariffs into line with the new economic reality that small businesses envisage.
There is an appetite for change of the political landscape in Ireland and some debate on the need for a new radicalism in political thinking. I believe that radicalism needs to come from the centrist mindset of middle society. Those who believe in neo-liberalism but wont stand for free market control by the big business economics of the Thatcher, Reagan, Karl Rove/Bush tradition any longer. This is very much radicalism with a small r. I believe we must be very careful not to allow the debate for change to be ambushed by Left , or right, ideological forces who if allowed grow to become relevant could polarise the electoral process, create dysfunctional and paralysed coalition government and alienate much needed foreign investors. In the face of the body politic's poor handling of public relations, seeming imperviousness to the plight of indigenous small business, tardy decision making and those continued embarrassing revelations about expenses and God knows what else opportunists on the socialist fringe in particular now have the climate to thrive. But I believe as a small business owner and employer that their agenda for self-interest would prove as damaging as those big business forces now hoist by their own petard, though still looking for the rest of us to pay!
Des Groome.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Co-operative marketing; Helping those who help themselves.
Kildare Chamber of Commerce voucher book is a resounding local success. Participating Local businesses report increased footfall. Local consumers are enthusiastic about the novel offers available and the value they can now find for everything from Pizzas to PC Doctor to Pet Health.
Households can use up their voucher book over the coming months and develop the all important habit of visiting our vibrant service provider and small enterprise based town centre.
Kildare Chamber of Commerce will launch a new book in the autumn to create a pre-Christmas shopping lead-up in Kildare town and to help our members help customers by giving real LOCAL value for money.
The Co-op movement sustained a generation in rural Ireland in the past. Co-ops helped farmers sell their produce, helped creameries acheive the volume needed to compete with imported produce, gave a retail outlet to rural households.
Kildare Chamber of Commerces voucher scheme is not original , but it does represent a new form of Co-op movement. Co-operative marketing.
The next level of Co-operative marketing has also now arrived to Kildare. A group trading as www.iBuyVouchers.com has the potential to help further business growth and promote customer loyalty.
Signing your business up will place your discount offer on a database for anyone to print or download and avail of -as an incentive to become a customer or a visitor to your town. Credit card style loyalty cards will be sold for three euro in each ibuy participating business. The same card sold in each member business can be used in any other business listed with the ibuy network to avail of their special iBuy member only offer.
An iBuy card holder going on holiday to Galway could look up restaurants linked to the scheme and perhaps eat every night at a special offer price while on holidays.
An iBuy card holder visiting Kildare village or the National Stud could buy a new suit on Kildare 's market square, availing of an iBuy member card offer- and enjoy iBuy card holder benefits in one of Kildares feted hostelries before heading home after a successful day trip.
As Kildare Chamber Chairman I am encouraging all our business members to join this co-operative marketing network AND I encourage consumers and householders to pick up their iBuy 3euro Loyalty card today.
Schemes like this can harness the potential of the small local business sector to help each other.
This is the type of Grass-Roots empowerment that helped Ireland conquer economic, social and political deprivation many times before in our past and can equally see us through the trials of today.
Des Groome
Households can use up their voucher book over the coming months and develop the all important habit of visiting our vibrant service provider and small enterprise based town centre.
Kildare Chamber of Commerce will launch a new book in the autumn to create a pre-Christmas shopping lead-up in Kildare town and to help our members help customers by giving real LOCAL value for money.
The Co-op movement sustained a generation in rural Ireland in the past. Co-ops helped farmers sell their produce, helped creameries acheive the volume needed to compete with imported produce, gave a retail outlet to rural households.
Kildare Chamber of Commerces voucher scheme is not original , but it does represent a new form of Co-op movement. Co-operative marketing.
The next level of Co-operative marketing has also now arrived to Kildare. A group trading as www.iBuyVouchers.com has the potential to help further business growth and promote customer loyalty.
Signing your business up will place your discount offer on a database for anyone to print or download and avail of -as an incentive to become a customer or a visitor to your town. Credit card style loyalty cards will be sold for three euro in each ibuy participating business. The same card sold in each member business can be used in any other business listed with the ibuy network to avail of their special iBuy member only offer.
An iBuy card holder going on holiday to Galway could look up restaurants linked to the scheme and perhaps eat every night at a special offer price while on holidays.
An iBuy card holder visiting Kildare village or the National Stud could buy a new suit on Kildare 's market square, availing of an iBuy member card offer- and enjoy iBuy card holder benefits in one of Kildares feted hostelries before heading home after a successful day trip.
As Kildare Chamber Chairman I am encouraging all our business members to join this co-operative marketing network AND I encourage consumers and householders to pick up their iBuy 3euro Loyalty card today.
Schemes like this can harness the potential of the small local business sector to help each other.
This is the type of Grass-Roots empowerment that helped Ireland conquer economic, social and political deprivation many times before in our past and can equally see us through the trials of today.
Des Groome
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Those who will rebuild.
I gravitated towards an interesting looking character at a business function in Portlaoise recently. He was about my own age and wearing a good suit and tie in the manner of a man who does a days work for a living. I joked that we had the same tailor. He replied that it looked like we also shared a barber. Common ground quickly established, economics and politics- locally- we then explored at length. Fianna Fail were hammered in Portlaoise in the Locals; the state of the local small business sector is dire; Cowen was at an opening in the town recently and spoke well, impressed many and left a feeling of optimism in his wake- what the hell is going on up in hq Fianna Fail?- Why isnt he visible, involved, spreading that feeling nationally?. I have debated these and similiar questions, over a pint or at work or at cumann meeting, many times recently.
Guards and prison officers, civil servants and teachers, these are the voters who punished the local Fianna Fail councillors in Portlaoise, Newbridge, Naas, Athy, Tullamore and of course Dublin itself. The backbone of the country and the frontline workers of our social and public sector who must now take a cut to help correct the foolish inflationary spiral driven forward by a Public Private Partnership of one dimensional trade unionists and Politicians who learnt their economics on the election canvas in Clara and Clonliffe Road. The PPP with its annual increments served Begg, OConnor et al and which now can be shown to have done its beneficiaries a disservice.
My Portlaoise small businessman had a workforce of twenty in a small engineering works which served the building trade and grew to a fleet of 5 jeeps, with often several on-site projects, and two units in a business park noisy and busy for the last eight years. The owner himself, then managing and supervising relished an expanding universe and the opportunity afforded by the climate of the time. He told me with a smile that he is now back on the machines and enjoying it again. The forty year old midriff spread will soon be shed as all bar one jeep are handed back and the office chair wont be warmed as much in future. He was stung badly by a few builders and had to let most of the lads go, as the bank took his overdraft and put it on term loan. He wont let out as much credit in future and wont take on big staff numbers again unless the serious contracts reappear.
