Write or wrong, I’m at a milestone measured in column inches

I’M looking for a little indulgence this week because I’m celebrating an anniversary that, up to now, no one in the world knows about but me.

This is my 400th column for the Irish Examiner (and lest anyone get the wrong idea, dear editor, I’m ready, willing and able to do 400 more).

It’s because I save them on the computer that I know it. Four hundred columns, all neatly typed, all emailed down to the Irish Examiner late on Sunday night (or sometimes, if a story is still breaking, up to the middle of Monday afternoon), all exactly 1,200 words long. I’m a bit peculiar about that. The editor is free to do with the column what he wishes because my instincts aren’t proprietorial, and actually every bit of editing I’ve seen over the years is an improvement, but he’ll always get 1,200 words to play with, not 1,199 or 1,201. It adds up to a total of just under half-a-million words, believe it or not.

In my time I’ve also seen three books published, and the total number of words in the three of them put together was less than half that.

I’ll tell you one thing about writing that many words, though. It makes you humble. Looking back over all the pieces I’ve written, I realise that I got more than a few things wrong. I’ve predicted that Brian Cowen would be the next EU commissioner, that John Bruton would survive the opinion polls that did him in, and that the Luas would never work. Emboldened by this success, I went on to predict (incorrectly) the outcome of the last election, to campaign (unsuccessfully) against the introduction of SSIAs and to argue (unconvincingly) that the smoking ban wouldn’t work.

But, thank God, I got a few things right as well. One of the earlier columns I wrote predicted that the Telecom Éireann flotation would end in tears for the thousands of savers persuaded by hype to buy shares, and that we “shouldn’t be at all surprised if there isn’t a mass middle class movement demanding compensation for lost profits”.

In that same piece I suggested that the next item on the privatisation agenda would be Aer Lingus, though given the outcome in relation to Telecom I also found myself wondering at what price? “Aer Lingus, like Telecom, is a company in which the State and its citizens have invested many millions. A decent return on that investment demands a reasonable share price. But it may not be possible to make a killing on a reasonable share price. There is a huge vested interest in persuading or terrorising the Transport Minister and the Government to set the price as low as possible. That would open up fantastic possibilities for people with real money — not the kiss-me-arse investments you and I might be able to make”.

We have yet to see what price Aer Lingus will fetch in the end. I still think it will be sold cheap.

I got a few other things right as well — that Bertie Ahern would maximise the length of Dáil terms, that Enda Kenny would be a bigger success than people were prepared to accept, that Pat Rabbitte would succeed Ruairi Quinn as Labour leader (and Mary Harney as Tánaiste, though I can’t collect on that just yet), and that Munster would win the Heineken Cup (only a week to wait before I win that bet).

But more to the point, I realise looking back on it that the years I have been writing this column have been momentous in some ways, that they have changed Ireland forever. In most respects, though not all, that change has been for the better.

The years I’ve been writing the column have been the McAleese years. A different style of presidency got off to an awkward and clumsy start but settled into a stylish and warm sort of representation. If Mary Robinson in her time was the symbolic leader of change, Mary McAleese has been a sort of kindly auntie to the nation, making us feel welcome when she’s around, even if she’s not challenging us much.

Those years have been the years of the Celtic Tiger, when most of us have got richer. There’s no doubt that the past few years have been full of economic excitement, and that the opportunities have been immense. We all seem to have better lifestyles than we used to, and yet the words of the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song — “another day older and deeper in debt” — seem to be playing constantly in the background.

Of course not everyone has heard the roar of the Celtic Tiger. There has probably never been a time in the history of our country when the gap between rich and poor has grown so fast. There may be a lot of excitement for those of us lucky enough to be on the inside. But there are thousands of people still with their faces pressed to the window pane.

AND of course they’ve been the years of Bertie Ahern, the undisputed most successful politician of the past decade. Whether he genuinely is one of the greats, or simply skilled enough to ensure that he outlasted all other possible Haughey successors, only time will tell.

But there is no doubt that in his day, and throughout all the time I have been writing for the Irish Examiner, he has been the public figure about whom more words have been written (and by a lot more than me) than any other. In all those 400 columns, there has probably been one subject that has preoccupied me more than any other, and that’s the subject of disability. I will always be grateful to the Irish Examiner for giving me the space and the room to write about what I regard as the last great civil rights campaign — a campaign, alas, that still has a long way to go.

When I started this column, we had no rights-based legislation covering the subject of disability in Ireland, no vehicle that would guarantee the full and equal citizenship of people who had to climb over barriers most of us cannot imagine. Four hundred columns later, we still don’t. Disability is higher on the political agenda; more resources are going into services; lip service is paid on a daily basis; some law has been enacted.

But there is still no right to services. Jamie Sinnott was told by the Supreme Court that he had no right to be educated, and Peter McKenna died in pain. And there were other stories, some of them too painful to tell.

But there was also the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2003. We saw what disability really meant then. We saw that people with disabilities had just as much determination, skill and class as anyone else. For one short period we were all united in the realisation that disability was a barrier to equality, not a state to which people had to be condemned.

It might take me another 400 columns to persuade you all how easy it would be to tear that barrier down. Consider yourselves warned.