Smartin’ Martin makes a real meal of country (and western) in crisis

Country in crisis! Emergency legislation demanded! Taoiseach must act!

Has the Dáil finally awoken from its shameful slumber and been forced into doing something about the 1,000 homeless families left abandoned in Dublin, the 100,000 working people living below the poverty line, or the 150,000 households mired in the mortgage debt crisis?

Erm, no, because the country in crisis is not poor old Ireland, it’s country and western music — and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin is demanding emergency action to bring Garth Brooks back.

What next — a special tribunal of inquiry into the shocking allegations that Dolly Parton mimed to “Jolene” at Glastonbury last month?

Yes, Mr Brooks, who was very big in the 1990s, and says he loves Ireland so, so much, would have pumped €50m into the Dublin economy, but as he was offered three (some reports say four) concerts — which is more than the two he originally announced, and far more than Croke Park is actually allowed to hold each year — maybe Fianna Fáil should be heaping some of the blame for the rather petulant-looking refusal to perform on Garth rather than just the Government?

Yes, 330,000 Irish people (plus 70,000 foreigners) bought tickets, subject to licence, for the shows and will be disappointed, but 4.2m people did not, and would presumably like planning laws to be adhered to — especially after the chaos the bending of such laws led Ireland into in the very recent past.

With just weeks to go until the concerts were due to take place, Mr Kenny made it clear to the Dáil that there was just not enough time now to recover the situation if Garth still refuses to give way over his fifth date.

Rushed legislation is nearly always bad legislation, something one would have hoped Mr Martin would remember as he was a key Cabinet member during Fianna Fáil’s most infamous emergency effort — the bank guarantee scheme which has saddled generations of Irish people with a €64bn debt, and which did so much to destroy the country’s economic sovereignty.

The controversy once again highlights the enormous power wielded by unelected council managers across the country.

Now, Dublin’s chief executive, the GAA, and concert promoter Peter Aiken are being called before an Oireachtas committee tomorrow to explain themselves.

It would be nice to think this mess would lead to some considered, reflective, non-emergency legislation, that balances planning responsibility, democratic accountability, and economic reality.

But this is Ireland, this is the same docile Dáil that ignores the real human crisis of poverty and social exclusion gripping this country day-in, day-out, so, nothing will actually change.

All that will come of this shambolic saga will be the wails of the promoter before the tourism committee and the sounds of his Aiken, Breakin’ Heart.