Morale is a vague concept. Some people need it to be given to them by some equally vague concept of leadership. Morale can be high or it can be poor. The National morale is now said to be Low. Myles Na gopaleen could have some fun now with his encyclopedia of cliches- The man whose morale was Low; The Man who said we needed Leadership.
What you dont hear now though is the real truth which is that ordinary people, not Leaders, not Obamas, just workers, make their own morale. The story you need to hear now is the story of the man who took off the suit and went back on the machines, or who left the office and got back on a digger or who went from the big auctioneering firm to the dole queue to learning to write software to designing websites.
Media can say what they like about leadership until it becomes a cliche in itself. In the upper corporate world, high performing companies are often said to have a culture of self- leadership.
The generations of Irish who escaped the dreary wet deprivations of their youth and emigrated to build better lives and contribute to other societies knew self- leadership. But they would have just called it survival.
A hero of my youth, an icon of eighties Ireland, Barry McGuigan is now bizarrely choreographing a reality boxing show. Ten middle class symbols of the Ahern era including actors, Tg 4 stars, a builder, A former GAA star, a comedian, are putting aside their comfortable success after an easy expansionist Ahern decade to be trained to leanness and to fight in a ring under McGuigans mentoring. McGuigan had an innocence. The innocence of the kid who took no credit for his own greatness was typical of the Ireland before Riverdance, of the Irish who had to take their own chances with a boat or a plane, and bears no resemblance to the urbane cosmopolitan, confident irish sportsman of today who Expects.
I think this incongruous mix of nostagia and grit is no accidental metaphor. I believe the generation now reeling a little and now holding the private sector together with their fingernails were reared lean and learnt to work hard. They took all the advantages of tax breaks and a perfect expansionist economic climate to create the Celtic Tiger, a cliche to burn now on a ceremonial bonfire of the celtic Vanities. I believe that now this generation, now barely forty perhaps have the best working years of their careers still ahead of them. This generation of men like me- and the ten gobshites on TV who McGuigan is going to train- to whom Barry McGuigan was a representative icon of Irish fighting spirit in the face of social, political and economic adversity in the late eighties. A generation who will make their own morale and provide their own leadership are once again fit and ready to start at their beginnings. Ready to rebuild.
Eye of the Tiger!
Des Groome
Guards and prison officers, civil servants and teachers, these are the voters who punished the local Fianna Fail councillors in Portlaoise, Newbridge, Naas, Athy, Tullamore and of course Dublin itself. The backbone of the country and the frontline workers of our social and public sector who must now take a cut to help correct the foolish inflationary spiral driven forward by a Public Private Partnership of one dimensional trade unionists and Politicians who learnt their economics on the election canvas in Clara and Clonliffe Road. The PPP with its annual increments served Begg, OConnor et al and which now can be shown to have done its beneficiaries a disservice.
My Portlaoise small businessman had a workforce of twenty in a small engineering works which served the building trade and grew to a fleet of 5 jeeps, with often several on-site projects, and two units in a business park noisy and busy for the last eight years. The owner himself, then managing and supervising relished an expanding universe and the opportunity afforded by the climate of the time. He told me with a smile that he is now back on the machines and enjoying it again. The forty year old midriff spread will soon be shed as all bar one jeep are handed back and the office chair wont be warmed as much in future. He was stung badly by a few builders and had to let most of the lads go, as the bank took his overdraft and put it on term loan. He wont let out as much credit in future and wont take on big staff numbers again unless the serious contracts reappear.
Morale is a vague concept. Some people need it to be given to them by some equally vague concept of leadership. Morale can be high or it can be poor. The National morale is now said to be Low. Myles Na gopaleen could have some fun now with his encyclopedia of cliches- The man whose morale was Low; The Man who said we needed Leadership.
What you dont hear now though is the real truth which is that ordinary people, not Leaders, not Obamas, just workers, make their own morale. The story you need to hear now is the story of the man who took off the suit and went back on the machines, or who left the office and got back on a digger or who went from the big auctioneering firm to the dole queue to learning to write software to designing websites.
Media can say what they like about leadership until it becomes a cliche in itself. In the upper corporate world, high performing companies are often said to have a culture of self- leadership.
The generations of Irish who escaped the dreary wet deprivations of their youth and emigrated to build better lives and contribute to other societies knew self- leadership. But they would have just called it survival.
A hero of my youth, an icon of eighties Ireland, Barry McGuigan is now bizarrely choreographing a reality boxing show. Ten middle class symbols of the Ahern era including actors, Tg 4 stars, a builder, A former GAA star, a comedian, are putting aside their comfortable success after an easy expansionist Ahern decade to be trained to leanness and to fight in a ring under McGuigans mentoring. McGuigan had an innocence. The innocence of the kid who took no credit for his own greatness was typical of the Ireland before Riverdance, of the Irish who had to take their own chances with a boat or a plane, and bears no resemblance to the urbane cosmopolitan, confident irish sportsman of today who Expects.
I think this incongruous mix of nostagia and grit is no accidental metaphor. I believe the generation now reeling a little and now holding the private sector together with their fingernails were reared lean and learnt to work hard. They took all the advantages of tax breaks and a perfect expansionist economic climate to create the Celtic Tiger, a cliche to burn now on a ceremonial bonfire of the celtic Vanities. I believe that now this generation, now barely forty perhaps have the best working years of their careers still ahead of them. This generation of men like me- and the ten gobshites on TV who McGuigan is going to train- to whom Barry McGuigan was a representative icon of Irish fighting spirit in the face of social, political and economic adversity in the late eighties. A generation who will make their own morale and provide their own leadership are once again fit and ready to start at their beginnings. Ready to rebuild.
Eye of the Tiger!
Des Groome
Monday, July 20, 2009
Stand and be counted- YOUR EURO COUNTS
The flow of money into and around- and out of- the Irish economy for the last decade can be likened to the flow of liquid life aid from an out of control hydrant on a hot day. An abundance of cash overflowing, much of it wastefully, on streets awash with foreign credit. Abruptly the tap has been turned off now for about 12 months. The private sector exists on a slow drip.
The public sector, government included, have been slow to feel the drought.Perhaps they have been able to keep their own sprinklers switched on and exist in a pampered mindset, oblivious to the lack of cash flow in the new economic reality the rest of us have to do business in.
