Darkness visible

by planetparker

There’s husbandry in heaven –
Their candles are all out..

I want to tell you a story; let me assure you that every word of it is true, no matter how fantastic it may appear.

 Recently Rosie and myself have had a couple staying with us who have been attempting to liberate their son from care, into which he was delivered on the flimsiest of reasons. One of the couple established a website in which he attempted to publicise their plight and that of other families in similar situations.

 Last Thursday, Ms Helen McGovern, solicitor for the Health Service Executive, succeeded in extracting a High Court injunction against the website. The manner in which this injunction was subsequently delivered beggars belief in a free society. At approximately 1.30 am on the following morning all of the residents of the house were awoken by the arrival of Ms McGovern, accompanied by no less than four gardai. Ms McGovern obviously does her best work after dark, but I cannot for the life of me see why they had to be served at such an ungodly hour. I also fail to see why she had to be accompanied by such a large force of police. Did they believe that the couple were going to “make a run for it”? or that they would be offered physical resistance? One of the garda squad cars had come all the way from Navan with Ms McGovern. Most people know that sadly, Co. Meath is awash with illegal drugs. The gardai respond as well as they can, though they are often hampered by insufficient resources. On the morning of Friday, September 18th, their ability to fight not only the drugs problem but crime in general was severely hampered by allocating one squad car with two gardai to accompany Ms McGovern’s nocturnal frolic. The forces assigned for this visit were equivalent to those for a raid, yet this group presented the unedifying spectacle of skulking  through the blackened Cavan countryside asking for directions. Obviously the Gartda Siochana haven’t heard of GPS yet.

 Luckily I wasn’t in residence at Putiaghan Upper that night. I would have been terrified to be disturbed by the headlights of police cars. The whole thing would have reminded me too much of a scene from Alan Parker’s film Mississippi Burning. Both Rosie and myself are law-abiding people, without so much as a parking ticket to our names, so to be treated in this shameful manner by the police is intolerable. My first reaction upon hearing the front door being knocked in the middle of the night would have been to seek the protection of the gardai by telephone. Imagine how I would have felt on learning that those who were disturbing my peace, those who were frightening me, were the very people towards whom I looked for protection, I feel that my customary civility towards the Civic Guards would have been stretched to breaking point.

 On the following evening, at approximately 10.30 pm our peace was again disturbed by a Process Server delivering additional court documents. Why can documents only be delivered at night? The Process Server, who seemed genuinely embarrassed, explained that the late hour was caused by the delay in preparing the documents. This preparation had been so rushed that they hadn’t been filled in properly or signed.

 The serving of the papers at such an unorthodox manner on the morning of the 18th, accompanied by such a large contingent of police, was a clear and deliberate attempt to intimidate the couple and my partner Rosie. Ms McGovern’s visit was no act of charity; she will indeed seek and no doubt receive handsome payment of expenses for her after hours’ exertions by the HSE. How can the HSE don the poor mouth, citing lack of money when cutting back vital and essential services, but yet they have money to burn on such non-vital expenses? Is it not true that at a time when we are told we must swallow “tough” decisions regarding public spending, which will cause genuine hardship, our public servants and those whom they employ can waste as much money as they can?

 I wish to stress that everything I have said above is factually correct. When (or if) Ms McGovern reads it I am sure she will be enraged, and as a well-connected member of the judiciary she will possibly seek to gag me by undertaking legal action against me. She may labour under the mistaken belief that I can be frightened into silence, as was her intention in visiting our house at such an inappropriate hour. But if the truth hurts don’t blame me. Furthermore I believe all the comments made to be fair in the circumstances. The above statements are not motivated by malice, but by a desire to expose abusive behaviour by the executive, including an abuse of judicial process, I am also conscious that in writing the above I have not made myself many friends amongst those who seek to dominate our lives. Let me remind everyone that we still live in a free society – just.  Amongst the freedoms we take for granted are not just freedom of speech, but the freedom to enjoy an undisturbed night’s sleep.

 

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