On the recent twelve pubs of Christmas event I had a discussion with the distinguished ex-president of the chamber of commerce (you know who you are – Graham!). Given this event involves 12 pubs , in one night, the following has been translated back into English. The main thread of the conversation is that only us rats can save the sinking ship. Calling every person in Ireland a ‘rat’ perhaps isn’t good PR on my part, but it’s a good analogy for the current state of the Irish economy.
Now, I’ve been known to follow previous Government advice and ‘shop around’ for the best value (including at the Quays in Newry). However, if everybody follows this ‘me first’ approach we’ll be quickly in a race to be first to leave the sinking ship. But what if, instead of cutting and running, we stayed to plug the leaks in the Irish economy and kept it afloat?
The trouble in staying to plug the leaks is that this requires consensus that everybody helps out– and consensus is in short supply at the moment. All groups in Irish society are fighting to shift the inevitable pain of the recession on to somebody else. The lack of consensus is worsened by the fact that those who did well in the boom, and those seen to be responsible for the bust, are not necessarily those that are feeling the most pain right now. Without consensus, you’ll be left alone with your bailer as the water closes over your head.
Consensus is not necessarily the same as partnership – it’s a broad understanding within Irish society of the way forward, accepting the pain that the steps to recovery will take. The cause for gloom is that in the 1980’s it took 7 years (until 1987) to get a similar understanding , and even then the pain wasn’t evenly felt. Some cause for optimism is that because Ireland is a small country, once consensus is reached, it can very effective (Exhibit B is the Celtic tiger years that followed before it morphed into a bubble around 2002-3).
So , what’s it going to be – stay and float, or all sink on our own?
Recently had to pop over to London to do some work for a ‘well known’ UK client. More details (maybe) later.
Dublin Airport is a mess. It’s more like Ellis Island, even at 5am in the morning - a seething mass of humanity trying to leave Ireland. At least it was better than the last time, with 100’s of school kids going out on ski trips. Did I smell that bad when I was a teenager?
It’s going to get worse before it gets better, as the Terminal (’due 2009′) is bound to get delivered late, overbudget , if it ever gets delivered at all. Here’s how to fix the mess in the meantime, and save billions.
- The Aer Lingus Web Check In is excellent, and free. It means you get to the Airport , and walk straight into the (one) security queue, no messing about. Suggestion: Make everybody check in online for free. We know you can use the web - it’s how you bought your tickets.
- Now that the half the check in desks are no longer needed, clear the floor space so that you no longer have to fight your way to the security queue.
- Share check in desks. Other airports do it. It means that all Desks have a short queue, rather than the Ryanair queue snaking around the building.
- Move all the Restaurants to airside (i.e. after security). Nobody goes to the airport as a ‘day out’ anymore. Change the restaurants so that they can be used only be people that have gone through security. This is half done already - all it would mean is moving the glass partition wall on the top floor of the aiport.
- Get rid of a few shops and make more space for Security. Security is slow, as you often have to wait for people to put on their shoes, belts , coats etc on. If there was more space, these could move aside and let more passengers be screened by the same number of security personnel. If I want shopping , I’ll go to Dundrum.
- Let people pay for FastTrack Security. No, its not fair, but neither is life. Let people with more money than time ‘buy’ a fast track security pass (e.g. as part of buying your ticket online). Use this money to open a new ‘priority’ security gate. The profits could go to having more security people on the existing gates.
- Stop fast-tracking Z-List celebrities. I know of one family (who child was about to explode with a full nappy) only get taken to the head of the security queue because they were behind a minor actor who was (once) on Coronation Street. How does this help the Irish Economy?
A lot of these things are simple. Even the more complicated things could be sorted out with a couple of meetings and a couple of million thrown to whoever complains. Far cheaper than the cost (and delay to the Economy) of a new Terminal.
We’ve written before about how PublicJobs.ie isn’t the easiest to use to find technical jobs.
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If you’re planning to travel by Irish Rail, don’t trust the timetable information given out by it’s website. On a recent trip from Drogheda to Portadown, the actual outgoing and return times were between 5 and 10 minutes earlier, due to timetable changes made up to 6 months before. It’s all very well getting consultants to redesign your website , like CIE did recently , but if your organisation can’t keep it up to date , what’s the point?
There’s no excuse for giving out inaccurate information. Translink , the company that operates the northern half of the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise service, manages to display the correct train times. Incidentally , Translink is also publicly owned , so the ’shrug shoulders it’s just public service’ excuse isn’t valid either.
Get your act together , and display accurate times, or don’t give out any information at all. I made the train , but how many people have been caught out by this? Bluire has found more reasons to be angry with Irish Rail.
Update: Red Cardinal has shown that at least the ex-CIE group of companies are consistent, with Bus Eireann showing an appalling web design for their site.
Update 2: Ken reports about a recent webchat with Irish Rail. Interesting reading.
Update 3: And I thought I had problems. This is much worse.