Wanted: An Irish Government

Because, when the current one is not lying and not improving our airports, it's not doing anything at all. In particular, they're not reading memos, and not showing up to the Dail (parliament) -- except maybe the bar:

[ireland.com news, subs. req'd] Former Health Minister Micheal Martin's special advisor admitted today that it was "exceptional" that he didn't read crucial briefing notes on the illegal nursing charges before a major department meeting in December 2003.

...[advisor] who has 30 years experience as a civil servant, said: "I personally didn't read it before the meeting. "It would have been emailed to me on the Monday evening but for whatever reason I didn't access it before I went to the meeting.

Committee member, Senator Mary Henry asked if it was "exceptional" not to read a briefing document before a meeting. Mr Mannion replied: "It was, yeah" and agreed that, with the benefit of hindsight, he should have read it.

and:

[Irish Times, subs. req'd] Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last week reprimanded Government TDs over their low attendance in the Dáil when he is answering questions.

Despite this, the Government benches were sparsely populated yesterday afternoon as he answered questions.

Yesterday there were less than 20 Government TDs, less than half of whom were backbenchers, in the Dáil ... "Punchestown [horseracing] is on," said one TD as an explanation. "There are no votes in Dublin on a Tuesday afternoon," said another.

UPDATE 29 April: A story that embodies the Oirish Punchestown culture of Dail attendance: Jim McDaid is a TD and MD who got busted for drunk-driving on Tuesday -- driving the wrong way on a dual-carriageway. His narrative of the events:

Dr McDaid said yesterday that when in the Dáil on Tuesday a friend had phoned him inviting him to travel with him by helicopter from City West to Punchestown racecourse.

"I drove out to City West and then we travelled to the races together. My friend had a box there and I was offered a glass of white wine.

"In those corporate boxes they just keep topping up your glass."

2nd UPDATE 3 May: Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times (subs. req'd) says it better than we can:

This confection of cynicism and incompetence is what we call government. Political strokes, administrative chaos and professional self-interest creates a system in which public money is thrown at anything except social justice. But don't worry - the good news is that no one is responsible.