HUMAN RIGHTS : Thankful for Small Liberties

RICARDO CARRERE, a 39 yearrold Uruguayan man, held a Dublin audience spellbound-at the Ammnesty International AGM here last month while he recounted the graphic details of his seven year ordeal in an Uruguayan prison.

What's all the fuss about? What we have here is an experiment in open government, a form of partiicipatory democracy - that's what you could call it. An aggrieved citizen merely had to pick up a phone, dial 789911, ask to talk to anyone - a TD, senator, journalist, usher, cook, bottleewasher - and spout away. And the message could go right into the office of the Taoiseach. It's called keeping one's ear to the pulse of the nation.

Saturday 12th

I hear many expressions of concern over Ted Tynan's disability. Responsible citizens of every shade of opinion are unanimously condemnatory of the miscreant culprits, and solicitous of Ted's recovery.

At the Kildare Street gate there were four Public Gallery tickets waiting for Liam Skelly's supporters padmitting thirty supporters per ticket. The new Fine Gael TD was going to get a warm reception. Supporters and TDs enveloped Skelly as he arrived. Garret FitzGerald shook his hand near the front gate while the cameras clickked, and again on the steps and again near the door, while the cameras clickked again. "Lift him shoulder high," Jim Mitchell told a supporter, and it was done. The cameras clicked.

The three screws didn't know much about guns. They thought the big, dark automatic that Karl Crawley was pulling out was a Luger. But Kar7 didn't care whether the screws could recognise a Colt .45 when they saw one - just so long as they had enough cop to do what they were told. -Freeze, you bastards!

I Paid off the taxi, didn't wait for change, and gave the hinges on the pub door some rough exercise. Inside, it wasn't difficult to spot Fingers Kav~ anagh. He was the one in the corner with the five rugby types ranged arround him in a horseshoe formation and they weren't wishing him good luck. Lazy Pete Maguire was off to one side making placatory noises.

AnCo, business

An inoperable productivity deal has cost AnCo at least £200,000 - a result of bungled negotiations which date back to 1972. The Federaated Workers Union of Ireland negotiaated a lump sum payment of between £1,300 and £3,000 for 100 of its members in return for, as yet, nothing. AnCo management is currently and anxiously awaiting the trade union ressponse to a Labour Court recommendaation on the deal.

Saturday 17th

Mr Gay Byrne invites me to preside over his Late Late Show which is to consist of "the cream of Cork's talent". He apprehends outtrages. I take his point. This menage of harlequins may be relied upon to give frequent and matchless performances of all that is loutish and seedy, withhout provocation or pay.

Sometimes it all gets to be too much. Too many stones in the shoe of happiness, right? In an effort to improve my mood I spent a day wandering around the city, tearing up Wet Paint sings. The yelps of outrage from subsequently smudged gentlefolk should have helped raise the gloom there's nothing cheers me up like playying a particularly nasty trick on someeone - but, no, it needed more than that. Things have been closing in.

The Gregory deal brings real benefits to Dublin's inner city, but it is no substitute for a worked out plan to deal with urban blight.
By Pat Brennan