I have launched a voucher campaign to promote local shopping in Kildare town as part of my chairmanship of the chamber of commerce. It is a two sided argument; The retailer and small business is encouraged to give REAL value to consumers_ rip off Ireland is dead and gone!-
and the consumer/household shopper is asked to remember that SMEs CAN compete with big outlets in many ways , and remember that small towns need small business at their vibrant centres, small businesses that we all have a duty to support.
Groome PETVETS answer to this movement has been to reduce prices of many key services to 2005 prices- a bitch spay now reduced to 120 euro. Consult fee now down to 38 euro.
Old Age Pensioners are the back bone of our nation.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays we give ONE THIRD off all Vet services to OAPs.
Community values, local solidarity, value for money, self-help.
These are the principles on which we can rebuild our country.
The so-called boom should have been switched off and some costs controlled for the cash drought we now have . There is a feeling of loss and of waste.
The loss of prosperity will be only temporary.
Lets see what values we can refind on the journey forward again.
Des Groome.
The public sector, government included, have been slow to feel the drought.Perhaps they have been able to keep their own sprinklers switched on and exist in a pampered mindset, oblivious to the lack of cash flow in the new economic reality the rest of us have to do business in.
I have launched a voucher campaign to promote local shopping in Kildare town as part of my chairmanship of the chamber of commerce. It is a two sided argument; The retailer and small business is encouraged to give REAL value to consumers_ rip off Ireland is dead and gone!-
and the consumer/household shopper is asked to remember that SMEs CAN compete with big outlets in many ways , and remember that small towns need small business at their vibrant centres, small businesses that we all have a duty to support.
Groome PETVETS answer to this movement has been to reduce prices of many key services to 2005 prices- a bitch spay now reduced to 120 euro. Consult fee now down to 38 euro.
Old Age Pensioners are the back bone of our nation.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays we give ONE THIRD off all Vet services to OAPs.
Community values, local solidarity, value for money, self-help.
These are the principles on which we can rebuild our country.
The so-called boom should have been switched off and some costs controlled for the cash drought we now have . There is a feeling of loss and of waste.
The loss of prosperity will be only temporary.
Lets see what values we can refind on the journey forward again.
Des Groome.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
"Beginning to Engage"- The complacency of the mediocre.
My family have had a long dark fortnight. We knew it was coming and the outcome thank God has been a good one but an emotional numbness remains. Now that James is home from Crumlin we can sleep in our own beds, pay attention to our other children, nurse him in the comfort of our own home and gain relief from knowing that his surgery has been a succcess, a hurdle has been crossed, the spectre of fear of tragedy has passed. But it is hard to write about, and speak about, and the experience is still chest-tightening to think about, and doesnt yet feel much like relief. When JK Rowling conceived the spectre of the Dementors in her Harry Potter Saga she could have drawn on the living grief and the empty fear of parents of desperately -ill children. Parents who have no power but to hope, who are often too angry to pray. To parent a child through pain you cant control or through awful invasive heart surgery in which you must have faith is to be touched by a Dementor, to inhale the stress, to be drained flat and cold. You inhale all that into your chest and then take another deep breath to find the strength to be a parent, to make your child trust, believe and heal.
Just after James surgery when he was still in intensive care I answered an invitation from Kildare Souths conscientious TD Sean OFearghail to attend his committees grilling of Professor Drumm of the HSE. The timing was bad but I went to try to get a flavour of this man presiding over the vast and inert human pyramid we call a health service. The committee itself had called this man to make sense of why, without any political compunction, Crumlin hospital had cut back essential services, closed operating theatres, and launched a war of words with Drumm at the first hint of coercion to reduce costs. The background story we have all heard is of a 9m euro deficit which the HSE has forced Crumlin to live with in 2009. The real story however, according to Drumm, is that Crumlin over-spent by 9m in 2008 and have simply been told by the HSE not to do so in 2009 as this year "we wont have the 9million to give you". Now even to me as a parent that sounded reasonable if indeed the money wasnt all wisely spent or if good efficiencies could be found without care being compromised. OFearghail himself put it succinctly and fairly " We are asking the hospital managers to manage this hospital and find efficiencies without sacrificing front line services". OFearghail is one of the good guys. I am in agreement with him in putting it up to managers to fulfill their job descriptions and manage costs- including their own cost.
Drumm made three good points that the entire panel of cross party TDs found agreement with; He wanted Crumlin to pool their blood costs and needs with St James'; He wanted them to raise an extra 12million a year by billing their private patients more accurately; He wanted them to cut their payroll by 3% as they pay the highest rate and proportion of over-time of any hospital.
These three requests the board of Crumlin have failed to do but have cynically reacted in a war of PR with the HSE by closing a theatre and wards. On these three simple cost efficiencies Drumm is right and the board of Crumlin plainly are remiss in a city full of hospitals and full of wateful duplication of service in some areas ( for example we have 3 childrens A and E in one city ) and only 80% use of beds in some parts of Crumlin while children from Temple street hospital wait often in over-crowded adult wards.
But there are disturbing mediocrities emerging about Drumms role also; Questioned at length by OFearghail and his committee about who calls the shots-or are the HSE just observers ?.. Drumm procrastinated, prevaricated, " Crumlin havent agreed how to cut the costs" ..." I have asked Crumlin for full support for a Cross-clinic approach"..." Paediatrics needs a leader as oncology has made great strides with its new clinical leader"... On more than one occasion in the debate Drumm acknowledged difficulties in getting the hospital board to his view point but used the phrase" we are beginning to engage". How many years into Drumms job has it taken him to get the hospital boards to begin to engage...
TDs challenged Drumm about a credibility gap between what Crumlin had told O Fearghail,s committee and what Drumm was saying. He did acknowledge this credibility gap and explained the difficulties in terms that would be clear to students of organisational behaviour in any business school; Drumms hands are tied by human resource management issues, by resistance to change, by his failure to acheive involvement in his vision for the future of health care.
The answers to me are not crystal clear or neatly aligned into a strategic change management ladder towards a wonderful dynamic future for our HSE. But there are some things clear to me- Drumm is a poor communicator and lacks the courage to execute real change.
His vision - and it is also Harneys vision- is the wrong one, as why otherwise would opposition to it be so intense and widespread. His exasperation with the unions, the work practices of hospitals, his veiled criticism of boards he is only now beginning to engage with; these are the flaws of a man who is not a leader or a lateral thinker, who should be still treating patients- not trying to focus a big picture which to him plainly still remains a jigsaw in pieces.
