‘PR firm selling us last year’s old story’

WHAT a brilliant, innovative, up-to-date concept — a cotton bag in a country that ditched the plastic five years ago.

Yes, the creme-de-la-mered, fake-baked, PR machine is getting all stillettoed up to sell us last year’s story — Anya Hindmarch’s I’m Not a Plastic Bag bag.

Look, we’re not only going to have trouble with the name — we’re beyond the concept.

It may have made a stir with the English chattering classes, quaffing the sauv blanc and dragging on a Benson’s, but here in the real Nanny State we’ve put all that stuff behind us — oh so many years ago.

Yes, Ireland has come to Nouveau Nationalism, (sorry David McWilliams), the real green deal — we even have ’em in Government and we were the first country to bin the plastic bag. Followed swiftly by draconian recycling policies and the stubbing-out of all fags, in most places.

And as a by-the-by, what happened to the money from our plastic bags? They’ve gone up to a whopping 22 cent from 7c and despite the smokescreen of Repak, we have more packaging and are charged more to get rid of the stuff.

An even bigger swizz than the stating the bleeding obvious ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’.

And consider another element of this saga — why do we pay for plastic bags? Because we couldn’t be bothered our blarneys carrying them around all the time.

So where does that leave the rather large, unwieldy ‘not etc’ — back of the blinkin’ cupboard, mate.

And as any good journalist knows, there is nothing as cold as yesterday’s news. So despite all their pitiful little plans to put out just 2,000 into this country, (in Cork we get a free brownie with each one), the launch may be a damp squib for a population who’ve been ethical for quite a while.

For heaven’s sake, we used our SSIAs to pay off our credit cards!

And just because it’s fashionable, is bought in a posh shop and carries a label, doesn’t mean it’s not made in the same sweat shops in Asia as the cheap jobbie.

And in this case, the I’m not a Plastic Bag is made using cheap labour in China and is neither organic nor free trade.

Quelle surprise.