An Irishman's Diary

NOT TO denigrate those people who were rewarded by the Lord Mayor of Dublin for having “made a difference to the city” (Home News, Tuesday) in the past year. Deserving cases every one, no doubt.

But surely Dublin should also have an annual awards ceremony to honour those who have not made a difference to the city in that time. No I’m not suggesting prizes for mere apathy or inactivity. What I have in mind is a scheme that would encourage positive contributions to maintaining the status quo: the leaving-Dublin-the-way-you-found-it awards, if you like.

In my scheme, undercover agents acting on behalf of the mayor – or perhaps the mayor himself, if he’s up to it – would scour the streets every year in search of outstanding examples of people not making a difference to the city.

Chip-eaters conspicuously failing to drop their wrappers in the middle of the street might be one awards category. Smokers in pub doorways disposing of cigarette butts somewhere other than under their feet might be another. So too dog owners caught in the act of cleaning up after their pets foul the footpath.

This last category should be especially encouraged. There can be few greater tests of civic fortitude than having to pick up freshly-minted dog poo, even with gloved fingers. Hence those dangling plastic bags that you now see many (although not enough) dog walkers with, as they search for the nearest bin, have become a badge of public mindedness.

So awarding certificates or plaques for not making a difference would hardly be enough in such cases. To balance the law’s threatened on-the-spot fines for offenders (which in any case are very hard on Spot – it’s his owner we should be targeting), I suggest the winners of the annual dog-poop cleaning award should also qualify for a year’s exemption from plastic bag tax.

I said earlier that mere inactivity would not be deserving of a prize. Maybe this was rash. They also serve who only stand and wait, as Milton said, and quietism too has a contribution to make in the life of any civilised city. Perhaps there could be a prize for extended periods of sitting on a bench in Stephen’s Green, staring at the pond; or just for minding your own business.

Not every deserving award recipient would be as easily identified, of course. In fact, some selection scenarios might need a certain amount of setting up. It would be hard, for example, to find a disaffected youth in the act of not writing graffiti in a public place.

So what I suggest in such a category is that the selection team secretes itself late at night near a large, blank public wall, having earlier placed an aerosol can, or an open pot of paint with a brush attached, in an ostentatious position nearby.

The first teenager to walk past this and not stop, would surely be a worthy recipient of a leaving-Dublin-the-way-you found it award.

NOT THAT GRAFFITI is a bad thing, per se. Banksy is welcome to have a go at my wall any time he likes. But there’s the rub behind the coy phrase “making a difference”. It’s only the better class of difference-making we want. And not everyone is a Banksy or an Imelda May (one of those actually feted this week).

The point is that, if you can’t make a positive difference, there should be some official encouragement to you for at least not making a negative one. Sure, it would be a lesser competition. One for the also-rans, maybe – a bit like the Europa League. Which indeed, is very much a role model in this respect.

The last-mentioned competition came to Dublin recently for the first time, and it should have been a big thing. Then two Portuguese teams that nobody here knew or cared anything about qualified for the final. So it didn’t make a difference to the city, not in the Imelda May sense anyway. In fact it was a non-event even before the quality of the football bored the pants off any neutral spectators.

But at least the Porto and Braga fans came and went peacefully and nobody could accuse of them leaving the place worse than it was before. Thus they would get the main prize in the sports section of my leaving Dublin-the-way-you-found-it awards 2011.

This in turn might be harsh on the 529 fans who heroically attended last weekend’s Wales v Northern Ireland match at the same stadium, despite local indifference levels that made the Europa final look in retrospect like an event. Maybe they could be given be a separate jurors’ award, for “special achievement”, or something.

* fmcnally@irishtimes.com