To put one final fact to the philosophy, to put this in context. Crumlins wage bill is 74 % of its entire budget. I dont know of one business sector that could be viable with that cost ratio for labour. Childrens health care doesnt need to be compromised. Does this issue like so many others arrive back at the need for unions, for people, to be realistic about how money should be spent and what the rest of us are able to pay for.
Just after James surgery when he was still in intensive care I answered an invitation from Kildare Souths conscientious TD Sean OFearghail to attend his committees grilling of Professor Drumm of the HSE. The timing was bad but I went to try to get a flavour of this man presiding over the vast and inert human pyramid we call a health service. The committee itself had called this man to make sense of why, without any political compunction, Crumlin hospital had cut back essential services, closed operating theatres, and launched a war of words with Drumm at the first hint of coercion to reduce costs. The background story we have all heard is of a 9m euro deficit which the HSE has forced Crumlin to live with in 2009. The real story however, according to Drumm, is that Crumlin over-spent by 9m in 2008 and have simply been told by the HSE not to do so in 2009 as this year "we wont have the 9million to give you". Now even to me as a parent that sounded reasonable if indeed the money wasnt all wisely spent or if good efficiencies could be found without care being compromised. OFearghail himself put it succinctly and fairly " We are asking the hospital managers to manage this hospital and find efficiencies without sacrificing front line services". OFearghail is one of the good guys. I am in agreement with him in putting it up to managers to fulfill their job descriptions and manage costs- including their own cost.
Drumm made three good points that the entire panel of cross party TDs found agreement with; He wanted Crumlin to pool their blood costs and needs with St James'; He wanted them to raise an extra 12million a year by billing their private patients more accurately; He wanted them to cut their payroll by 3% as they pay the highest rate and proportion of over-time of any hospital.
These three requests the board of Crumlin have failed to do but have cynically reacted in a war of PR with the HSE by closing a theatre and wards. On these three simple cost efficiencies Drumm is right and the board of Crumlin plainly are remiss in a city full of hospitals and full of wateful duplication of service in some areas ( for example we have 3 childrens A and E in one city ) and only 80% use of beds in some parts of Crumlin while children from Temple street hospital wait often in over-crowded adult wards.
But there are disturbing mediocrities emerging about Drumms role also; Questioned at length by OFearghail and his committee about who calls the shots-or are the HSE just observers ?.. Drumm procrastinated, prevaricated, " Crumlin havent agreed how to cut the costs" ..." I have asked Crumlin for full support for a Cross-clinic approach"..." Paediatrics needs a leader as oncology has made great strides with its new clinical leader"... On more than one occasion in the debate Drumm acknowledged difficulties in getting the hospital board to his view point but used the phrase" we are beginning to engage". How many years into Drumms job has it taken him to get the hospital boards to begin to engage...
TDs challenged Drumm about a credibility gap between what Crumlin had told O Fearghail,s committee and what Drumm was saying. He did acknowledge this credibility gap and explained the difficulties in terms that would be clear to students of organisational behaviour in any business school; Drumms hands are tied by human resource management issues, by resistance to change, by his failure to acheive involvement in his vision for the future of health care.
The answers to me are not crystal clear or neatly aligned into a strategic change management ladder towards a wonderful dynamic future for our HSE. But there are some things clear to me- Drumm is a poor communicator and lacks the courage to execute real change.
His vision - and it is also Harneys vision- is the wrong one, as why otherwise would opposition to it be so intense and widespread. His exasperation with the unions, the work practices of hospitals, his veiled criticism of boards he is only now beginning to engage with; these are the flaws of a man who is not a leader or a lateral thinker, who should be still treating patients- not trying to focus a big picture which to him plainly still remains a jigsaw in pieces.
To put one final fact to the philosophy, to put this in context. Crumlins wage bill is 74 % of its entire budget. I dont know of one business sector that could be viable with that cost ratio for labour. Childrens health care doesnt need to be compromised. Does this issue like so many others arrive back at the need for unions, for people, to be realistic about how money should be spent and what the rest of us are able to pay for.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
All Gods Creatures got a place in the Choir..
Irelands media reverberate now in july 2009 with a cacophony of political dissent. Some criticisms against our political decision-makers are justified and are constructive. The rising cries to reduce salaries of high ranking civil servants, to tax the judiciary in line with the citizenry, to reform the public sector- these voices must be heard and change must sooner happen. Dissonant notes of self-interest from unions, from banking groups, from the construction sector-those voices must be faced down in the long term interest of an equitable society. Fianna Fails leadership must face these groups and face the decisions which have to be made if necessary against groups who have even donated heavily to these same politicians. Perhaps therein lies the difficulty, but if Cowens government can deconstruct the legacy of Bertie Aherns misguided, if well meaning, social partnership annual giveaways and the contradictory Reagonomic tax regime, then this government could move Fianna Fail back to its ideological base as a centrist party of the " Plain people of Ireland". I say this as a committed member of Fianna Fail and acknowledge that the plain people of Ireland are now a sophisticated and discerning society who should be addressed as such. I also however ask this same society to acknowledge that these past Fianna Fail governments main sins were of creating a wastage culture and of giving too much. A wastage culture therefore that we all must partake in amending.
Most of our media commentators flaunt an agenda of blame. While the three horsemen of the apocolypse- MacWilliams, Hobbs and Lee- persist with an easy to be wise after the event refrain of "I told you so".
Yesterdays Irish Times ran a heart warming story of political inclusiveness. Against the dissonant choir of the day this was a simple tale of enhanced engagement in the political process. A recently elected Fine Gael Councillor from Bagenalstown had a series of clashes in public with a political rival. Councillor Bambrick has reason to agree that politics may indeed be a dog eat dog business. His political jousts with one Larry Byrne were however a horse of a different colour involving a dog of decidedly Blue Shirt allegiance. Byrne was cited in court for disturbance of Cllr Bambrick by loudly ordering his dog not to approach, but " to come away from that or you will be contaminated" . In his defence Byrne stated that he had merely warned his dog to avoid the greasy poo on the grass. I am reminded of Disraelis famous entreaty to avoid the greasy pole of politics- sage advice to man or beast.
Judge Harnett of Bagenalstown district court entered into the spirit of multi-species political inclusiveness towards the cause of mammalian suffrage by declaring that he was sure this canine was " undoubtedly a Fine Gael dog". Equally magnanimously both judge and Gardai agreed "it wouldnt be necessary to call the hound as a witness".
By way of setting legal precedent Judge Harnett ruled that second hand ( or second paw) commentary through the intermediary of a canine could not legally be construed as insult to any third party.
