Walk to school? Fat chance

Emissions: driving the kids to schoolWe all got a terrible shock here in Emissions Towers a while back. A headline jumped out from the front page of one of the Sunday newspapers: "Dempsey targets the school run in Dublin." Oh dear, said I. The poor man's finally snapped.

I had visions of our esteemed Minister, sniper's rifle in hand, combat jacket wrapped around his taut physique, his furrowed brow smeared artfully with camouflage paint, sitting atop a mobile phone mast in Cabinteely on a Friday morning, taking potshots at passing yummy mummies in their SUVs.

"Yis fuppin' fuppers," says he, eyeing a particularly obnoxious Hyundai Santa Fe with one solitary child lost in the depths of its back seat.

"Yis have my plans ruined, the lot of ye. How am I supposed to realise my dream of free-flowin' traffic and spring lambs frolickin' on the grass margins of every dual carriageway in the land wit' ye lot cloggin' every road up?

"Will yis get out and walk! Yir fuppin' podgy lump of a son will be dead of a heart attack by 12, ye silly witch ye!"

Aims. Fires a volley of rounds.

Hits a bus stop.

Fourteen Filipino nurses are killed by ricocheting bullets.

Runs away.

Found nine hours later, hidden inside a traffic cone on the M50. Charlie Bird is on the scene, giving himself a hernia live on the Six One News.

Mrs Emissions watches poor Noel being dragged off, pale-faced. "Dempsey? Who'd have thunk it?" She turns and stares accusatorily at me.

"It's your fault for always having a go at him," says she, a Meath woman. They stick together, that lot. "He's not the worst of them, you know."

Other than the headline that inspired my surreal vision, only one bit of the above is true. He's not the worst of them. (Not that that's any great recommendation. It's like saying he's not too ugly. For a warthog.)

And he does have the right idea. This business of ferrying kids to school has reached epidemic proportions.

Whatever about the effect it is having on the frazzled commuters of the country, their already soul-sapping journeys compounded by the presence of an extra 75,000 cars joining them once the schools return, think of the children.

Half of all Dublin primary school kids are driven to school. I imagine it's a similar story elsewhere.

It's hardly a coincidence, then, that obesity levels are soaring among our youth. Our obsession with our cars is killing our kids. Simple as that.

Oh, all right, maybe it's not that simple. Many parents have no option other than driving their brood to school.

Which is where Dempsey comes in. This fine fellow is actively looking into supplying a State-sponsored school bus service in Dublin. If he pulls it off, he'll be the toast of the town. If he doesn't, he may just be toast.

A note of caution, Minister. Be prepared for those ungrateful little oiks to throw it all back in your face.

His colleagues in the Department of Education have just spent €36.5 million on fitting seatbelts to all 3,000 school buses in the State.

And what's happening? The little blighters are vandalising them.

Minister for seatbelts Sean Haughey said he was "astonished" that anyone would do such a thing.

Honestly, what did you expect? This is a country where 10-year-olds go to school with Glocks in one pocket and an ounce of hash in the other.

Recent statistics plucked from the nether regions of my brain suggest the average boy has obliterated 53,743 videogame bad guys by the time his voice breaks. What's a few slashed seatbelts to such hardened killers?

There was talk of banning repeat offenders from buses. Meaning they'd have to be driven to school. Back to square one.

I've a better solution.

Tell them Dempsey is out there, somewhere, rifle in hand, waiting for them to make the first move.

By the time someone tells them they have a telltale red laser dot on their foreheads, it'll be too late.

Tough. But, you'll no doubt agree, fair.