Cad a dheanfamíd feasta gan adhmaid?

The Irish are a strange and contradictory people. They are untidy to a degree that is far beyond endearing and more careless of their environment than any others in the rich North. The catastrophe that is our housing development system is symptomatic of the wider degradation of the physical landscape throughout the country. As for the scandals that we think we have left behind, think again. Not the same, of course, but they haven’t gone away you know.

Do we get excited about this? Do we fuck, to paraphrase a man who knows more than most. No, we ignore the signs of decay all around us. We toss our rubbish away with abandon. We build the shittiest and most boring housing estates right in the middle of beautiful countryside. Is it any wonder that children become vandals?

We are full of paradoxes. We ignore the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, but wax emotional about this individual or that, someone we hear about by accident or through access to sympathetic media by someone acting on their behalf. Meanwhile other equally deserving persons are put on planes.

We chop down trees and hedgerows throughout the country, some of them dating back to Norman times. Up to 1,000 kilometres of hedgerow goes every year thanks to one-off housing developments, agricultural changes and road developments. And nobody complains. But when Dublin City Council announced its intention to cut down trees in O’Connell Street, there was war.

Newspapers and radio phone-ins were inundated with complaints. These are ‘witness trees’ we were told, meaning that they had been there during key moments of history. Some are even said to have been wounded during fighting in 1916.

Probably half the trees are already gone. It’s part of a plan to regenerate O’Connell Street. And let’s face it, something is needed. O’Connell Street is the quintessential Irish street – every single thing you’d complain about in modern Ireland is there.

You could say that every city has that street somewhere. But rarely right in the middle. Hence the plan to spruce it up, make it more friendly and remove the plug-ugly sense of menace that pervades it at most times of day or night. So why the angry reaction to the proposal to fell a handful of trees?

I’ve no doubt that some genuinely buy the idea of the witness trees. But for the majority, I suspect that the real reason for the rage was a simmering anger at Dublin City Council and the arrogant, contemptuous management culture that has permeated the city in recent years.

By way of example, take traffic management. Please! For years now roads have been dug up so that tiny islands and bollards and ramps and chicanes and pavement extensions can be established, even though nobody ever asked for them. There is an almost manic control culture at work, stifling the life out of the city, turning it into Birmingham, more or less.

The latest in a long line of these control coups is the news that motorists in Dublin may face charges for road use. What they’ll do is this – so-called ‘intelligent cameras’ will record every car entering the city, and the registered owner will be charged. You’ll probably have to sign a standing order...

But it’s not just that. Individuals who have paid good money for refuse collections find a yellow sticker on their bins if they have not been left out exactly as the Council decrees, that is, against the kerbside with the handles facing out. This, mind, is on streets that are less than 10 metres across.

The idea that the service exists to serve the customer is not part of this lot’s world-view! It’s not just the arrogance that gets people. It’s the sense that each and every citizen, in or out of a car, is a nuisance to the City Council. The city, they seem to think, would be so much neater and more orderly if they could just get the people out of it. Other than cyclists of course. If a local tax is ever introduced in Dublin, I’ll tell ya, their manners would want to improve.

The ‘intelligent’ cameras will also monitor driver behaviour and lawbreaking. This will segue neatly with the new and all-pervasive control culture that has gone national through the penalty points system. Needless to say, there is an effect from this. But is it the one that was expected by the authorities?

From my observations, those who already drove slowly and carefully are now driving more slowly and carefully. But off the main roads where the Gardai keep watch, young men in souped up hatchbacks still go booting along, risking life and limb on some of the most lethal roads in Europe.

Which begs the question: when this strategy doesn’t work, what next? What will be blamed then? And what’ll be proposed? Even harsher controls?