Those black bags have not been put out to celebrate year of the rat

CORK city has become dotted with something resembling an outbreak of big black mumps which many foreign visitors probably imagine to be an avant-garde art exhibition staged as part of the European Capital of Culture programme.

Closer inspection, however, informs the senses that far from being aesthetic, these are more mundane examples of local endeavour to evade refuse charges.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has diagnosed them as a health hazard; Cork City Council says they’re not.

The smell should tell the visitor which opinion to believe, but if they see any little eyes squinting out at them, they had better not think they belong to a leprechaun. The chances are that they’re attached to a different class of an animal.

It’s extraordinary that in the year the city is European Capital of Culture, the only event that’s on the minds of the locals is a possible gathering of rats and other rodents to celebrate the fallout from a row between the city council and people who object to paying the new charges for refuse collection.

Actually, there’s nothing funny about the situation, as the IMO warned during the week.

And there is most definitely nothing amusing about the response to that warning from City Hall, which seems to be adopting the favourite posture of the ostrich.

Dr Ronan Boland of the IMO has a practice in the city’s Blackpool area. He warned that the present build-up of illegally-dumped refuse could lead to life-threatening Weil’s disease through the attraction of rats and other rodents.

The initial response to that from the council’s environment department was a denial there was any health hazard and that any submissions the IMO or anybody else might like to make would be looked into.

Consider that reaction, or lack of it: having been warned that a serious health hazard exists that could become life-threatening, they invite submissions.

Subsequently, city manager Joe Gavin sought to reassure the populace with the far from reassuring statement that they had “a regime in place that is dealing with it very well”.

He added: “We have issued 40 fines in the last three weeks and we’re monitoring the city all the time, and we have people out there day and night. It is our objective to have all illegally-dumped rubbish removed within one week and I believe we are achieving this goal.”

To the best of my knowledge, and I wouldn’t pretend to have any expertise in this field, the issuing of a summons is not a great deterrent to rats. On the other hand, the mere thought of those furry lads is enough to put the fear of God into any sensible person.

Far from reassured by the city manager, Fianna Fáil TD Noel O’Flynn, under the circumstances, was more inclined to listen to the medical opinion.

“I’m alarmed by the response from City Hall. The city manager has a duty of care to the people of the city, and when qualified experts in the area of health are saying it is a hazard, they should be doing something about it.”

There was cross-party agreement on this issue.

Labour’s Kathleen Lynch said, even before then, that the crisis had already brought rats into the city.

“I walked down Blarney Street the other day and was shocked at what I saw - you wouldn’t see it in the Third World,” she said.

Ms Lynch also warned of the meteorological impact on roaming rodents because she said that once the cold spell is over and the weather gets warmer, disease would spread rapidly.

She wrote to Environment Minister Dick Roche, expressing her concerns and in an admirable display of initiative and executive action... he wrote to the city council for a report on the situation.

If the council doesn’t get its act together soon, the furry lads will be vying with the tourists to ring the nearby bells of Shandon.

The problem is, the council says it has got its act together, despite the dire warning from the IMO.

This is not the time to ignore the IMO’s categorical statement that there’s a health hazard, despite the city manager saying there’s not.

It isn’t very often doctors give out free advice, and Mr Gavin would be well advised to take it.

Possibly the IMO’s warning about a health hazard has prompted Cork’s Micheál Martin to get as far away as possible from the city, so he’s off to Australia. He’s just one member of the Government who’s helping to ensure that the St Patrick’s Day Travel Agency is in for another bumper year.

It’s an amazing thing at this time of every year when the approach of the national saint’s day infects practically the entire Government with incurable wanderlust.

This year the President will be in Japan and Korea, the Taoiseach will be in Washington and the Tánaiste will be in San Francisco.

So, it begs the question - who will be in charge?

I was under the impression that, constitutionally, all three could not be out of the country at the same time.

Maybe PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde has said he will keep a friendly eye on the place while they’re away, as they have put so much faith in him recently.

Otherwise, the country will be in the tender, loving care of the three amigos. Transport Minister Martin Cullen is staying home, but then there can’t be too many places he hasn’t seen. Confined to barracks, too, is Willie O’Dea, and I hope he hasn’t any plans for the army while the most of the Government is abroad. The third stay-at-home Minister is Noel Dempsey.

Practically the entire Government and their partners, as well as the President, will be like the wild geese as they spread joy and happiness in 30 locations around the globe, from Japan to Argentina, from the US to Moscow and another 28 places in between.

The cost to the taxpayers of all the first- class travel to the four corners of the earth will be in the region of €500,000.

It will at least help the avid travellers to forget that the exchequer faces a bill of about €500 million which was bilked from the tens of thousands of old age pensioners who could hardly afford to buy a newspaper in the nursing homes.