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About LinkBacksPat Spillane on Late Late Show: On a Saturday night Ireland's teens and not-so-teen adults morph into aggressive drunkards, devoid of morality and restraint. Thoughts?
Pat Spillane on Late Late Show: On a Saturday night Ireland's teens and not-so-teen adults morph into aggressive drunkards, devoid of morality and restraint. Thoughts?
Personally think Pat is talking a lot of sense - but perhaps should have been raised more forcefully 6/7 years ago.
Don't you think he should have also included Friday night? There is of course a very real problem and the passion with which Spillane spoke might be the impetus for change.
'saturday night Ireland' could be a Monday night depends where you're from. Pat was very passionate, but things have got a little out of control. At this stage the rising inflaion may be the only answer i.e. I don't think it's necessarily an easy thing to control. Some serious intervention needed at a govt level.
Yes this is quite true. I never venture into town on a Friday or Saturday night for fear of slipping in the vomit or piss that now routinely flows along the streets - not too mention the threat f getting attacked. I used to work late on a Saturday nights until recently and some of the things I saw would not be repeatable in polite society.
If we can accept that there is a problem, what might the cause have been? And what might the solution be?
Certainly a powerful piece by Pat S, I fully agree with him that all sports sponsorship by the drinks industry must stop. Also the availability of alcohol (esp spirits) in filling stations is wrong.
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Commentators have been banging on about this phenomenon for years. I can't see why Pat Spillane's sudden epiphany - that there is a preponderance of drunkards about on Friday night - is being seen as some kind of timely, insightful revelation. He admitted himself, during the interview, that he has no solutions to this societal malaise so why invite him on the Late Late show on the back of one column that essentially, is full of complaints and observations that we have all heard before?
Many years ago I was in England and one night out in mixed company (Some English & some ex-pat Irish friends) the discussion of attitudes came up. All of the people I was with favourabilly compared Ireland to England in that they felt that you could safely go out at night in Ireland and, in the unlikely event of trouble then the protaganists settle their differences without fear of it turning in to a bloodbath.
Sadly those days have long since passed. When the Celtic Tiger bit us in the mid 1990's it gave some of us a form of rabies that leads us to forget whatever humanity we were born with. With our increased affluance we have seen a drop off in respect for each other and the rule of law. Much of this disrespect can be seen to stem from substances dissapearing up people noses, or into their veins, or down their throat at a rapid rate.
The sad thing about this is that it is a minority of people who behave like this but their behaviour has put the fear into the majority of us so that no-one is willing to say stop for fear of meeting the business end of a knife or a gun or a boot. Yet if communities stood togeather and yelled stop maybe we could put an end to this nightmare. Education will only go so far it's action by the ODP (ordinary decent people) that will put the gene back in the bottle.
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Did'nt hear personal responsibility mentioned once. Alcohol consumption has fallen since 2001 and consumption is now at 1998 levels(source CSO). Things have been like this for as long as I can remember and I have been out in Dublin drinking since 1996. Seems to be a lot of hysteria in media lately regarding alcohol. I heard a woman from alcohol action Ireland on radio a few times during last few weeks and her arguments were largely spurious and fallacious. I don't see problem with large petrol stations selling wine and beer, they are no different to pubs/off licences with large car parks except they sell petrol.
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