Mayor Kiely does it again. Jail the beggars!!!!

According to the front page of this week's Limerick Chronicle, our fearless Mayor is jumping to our rescue from another great peril.
He wants new laws brought in to give powers to Gardaí to stop people begging on the streets of Limerick City. He has the backing of the manager of Brown Thomas!
The mayor says that he had been approached by three beggars and found them "a complete annoyance to shoppers and it is time something was done about them".

I'd also prefer if there were no beggars so what's the wonderful cure, Mayor?
Mayor Kiely intends talking to the city manager and the Gardaí to see if new bye-laws can be brought in to prevent begging, and urges the TDs to see if legislation is needed.

Really? To do what? Tell them it's illegal, move on or be arrested? So that they can end up in court and prison (costing over 300 /day and being around criminals and drugs in our already overcrowded prison system).

In Limerick city, we have beggars, some are simply homeless, some are Romanian gypsies, begging while selling old copies of Big Issues, others are homeless because they are addicted to alcohol or another drug.

Secret Banking Inquiry? Shows how obedient we are that they even propose it.

So, Fianna Fáil wants to hold the Bank Inquiry in secret?
Of course they do. Not for any decent reason (to get more evidence)
but the usual formula;

• to control what is made available to the public
• as an excuse not to answer questions ("that's under review by the inquiry, I wouldn't like to prejudice that process")
• and when the whitewash is done, to point at the conclusions that there were systemic faults but no personal blame can be attached to anyone, unless they've already been laid low enough to be used as sacrificial lambs.
  

And the Irish public will probably let them do it too.

Never mind that the 'Financial Regulator' didn't do his job -

• he carried out less than 25% of the checks he should have
• he didn't check that the banks were being prudent (and before being regulator, he worked in the prudence section of the Central Bank)

He got a lovely big payoff when he retired, rather than being fired for incompetence and lack of productivity. Was it hush money?
Obviously the Minister for Finance and the Government allowed this situation to go on, because in the short term it created jobs, and grasping politicians always think in the short term. Let the next govt deal with the burst bubble, and we'll blame it on 'external factors'.
We know it wasn't just external factors.