To Paraphrase the Tanaiste – “Computrons are for Nerds”
Read more about: Comment, Fianna Fail, Government, Ireland 
I didn’t think Mary Coughlan was all that bad (dont shoot me) until I watched Oireachtas Report last night last night – fast forward to 17mins 50seconds, transcript below.
Our Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, partook in the following exchange in the Dáil with Leo Varadkar, the Fine Gael spokesperson on enterprise. I’m no fan of Varadkar but… well, read on…
EDIT: Gavin uploaded the video.
Leo Varadkar TD:
There is a document on The Irish Times’ website, it’s a draft document, it’s on The Irish Times website, which is the proposals that the Government submitted to the Social Partners with regard to pay in the private sector. And in that it clearly states that the review of the minimum wage being carried out by the Labour Court should now be suspended. Is that document authentic? First question. And second question, is that the position of the Government?
Tanaiste Mary Coughlan:
Given that I have much more to be doing than reading The Irish Times’ – and for that matter, from what I can see you spend 99.9 per cent of your time on the internet, and on the computer – I haven’t time to be reading The Irish Times for what they have to say… what I can say say is – I cannot, and it is my responsibility not to, make any public pronouncements [on this issue] on the basis we have to adjudicate within the department of enterprise, trade and employment…
Amazing, the Tanaiste has insinuated that time spent on the internet and The Computer (singular) is inherently time wasted. What year is it now? How many millions does our technology sector generate each year? Is it not one of the fastest-growing/slowest-falling areas of our economy? Does Google not have a HQ in Dublin? Facebook, anyone?
Mary Coughlan is the woman whose department is meant to promote and develop home-grown businesses. Mary Coughlan is the woman whose department is responsible for promoting sustainable enterprise projects. Mary Coughlan’s department is supposed to be one of the driving forces behind ‘the smart economy’, the same smart economy which supposed to be centred upon high-skilled services, highy-skilled manufacturing and indigenous innovation. Yet Mary Coughlan scoffs at members of the Opposition for using computers.
Amazing.
It’s no wonder people like Patrick Collison have moved to the US…
Wasn’t my reading of it. She was taking a dig at Google Varadkar and his questions.
Yeah, she’s the one that said that if the green party had their way we’d all have ministerial bicycles and laughed at the idea of moving to a less car dependent transport system or alternative sources of energy. She really doesn’t have any foresight. Her and half the gov ministers. i’ve always beleived that the economy we had was due to the people and not ff. Not sure if i really beleive in the smart economy doc. I do beleive in the tiny dent that green jobs can make. I’m a gp hack by the way.
What’s also worrying is the attitude a minister of state has to answering a question from the opposition: she refused to answer it. This is a democracy right? not some sort of Coughlan/FF dictatorship.
Ah the smart economy – built on the abacus presumably!
Damien, I don’t think there would be too many who would surprised that your reading of this would be different. I seem to recall you being hugely impressed with meeting Mary Coughlan up close and personal a while back in London wasn’t it?
I’m sure it’s entirely wrong for someone to use the net to source content or make reference to documents in their electronic form in querying the minister who doubtless prefers to read reports in hardback form printed with the best India Ink, with a tasty font. Cos that’s what matters! And it’s an entirely valid put down to suggest that someone spends their time on that computer yokey. Didn’t Dermot Ahern have a go at Alan Shatter for being overly familiar with legislation from other counties a while back? Legislation, huh, why should a TD know anything about that, or doing your own research, checking facts or independent thought sure those aren’t appropriate notions for important thinkers like Mary Coughlan. She has matters to adjudicateon, rather than mere decisions to make. What next if an agriculture spokesperson makes reference to state of farming and weather conditions will we have claims that they do nowt but watch the telly.
What it is important to keep in mind with Mary Coughlan isn’t that she’s incredibly thick, because she isn’t. It’s that she’s ignorant in the most literal meaning of the word and that she prides herself on this. And she’s not alone in this government in that world view.
Not using computors, seems to be the preffered option, for Government and Public service, at the moment.
I, recently asked Meath Co Council,in the course of research, how many people were being housed in Emergency Private Accommodation, in their area, and made it clear that I didn’t require personal or sensitive data, just numbers, and got a reply back,from the SEO saying that due to staff shortages, my question would be addressed, but he didn’t know when ?
I had assumed that it might be on a data base in Navan, but obviously not.
So I guess they have to do a head count, in order to answer my query.
( Computers are obviously a bad way to do business, the idea will never take off )
“Wasn’t my reading of it. She was taking a dig at Google Varadkar and his questions.”
Sure Damien, it was a dig at Varadkar (and at Irish Times too), but within that dig she used computers and the internet as ammo.
3 words: “Fear of Technology”
Look at her words again, Damien, and tell us you don’t see that.
(And she’s like many people here in that fear; but they’re not the talent pool you draw from for Enterprise, Trade and Employment!)