Plastic Paddies to be certified: What will the feckers think of next?

According to yesterday's old lady of D'Olier St Micheál Martin has decided to go ahead with a plan to swizzle up to 70 million plastic paddies out of their hard earned hard currency in yet another scheme to bail out the blackguards above there in Dublin.

Following up on a complaint made at the Irish Global Economic Forum that indigene enterprise was failing to bleed the diaspora dry  exploit effectively the economic resource that the diaspora represents, our Micko plans to rectify the matter by issuing, for a small fee (naturally), a certificate of Oirishness.

Inspired by that ginger headed gobshite David McWilliams, the Forum noted that there was a disconnection between Ireland and the wallets ofthe diaspora, particularly those not previously ripped off  by the exhorbitant price of a passport unable to qualify for citizenship by virtue of having a parent or grandparent born in Ireland.

According to the Irish Times, Mr Martin said the Government had taken a broad and inclusive approach to defining Ireland’s global community:

“The Irish diaspora is not limited to Irish citizens living abroad or to those who have activated citizenship. Instead, it encompasses all those who believe they are of Irish descent and feel a sense of affinity with this country.”

Micheál, in an act uncharacteristic of a politician,  appears to have ripped the idea off those amadáns above at Irish Diaspora.ie  who proposed the introduction of a global ‘Emerald Card’ that anyone can apply for on proof of an Irish heritage. The card would  entitle the holder to 'various forms of acknowledgement in the tourist, travel, leisure and hospitality sector'. Aye, and anyone with an English or an American accent who has holidayed in Kerry or Connemara knows what that means, if you get my drift. And you don't need a fecking certificate to evoke it either.

Turning Irishness and Irish identity into a revenue stream isn't new, of course. I've written about the patronising,exploitative and frustrating attitudes held by indigene society towards its diasporic members before. I suppose all this does is put the roof on it and make patronising the diaspora an official state-sponsored enterprise.

I also expect that there'll be plenty of fools ready to line up and hand over their spondulicks to give a dig out to the gangsters and gombeens who run the Irish state. They'd be the same class of eejits who swallow this stuff, I suppose: