Irish Government Ride to the Rescue

While other nations hire ferries, move aircraft carriers and warships, or wait to see how the situation in the Middle East develops the Irish government did something amazing. They hired a couple of buses and drove the Irish citizens trapped in the Lebanon out of the country.

Now the reason it was amazing isn’t so much that they managed to do what no one else did, after all the Dutch were in the convoy as well. No, the real reason it was amazing is that the Irish government managed to do the easy, efficient, cheap thing.

Normally I would have expected Bertie to announce the establishment of a research group to look into the feasibility of establishing, training and equipping a military force capable of working with other European Union nations to extract EU citizens from dangerous situations. Martin Cullen would have announced that the Irish government was going to purchase an aircraft carrier with a fleet of F16s to ferry out the trapped Irish citizens one by one. Brian Cowen would have announced that he intends to abolish any tax exemptions for Irish citizens living in Lebanon in the next budget in order to encourage them to leave on their own. Michael McDowell would announce that his department was fully aware of the plans for conflict in the Middle East but can’t tell us who told him and a communication breakdown in his department prevented him from warning people before the bombing started. Finally Mary Harney would just have proposed a vote in the Dail to congratulate the government for extracting everyone who wanted to leave, and anyone who was left behind actually wanted to be there. All in all I think we should be glad Dermot Ahern was in charge and the others are on their summer holidays.