Justice minister maps out plot to win pedantic politician award

If you’ve been shot, stabbed, or set upon lately, don’t worry, the justice minister will be on the case — just as soon as he has finished trying to win the Pedantic Politician of the Year Award.

Crime may be a worry for some, but Alan Shatter has more important things to deal with — namely, squiggles on a map.

Clearly not busy enough being both justice and defence minister, Shatter decided to swing into action as Minister for the Mundanely Moronic as well.

Outraged at a new Apple Maps app placing an airport symbol next to a city farm and nursery in his South Dublin constituency called Airfield, the over-imaginative minister has worked himself up into quite a state of excitement fearing that pilots will now zero-in on the site and attempt to land their jumbo jets there.

The fact that aeroplanes, even modest ones, are fitted with state-of-the-art navigational and surveying systems seems to have escaped Mr Shatter as he believes pilots may think: “Bugger all that multi-million-euro cockpit computer malarkey, I’m going to flick over from Angry Birds on my iPhone and land wherever the hell Apple tells me to.”

It also appears not to have occurred to Mr Shatter pilots might actually be trained to a sufficiently high standard of awareness not to mistake a chicken shack and some flower beds in south Dublin for the 2,637m runway on the other side of the metropolis.

Ever helpful, Shatter has shot off some suggestions to Apple about how they can avert this impending terror from the skies scenario.

“In context of Airfield there are a variety of possible alternative images that could be utilised such as a cow, a goat, a sheep, a flower, or indeed, any other type of plant, as Airfield operates a nursery,” he announced, noting with a flash of humour every bit as sharp as his thinking: “An aircraft is an entirely inappropriate flight of imagination.”

Indeed, Shatter has not got this excited since the topless pictures of Princess Kate were splashed across The Irish Daily Star, propelling him on a solo-run privacy law push which soon crashlanded.

The Dublin Airport Authority treated the Apple app with the level of importance it deserved, tweeting: “Just in case anybody is confused @DublinAirport is not moving to the southside.”

Paul Cullen, director of safety and technical with the Irish Airline Pilots Association, also suggested people in charge of aeroplanes might not be using their iPhones for navigation.

“I’d be surprised if pilots had their phones on. And if it was a real emergency in a small aircraft you would be looking for a landing strip and you wouldn’t have time to take your phone out to look for an airport,” he said, deploying a level of common sense seemingly beyond that of a senior cabinet minister.

As Shatter clearly has nothing better to do with his time, we await with some trepidation his symbol suggestions for Bastardstown, Wexford; Blueball, Offaly; and Muff, Donegal.