Well You Asked For Ideas

I have concluded from reading the newspapers and listening to talk radio for the past two decades that counselling holds the key to everything. There is nobody whose life could not have been turned around if only they had access to basic counselling services. The potential benefits span the whole panorama of society from the most passive law abider to despicable career criminals.

All of our current woes, it seems, can be put down to a lack of appropriate counselling services down through the years. If Sean Fitzpatrick had access to a counsellor when his pet poodle Gekko died in 1968, the Anglo debacle would not have taken place. If Mary Coughlan had been offered suitable psychiatric support when she got a belt of a camogie stick in Bundoran in 1978 Michael O’ Leary would have five hundred lads up and running changing the oil on Boeing 737s in Hangar 6 as we speak.

There is no level of omission, neglect, ineptitude, irresponsibility, immaturity or malicious intent that can not be explained away by citing a lack of basic counselling facilities.

It transpires that we all need counselling on a constant basis. And therein lies the cause of and the solution to our current impasse. Forget the so called Smart Economy, this was merely a white elephant dreamt up by people with inadequate levels of counselling under their belt. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Counselling Economy.

I call on the government to pour money into purpose built facilities to train everyone on the dole as a counsellor. I can’t see a flaw. We create much needed construction employment during the capital investment stage whilst bolstering our infrastructure. We create employment for existing counsellors who would act as administrators and lecturers in the new institutions. We enroll those on the live register and set them on a new, rewarding career path. If everyone was a counsellor all of our troubles – economic, political, spiritual, social and psychological would be over.

We can counsel each other back to health, wealth and happiness. I also call on the government to retrofit Hangar 6 and deploy it as the first facility. The ensuing ironic hilarity would give the country a much needed kick start straight off the bat.

We’ve all heard of the Council of State well allow me to introduce the State of Counsel. You’re living in it, silly. Tommy Fleming could write us a brand new up to date National Anthem more appropriate to current conditions; a jaunty Country n’ Irish ditty entitled Counsel State of Mind. I can’t see a flaw.

I think we have finally hit upon something in which we could be genuine world leaders; whinging to a captive audience.

At last; a cast iron, bona fide, water tight no brainer.