There was universal annoyance this week at the Department of Housing sharing a video giving tips to adult citizens of Ireland on how to live with their parents, whom they presumably already know quite well.
Everyone had a crack, from tenants’ unions to someone who makes YouTube videos as an animated fairy. TDs summoned up fury, despite the fact that they do not generally fall into the back-home demographic, age on average over 50, receive the up-in-Dublin rental subsidy and are highly likely to own more than one residence in the first place (landlords significantly outnumber renters in the Dáil).
Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns (36), who is well positioned to comment due to her on-record period of living in a converted pig shed on her mother’s farm, left it to the specialist housing critic in her retinue, Rory Hearne, to declare that “young people should be on the streets”.
Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers (35) is also within the danger zone for having to move back in, though as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (€212,858 salary per annum) he would be strategically situated to build a decent deposit quickly. He issued reassurance to the angry Opposition, and those locked out of the housing market, by listing various Government actions on housing.
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“We have enhanced the corporate tax deduction to reduce the cost of delivery of an apartment for cost rental,” was one action. Thank God.
Overheard escaped the childhood bedroom through the age-old release valve of recessionary emigration, but we were curious about how the Irish match up to European peers on this subject. Adopting the role of a 25 to 29-year-old on Eurostat’s Young Europeans tool, which invited us to choose a hairstyle for some reason, we found that 59.2 per cent of our peers live with their parents, well above the EU average of 41.4 per cent.
But it’s not all bad: the same group are above average for “high life satisfaction”, at 26.4 per cent, 3 points above the EU average and miles higher than the 16 per cent reported in Italy. Where, coincidentally, even more young people are still living at home.
Oh deer: Santa warned off in Phoenix Park
A new gig for Santa Claus after the Office of Public Works (OPW) called in the avuncular gift-giver to underline their festive message: stop feeding the deer in the Phoenix Park.
There are about 600 wild deer in the park, and once upon a time they happily foraged the various grasses and wildflowers as they awaited the report of the viceroy’s rifle. But in recent years, encouraged by well-meaning visitors, they have started to approach humans for food in larger numbers. A quarter now prefer pleading for scraps to an honest day’s browsing, and the trait is passing down from mothers to fawns.
This is bad news for their health, as the OPW has been trying to make clear to TikTokers for a few years now. Cue Santa.
“Hi Terry,” says Santa, addressing a strapping park ranger named Terry, who wears a high-vis. “Can Mrs Claus bring her special Christmas cookies to the deer?”
“Oh no, Santa!” says Terry, selling the emotion of the moment well. “Unfortunately all cookies are really bad for the deer. Even Mrs Claus’s. They make the deer really, really sick.”
You’d think Santa, steward of at least nine reindeer, would know this. The pair agree that the fashionably organic plant-based diet favoured by deer since time immemorial would be a better idea, before arriving at a slogan: “A safe 50 metres is the best gift of all.” Guidance that might also apply in some office Christmas party scenarios.
Tough new gig milking profits from lactose intolerant Asians
The Nitrates Derogation extension is secured, and Ireland’s cattle can continue to produce and benefit from the fertilising power of excrement without worry. Time to expand the market.
On that note, Bord Bia are advertising for PR pros to help sell Irish produce in southeast Asia, focusing on “dairy, meat, seafood, drinks sector and sustainability”. The lucky provider will butter up media and hospitality contacts in the region through “speed-dating style events” and various other promo pushes.
Despite the noted quality of Irish milk, butter and other dairy products, it will be a difficult gig. Southeast Asia has some of the highest rates of lactose intolerance in the world. Levels are more than 70 per cent in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, while the Vietnamese, who notably use mayonnaise on their bánh mì rather than butter, suffer from “near universal malabsorption”, with rates up to 98 per cent.
Exports to the region are also stalked by our antipodean agriculture-and-rugby nemesis, New Zealand, which annoyingly also produces a lot of butter, cheese and milk powder, a common form for Asian imports.
Still, there might be an opportunity; southeast Asia is ageing rapidly, and Ireland’s expert marketers have noticed. “It is also worthwhile to note that this region is going to be home to a large number of elderly consumers, a segment expected to make up 20.3 per cent of the population here by 2050, and their needs tie in well with dairy’s high protein content,” Bord Bia regional director Lisa Phelan told a local food business publication earlier this year.
Them bones also, of course, need calcium.
No Eurovision boycott for junior songwriters
Amid the international ructions around Ireland’s Eurovision withdrawal, this weekend’s Junior Eurovision has flown beneath the radar somewhat. While RTÉ unearths the various goths, turkeys and Norwegians we send to the main contest, the kids’ version is looked after by TG4 and will be broadcast from 4pm today.
Lottie O’Driscoll Murray (14) probably doesn’t remember Aiden McGeady’s 2014 late winner in Tbilisi that helped get Ireland to their last international football tournament. But she’ll head back to the scene of the crime in Georgia nonetheless to sing Rúin, a ballad as Gaeilge, as part of the competition.
Given the scenes around the grown-up Eurovision, Overheard asked TG4 whether they had had any problems, but it seems not. Israel haven’t entered the junior edition since 2018, and any ill will at the European Broadcasting Union appears not to have trickled down.
“Should the situation change” with regard to Israel, a spokeswoman for the station said, “TG4’s position on participation will be reviewed.”
Promisingly, we can vote for ourselves in this one too – though it’ll require an early-and-often approach to beat some of our more populous friends in Europe.