Presumably Byrne and Bambrick were given paws for thought as they left the court with Bambrick bound - or was it boned- to the peace for a year.
Most of our media commentators flaunt an agenda of blame. While the three horsemen of the apocolypse- MacWilliams, Hobbs and Lee- persist with an easy to be wise after the event refrain of "I told you so".
Yesterdays Irish Times ran a heart warming story of political inclusiveness. Against the dissonant choir of the day this was a simple tale of enhanced engagement in the political process. A recently elected Fine Gael Councillor from Bagenalstown had a series of clashes in public with a political rival. Councillor Bambrick has reason to agree that politics may indeed be a dog eat dog business. His political jousts with one Larry Byrne were however a horse of a different colour involving a dog of decidedly Blue Shirt allegiance. Byrne was cited in court for disturbance of Cllr Bambrick by loudly ordering his dog not to approach, but " to come away from that or you will be contaminated" . In his defence Byrne stated that he had merely warned his dog to avoid the greasy poo on the grass. I am reminded of Disraelis famous entreaty to avoid the greasy pole of politics- sage advice to man or beast.
Judge Harnett of Bagenalstown district court entered into the spirit of multi-species political inclusiveness towards the cause of mammalian suffrage by declaring that he was sure this canine was " undoubtedly a Fine Gael dog". Equally magnanimously both judge and Gardai agreed "it wouldnt be necessary to call the hound as a witness".
By way of setting legal precedent Judge Harnett ruled that second hand ( or second paw) commentary through the intermediary of a canine could not legally be construed as insult to any third party.
Presumably Byrne and Bambrick were given paws for thought as they left the court with Bambrick bound - or was it boned- to the peace for a year.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
OAP Tuesday - and WEDNESDAY!
My father lived life to the full, lived it at a pace few would keep up with and lived a life less ordinary. But he was a man of his time and those who grew up in fifties Ireland and worked through seventies and eighties Ireland did see it all. He would have valuable advise for young families and business people in an Ireland that has changed a lot but is now affected by economic and international forces that we have been through before.
Dad emigrated to England as a young dentist and came back with my mother and a young family to Carbury in north Kildare to farm and set up his practice. His passion for horses led him to race ride until he was 45 years old. He rode at the Cheltenham festival on a mare he broke, owned and trained at the age of 43. My sisters and I had a rural childhood of freedom, fresh air, hard work, surrounded by cattle, dogs and ponies. My father began his day on the farm, then donned a suit and put in 8 hours in his dental surgery in Edenderry, then fed cattle and horses and walked his fields until dark, usually with me, the boy, by his side.
The advices that resonate every day, of hard work, of fair play, honesty, independence, have stood me in good stead. We took risks and chances, both he and I, in business and in life - with crazy horses on the racetrack and optimistic enterprises to remind ourselves that every failed plan or tumble at the last is just another lesson learnt. The voice that goes on in my head in every day dealings, to walk away, to hold counsel, to keep the cheque book closed or to speak out and support what feels right- that voice is his.
I remember two pieces of advice about business. The first was never to trust a Bank or let them control your affairs. The second was never to owe what you cant easily pay back.
I would say its a bit late to be giving some people those pieces of advice. The next thing he'd say would be - dont let the banks bully you when you are in trouble!- paay them back a bit and dont panic them by telling them too much!
I mention these sayings of his in tongue in cheek fashion as the reality of todays business climate for the SME sector is grim- as grim as the late seventies perhaps. My chairmanship of Kildare Chamber of Commerce has put me in touch with businesses staying open only by will power.
But will power is a much under estimated asset.
If Dad was around he would be just 66. He passed away on a sunny morning up on the Curragh on horse back on the gallops. I cant picture him as an OAP. But I do know that people like him lived with 50 % income tax and 17 % interest rates and worked through that to educate the generation here now and build the nation we have, such as it is, warts and all.
Groome Pet Vets now give OAPs one third off all Vet services on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
If you are an OAP- you know thats the least you deserve!
Des Groome.
Dad emigrated to England as a young dentist and came back with my mother and a young family to Carbury in north Kildare to farm and set up his practice. His passion for horses led him to race ride until he was 45 years old. He rode at the Cheltenham festival on a mare he broke, owned and trained at the age of 43. My sisters and I had a rural childhood of freedom, fresh air, hard work, surrounded by cattle, dogs and ponies. My father began his day on the farm, then donned a suit and put in 8 hours in his dental surgery in Edenderry, then fed cattle and horses and walked his fields until dark, usually with me, the boy, by his side.
The advices that resonate every day, of hard work, of fair play, honesty, independence, have stood me in good stead. We took risks and chances, both he and I, in business and in life - with crazy horses on the racetrack and optimistic enterprises to remind ourselves that every failed plan or tumble at the last is just another lesson learnt. The voice that goes on in my head in every day dealings, to walk away, to hold counsel, to keep the cheque book closed or to speak out and support what feels right- that voice is his.
I remember two pieces of advice about business. The first was never to trust a Bank or let them control your affairs. The second was never to owe what you cant easily pay back.
I would say its a bit late to be giving some people those pieces of advice. The next thing he'd say would be - dont let the banks bully you when you are in trouble!- paay them back a bit and dont panic them by telling them too much!
I mention these sayings of his in tongue in cheek fashion as the reality of todays business climate for the SME sector is grim- as grim as the late seventies perhaps. My chairmanship of Kildare Chamber of Commerce has put me in touch with businesses staying open only by will power.
But will power is a much under estimated asset.
If Dad was around he would be just 66. He passed away on a sunny morning up on the Curragh on horse back on the gallops. I cant picture him as an OAP. But I do know that people like him lived with 50 % income tax and 17 % interest rates and worked through that to educate the generation here now and build the nation we have, such as it is, warts and all.
Groome Pet Vets now give OAPs one third off all Vet services on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
If you are an OAP- you know thats the least you deserve!
Des Groome.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Canine casualties of the property bubble...
We have a client in one of our clinics who shall remain unnamed in todays monologue. A big brash builders foreman who earned his first weeks wage under the benevolent conciliatory largesse of Ahern and who has now joined his first dole queue during the chilly and pragmatic stewardship of Cowen. In keeping with the time He collected four or five beautiful big pedigree dogs, rottweillars mostly. For good measure when the new house was built and fenced off he added three or four ponies until the healthy growing menagerie began to create healthy growing Vets bills. Wisely, an insurance policy was taken out for each dog so that the monthly premium to Allianz replaced the unexpected.
Pet Plan are a subsidiary of allianz Insurance Company who have the Pet Insurance market more or less to themselves. It is a problematic business. Insuring horses is a minefield as Irelands army of canny horse dealers would out smart and bankrupt any insurance company. Insuring pets is also not without risks as pur bred blue blood canines have their breed specific congenital defects which can be troublesome and expensive to treat. In fact some of these defects can be so wide spread ,such as hip dysplasia in the German Shepherd and Entropion in the Sharpei, that insurers request extensive examinations before accepting a dog or will simply insist on an exclusion clause in the policy for certain defects or conditions.
Our hero's first few years as a pet owner were uneventful as his pride of rottweillars grew as healthily as his bank balance. The new house was sold for one of those improbable sums of the halcyon peak era and a newer and bigger one with more room for dogs and ponies built next door. We didnt see our hero very often in the clinic but I made the occasional house call to the ponies and would often note that the wad I was paid from was matched only by the size of the newest tattoo on the arm.
Until last week, when he reappeared with a rottweilar I hadnt seen in a few years which now had a severe hind limb lameness. We admitted Jake, a 4 year old 52 kg male rotti, for sedation, examination and x-rays. A diagnosis of rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the stifle was made after the " draw test"- a type of manipulation of the stifle joint and a tell tale sign for cruciate injury.
Repair of this condition is by a surgical repair using a prolene ( a form of nylon) replacement for the torn ligament. The tricky procedure is then followed by lengthy rest, physio and then controlled exercise to test the new ligament. Surgery in a dog like Jake would be a three hour affair involving two Vets, two Nurses, numerous X-rays. Jake would stay with us for perhaps three days and need the best antibiotics available to us for up to ten days afterwards.
We gave a quote for Jakes total Veterinary work as an estimate of 750-950 euro; The final figure would depend on soreness/swelling post-surgery etc.
The owners bellow of anguish seemed out of character and a far cry from his ebullient old self.
I reassured him that Jakes insurance would probably cover this and went to make a call to Allianz only to be told that our hero had let the insurance lapse as the bills had only ever been in the region of 60 to 100 euro before and it had seemed a waste to be paying out for insurance...
Des Groome.
Pet Plan are a subsidiary of allianz Insurance Company who have the Pet Insurance market more or less to themselves. It is a problematic business. Insuring horses is a minefield as Irelands army of canny horse dealers would out smart and bankrupt any insurance company. Insuring pets is also not without risks as pur bred blue blood canines have their breed specific congenital defects which can be troublesome and expensive to treat. In fact some of these defects can be so wide spread ,such as hip dysplasia in the German Shepherd and Entropion in the Sharpei, that insurers request extensive examinations before accepting a dog or will simply insist on an exclusion clause in the policy for certain defects or conditions.
Our hero's first few years as a pet owner were uneventful as his pride of rottweillars grew as healthily as his bank balance. The new house was sold for one of those improbable sums of the halcyon peak era and a newer and bigger one with more room for dogs and ponies built next door. We didnt see our hero very often in the clinic but I made the occasional house call to the ponies and would often note that the wad I was paid from was matched only by the size of the newest tattoo on the arm.
Until last week, when he reappeared with a rottweilar I hadnt seen in a few years which now had a severe hind limb lameness. We admitted Jake, a 4 year old 52 kg male rotti, for sedation, examination and x-rays. A diagnosis of rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the stifle was made after the " draw test"- a type of manipulation of the stifle joint and a tell tale sign for cruciate injury.
Repair of this condition is by a surgical repair using a prolene ( a form of nylon) replacement for the torn ligament. The tricky procedure is then followed by lengthy rest, physio and then controlled exercise to test the new ligament. Surgery in a dog like Jake would be a three hour affair involving two Vets, two Nurses, numerous X-rays. Jake would stay with us for perhaps three days and need the best antibiotics available to us for up to ten days afterwards.
We gave a quote for Jakes total Veterinary work as an estimate of 750-950 euro; The final figure would depend on soreness/swelling post-surgery etc.
The owners bellow of anguish seemed out of character and a far cry from his ebullient old self.
I reassured him that Jakes insurance would probably cover this and went to make a call to Allianz only to be told that our hero had let the insurance lapse as the bills had only ever been in the region of 60 to 100 euro before and it had seemed a waste to be paying out for insurance...
Des Groome.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Web of inclusion - or circus of confusion.
Sally Helgesen ,a US writer, in her book "The web of inclusion" described how a revolutionary way to organise work in the famous Beth Israel New York Hospital created a new philosophy of patient care and became a world wide movement. Breathtakingly simple, the new system assigned a single senior nurse, known as the primary carer, to each patient. This nurse would manage that patients hospital stay by forming a care team made up of everyone from housekeeping to Laundry, junior Doctor and Senior Consultant. The care team consult as one on the patients therapy or surgery with each part of the hospital chain connected together. Helgesen likened the system to a spiders web where the beauty of the whole structure depends on the links between each part. The benefits of Primary Care Nursing as this is now known are many; Trainees learn by involvement, Domestic staff develop pride in their work, The Primary Care Nurse bonds with the patient- and Consultants practice humility because, uniquely, they have to consult. The patient is treated as customer, guest, client and centre of attention. The model has been adopted by commercially focussed hospitals and those with a patient-centred ethos the world over.
Earlier this week I attended Blanchardstown Hospital to have an arthritic joint (a recent running injury to my right foot) injected. My appointment was for 7.30 am. I presented myself on time, filled in a number of forms and handed over my health insurance card to the consultants secretary. Some eight to ten others assembled simultaneously, likewise answering a 7.30 appointment, without any particular order to proceedings. I was called into a day ward after only a few minutes, given a cubicle and the usual flimsy backless gown, and told to undress and put this on. I mentioned that my big toe would be the consultants only focus today, hence there was hardly any need to undress, but was told by the senior nurse " It doesnt matter, its procedure". I was then asked to put my shoes back on and go to X-ray. I pointed out that my boots were painful to put on and take off and in any case the foot itself was the point of X-ray. The answer to this was " sorry, health and safety".
After the X-ray was taken I returned to this day ward clutching the film of my painful big toe. I had not by this stage seen my consultant or been given any indicator of when I would get my injection -a ten minute simple procedure in itself- so I mentioned to the nurse who appeared to be " in charge" that I had an equally important 12 o clock appointment with another consultant in St James hospital. A rare abundance of medical attention for me I can assure you, but an appointment I had waited for and would have to wait two months for again. I was reassured that I would be out by 11 and settled down to wait for the big toe man to call me.
Some two and a half hours later, at half past ten, this nurse reappeared apologetically to say I would have about another half hour wait and might need to cancel my other appointment. I considered my options for a few minutes and then reluctantly rang James' to explain my predicament. A very understanding receptionist promised to reschedule me, albeit to some time next month. Again I settled down to wait.
At five past twelve I rang my own receptionist to make other plans. My own efficient lady rang me back to say an orthopedic man in Clane would see me at half twelve next day. So I got dressed. At the ward desk I asked for my X-ray back and stated I couldnt wait any longer.
To the senior nurse who appeared gob-smacked I said " I am afraid this is probably one of the reasons why the public have lost faith in the HSE". A Student Nurse from meath whose dad was a farmer had chatted to me earlier about Aberdeen Angus cattle and Meath GAA while she brought me down to x-ray.I thanked her and said " Niamh, this is called voting with your feet- Some day I may be so sick that I have no choice but to put up with this ; but today I have a choice so I am not going to be treated like this and then pay out my own good money to the man".
As I limped out onto the corridor I got a surprise as the embarrassed consultant himself came out of a theatre door after me. He apologised for the delay with a defence that he had got bogged down in a surgery and hadnt been drinking tea in there.. I said, look, there is no argument, you are busy but so am I - I was here at 7.30 for a small procedure, it is not acceptable to have to wait five hours without warning, you cant treat people like that any more.
He was also told how disorganised the place was and how disrespectful it is to herd in your whole day list at 7.30 am with no order or communication- and in an off-hand manner to force me to miss another important medical appointment for no good reason.
He did apologise again profusely but in reality the loss of a private patient was likely the only thing to exercise him to rush into the corridor after me.
When Kildare Vet Surgery was built in 2004 it was built at cost to one person-me- to provide a service to animal owners, to work to a high standard, to become a local asset and social benefit, to raise the level of animal care in Kildare to a new level- and to be a commercial success.
We work to a mission statement - Aiming to provide excellence in Veterinary when you need it near you.
This mission statement is client-centred. Our success and survival depends on attention to customers. Excellence in Veterinary is something we strive for as we deliver the services the market demands.
If a client or their pet are unhappy with us in any way we can and must be told - and if we are not responsive to customers needs or wants then we dont have the right to that customers business.
Questions arise from that trip to Blanchardstown- Did the Nurses even bother to tell the consultant I needed to be out by 11? Did they place any value on my time and the wasting of my time? Did that consultant ever have to bother before about disrespecting a private patient or any patient?
Plainly they have a culture/ethos/policy of not treating patients like customers.
In fact they barely treat their patients as adult human beings as far as I could see.
If the HSE in Ireland or even just Blanchardstown Hospital were to adopt a client-centred policy, as Vets like myself who have to make a living adopt client-centred aims, it would have to be called patient-centred and would use many of the strategies of the Primary Care Nursing movement.
For this to happen, many more paying customers like myself will have to vote with their feet, will have to get up and walk out and will have to calmly face to face with these senior Nurses and Consultants say- I will not be treated like this and disrespected by you and your flawed system and your archaic hierarchy.
Des Groome
Earlier this week I attended Blanchardstown Hospital to have an arthritic joint (a recent running injury to my right foot) injected. My appointment was for 7.30 am. I presented myself on time, filled in a number of forms and handed over my health insurance card to the consultants secretary. Some eight to ten others assembled simultaneously, likewise answering a 7.30 appointment, without any particular order to proceedings. I was called into a day ward after only a few minutes, given a cubicle and the usual flimsy backless gown, and told to undress and put this on. I mentioned that my big toe would be the consultants only focus today, hence there was hardly any need to undress, but was told by the senior nurse " It doesnt matter, its procedure". I was then asked to put my shoes back on and go to X-ray. I pointed out that my boots were painful to put on and take off and in any case the foot itself was the point of X-ray. The answer to this was " sorry, health and safety".
After the X-ray was taken I returned to this day ward clutching the film of my painful big toe. I had not by this stage seen my consultant or been given any indicator of when I would get my injection -a ten minute simple procedure in itself- so I mentioned to the nurse who appeared to be " in charge" that I had an equally important 12 o clock appointment with another consultant in St James hospital. A rare abundance of medical attention for me I can assure you, but an appointment I had waited for and would have to wait two months for again. I was reassured that I would be out by 11 and settled down to wait for the big toe man to call me.
Some two and a half hours later, at half past ten, this nurse reappeared apologetically to say I would have about another half hour wait and might need to cancel my other appointment. I considered my options for a few minutes and then reluctantly rang James' to explain my predicament. A very understanding receptionist promised to reschedule me, albeit to some time next month. Again I settled down to wait.
At five past twelve I rang my own receptionist to make other plans. My own efficient lady rang me back to say an orthopedic man in Clane would see me at half twelve next day. So I got dressed. At the ward desk I asked for my X-ray back and stated I couldnt wait any longer.
To the senior nurse who appeared gob-smacked I said " I am afraid this is probably one of the reasons why the public have lost faith in the HSE". A Student Nurse from meath whose dad was a farmer had chatted to me earlier about Aberdeen Angus cattle and Meath GAA while she brought me down to x-ray.I thanked her and said " Niamh, this is called voting with your feet- Some day I may be so sick that I have no choice but to put up with this ; but today I have a choice so I am not going to be treated like this and then pay out my own good money to the man".
As I limped out onto the corridor I got a surprise as the embarrassed consultant himself came out of a theatre door after me. He apologised for the delay with a defence that he had got bogged down in a surgery and hadnt been drinking tea in there.. I said, look, there is no argument, you are busy but so am I - I was here at 7.30 for a small procedure, it is not acceptable to have to wait five hours without warning, you cant treat people like that any more.
He was also told how disorganised the place was and how disrespectful it is to herd in your whole day list at 7.30 am with no order or communication- and in an off-hand manner to force me to miss another important medical appointment for no good reason.
He did apologise again profusely but in reality the loss of a private patient was likely the only thing to exercise him to rush into the corridor after me.
When Kildare Vet Surgery was built in 2004 it was built at cost to one person-me- to provide a service to animal owners, to work to a high standard, to become a local asset and social benefit, to raise the level of animal care in Kildare to a new level- and to be a commercial success.
We work to a mission statement - Aiming to provide excellence in Veterinary when you need it near you.
This mission statement is client-centred. Our success and survival depends on attention to customers. Excellence in Veterinary is something we strive for as we deliver the services the market demands.
If a client or their pet are unhappy with us in any way we can and must be told - and if we are not responsive to customers needs or wants then we dont have the right to that customers business.
Questions arise from that trip to Blanchardstown- Did the Nurses even bother to tell the consultant I needed to be out by 11? Did they place any value on my time and the wasting of my time? Did that consultant ever have to bother before about disrespecting a private patient or any patient?
Plainly they have a culture/ethos/policy of not treating patients like customers.
In fact they barely treat their patients as adult human beings as far as I could see.
If the HSE in Ireland or even just Blanchardstown Hospital were to adopt a client-centred policy, as Vets like myself who have to make a living adopt client-centred aims, it would have to be called patient-centred and would use many of the strategies of the Primary Care Nursing movement.
For this to happen, many more paying customers like myself will have to vote with their feet, will have to get up and walk out and will have to calmly face to face with these senior Nurses and Consultants say- I will not be treated like this and disrespected by you and your flawed system and your archaic hierarchy.
Des Groome
Sunday, May 31, 2009
It shouldnt happen to a Vet!
The iconic Yorkshire Veterinary Surgeon James Herriott has a lot to answer for- certainly amongst my generation of Vets. The BBC tv show "all creatures great and small " of the early eighties ran for years and was a dramatisation of Herriotts series of books about his adventures with the characters, the farmers and their diverse animal woes over his many years as a country Vet. Herriott wrote like a combination of Wodehouse and Flann OBrien with each tale a vignette of rural farce where cunning rustic folk invariably had alaugh at the expense of the sincere earnest but often hapless young vet.
The books themselves are hilarious but are also a snapshot of rural British life in the thirties and forties- with this way of life starting to change in the fifties with better drugs, bigger factory farms, better roads and competition from imported produce threatening old assumptions.
It resonates with me again as I write this in a way that makes Herriott seem relevant to Ireland.
The people and countryside Herriott describes were familiar to me , oddly enough, growing up in 1970s rural Ireland- thats right ,not a million years and miles from 1950s Yorkshire.
We have come a long way. Agriculture has declined in relevance, but has streamlined and thankfully lost much of its hardship and poverty, largely because of the EECs initial help to Ireland and our continuing vocal central role at the heart of Europe.
This progress must not be taken for granted and the heritage of where we came from in a short three generations must not be forgotten.
I am canvassing for the local elections at the moment with a Kildare candidate Suzanne Doyle.
There is anger and bewilderment at the moment about our recession, our irresponsible bank,s lending policies and the staggering way world cash flow has just stopped like a tap being switched off.
Much of this response in born out of fear as we are all indebted to a level that our new 2009 incomes cant cope with. My advice to you as a businessman sharing my own difficulties of cash flow to liability shortfall is this. Dont ignore the banks. Send them all the information they want about your finances. Then pay them what you can pay them on your own terms. Dont try to meet all your repayments if it is going to lead to hardship for your family or closure of your business. But pay all your institutional debtors some sum of money every month.
Ireland will never go back to the bad old days of state sanctioned evictions of families. We have a very strong constitution which upholds the rights of individuals. Dont believe the media hysteria about repossessions of homes and worse- these are just the people who have been ignoring every bank letter and not paying a penny for perhaps two years.
If you make a little effort to meet your debts the system we have, such as it is , will be in your favour.
Herriotts second book " it shouldnt happen to a Vet " told tales of the young Vets mistakes, setbacks and frequent kicks from truculent livestock. As the celtic garfield has now well and truly lost its nine lives I can look back and say I made mistakes by over-investing, over-paying staff, expanding too quickly and over-estimating how much potential growth there was in the market. But my family are alive andhappy. My wife and three little boys are my universe. Thats all that matters and thats not a cliche.
My associate Vet Simon rang last night to say he had just broken his arm. He took a hard fall while schooling a young horse. He can now expect to be out of work for up to six weeks. It will be a torrid time at Groome Pet Vets without his valued help.
A young newly married man who is starting to build a house he can ill afford as a self-employed Vetto be unable to work for six weeks.
Now THAT shouldnt happen to a Vet!
The books themselves are hilarious but are also a snapshot of rural British life in the thirties and forties- with this way of life starting to change in the fifties with better drugs, bigger factory farms, better roads and competition from imported produce threatening old assumptions.
It resonates with me again as I write this in a way that makes Herriott seem relevant to Ireland.
The people and countryside Herriott describes were familiar to me , oddly enough, growing up in 1970s rural Ireland- thats right ,not a million years and miles from 1950s Yorkshire.
We have come a long way. Agriculture has declined in relevance, but has streamlined and thankfully lost much of its hardship and poverty, largely because of the EECs initial help to Ireland and our continuing vocal central role at the heart of Europe.
This progress must not be taken for granted and the heritage of where we came from in a short three generations must not be forgotten.
I am canvassing for the local elections at the moment with a Kildare candidate Suzanne Doyle.
There is anger and bewilderment at the moment about our recession, our irresponsible bank,s lending policies and the staggering way world cash flow has just stopped like a tap being switched off.
Much of this response in born out of fear as we are all indebted to a level that our new 2009 incomes cant cope with. My advice to you as a businessman sharing my own difficulties of cash flow to liability shortfall is this. Dont ignore the banks. Send them all the information they want about your finances. Then pay them what you can pay them on your own terms. Dont try to meet all your repayments if it is going to lead to hardship for your family or closure of your business. But pay all your institutional debtors some sum of money every month.
Ireland will never go back to the bad old days of state sanctioned evictions of families. We have a very strong constitution which upholds the rights of individuals. Dont believe the media hysteria about repossessions of homes and worse- these are just the people who have been ignoring every bank letter and not paying a penny for perhaps two years.
If you make a little effort to meet your debts the system we have, such as it is , will be in your favour.
Herriotts second book " it shouldnt happen to a Vet " told tales of the young Vets mistakes, setbacks and frequent kicks from truculent livestock. As the celtic garfield has now well and truly lost its nine lives I can look back and say I made mistakes by over-investing, over-paying staff, expanding too quickly and over-estimating how much potential growth there was in the market. But my family are alive andhappy. My wife and three little boys are my universe. Thats all that matters and thats not a cliche.
My associate Vet Simon rang last night to say he had just broken his arm. He took a hard fall while schooling a young horse. He can now expect to be out of work for up to six weeks. It will be a torrid time at Groome Pet Vets without his valued help.
A young newly married man who is starting to build a house he can ill afford as a self-employed Vetto be unable to work for six weeks.
Now THAT shouldnt happen to a Vet!
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