Steamed up over equine urine

This ain't no Watergate folks, not that Watergate was much shakes either. The break-in at the offices of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland and the missing horse urine sample don't amount to . . . well, a vial of urine. The breathless reporting, the acres of newsprint, all over what?

Yes, if it is the case that someone deliberately doped or hyped-up a horse (or whatever you have to do to a horse to get it to jump over wooden poles) and then managed to steal a urine sample (by the way, how do they get a horse to provide a urine sample?) and, in the process of a cover-up someone breaks into the offices of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland, it's vaguely entertaining.

But it is no big deal, nothing of any consequence turns on it, it will harm nobody, it matters not an iota. So let's agree, this is entertainment folks, it's not news.

If the gold medal for horse-jumping had been put in its proper perspective in the first instance, there might have been far less of a fuss over all this. How horse-jumping ever became an Olympic sport is a curious thing.

How the elite of a few elite countries persuaded the International Olympic Committee to include this in the Olympics and award medals on a par with, say, winning the 100 metres or 1,500 metres is quite beyond me.

That anyone should have thought that Cian O'Connor's medal was of the same value as Ronnie Delaney's gold from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, when he won the 1,500 metres, is astonishing.

The medal for horse-jumping should have been regarded as of less consequence than winning the Eurovision Song Contest and, anyway, the medal should have been awarded to the horse, not the rider who the horse had to carry around on his back (it is a "his" isn't it?) while jumping the wooden poles.

I write this not with the intention of disparaging the achievement of Cian O'Connor, nor with the intention of deflating the joy his family had over this success. (I have had a slight acquaintance with his grandfather, Karl Mullen, for whom I have a great admiration, and I also have had a slight acquaintance with his godfather.)

I understand the achievement in persuading a horse to jump such fences, and in training the horse to do so faultlessly, is considerable. But this ain't in the same category of a human being winning the marathon, for instance.

I mentioned at the outset that Watergate was no great shakes either. By this I mean that the journalistic "triumph" in exposing the role of Richard Nixon in the cover-up of the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters during the 1972 presidential election campaign didn't amount to much.

So bloody what, a few head-the-balls connected with the Nixon campaign thought they might find something interesting in the opponent's offices and then everyone lied their heads off when the burglars got caught.

At the very same time, Richard Nixon had ordered the secret and illegal bombing of a sovereign independent state and he did so in defiance of the requirements of the US constitution, that demands congressional approval for a president to wage war on another country. I am referring to the bombing of Cambodia, which caused the slaughter of tens of thousands of people.

Richard Nixon was driven from office because of lies over a minor burglary, while his mass murder of thousands of human beings went ignored. And this is regarded as a journalistic "triumph". Similarly, over the last few days, countless man-hours of journalistic endeavour have been absorbed in this trivial sideshow concerning a horse's urine, while issues of enormous concern remain unexplored.

Take for instance, the RAPID programmes. In 2001, under the National Development Plan, a programme known as RAPID (Revitalising Areas by Planning, Investment and Development) was put in place, supposedly to ensure that priority would be given to 45 disadvantaged areas around the country.

Area implementation teams were established in each of those areas, involving State agency personnel, local organisations, and community groups.

The commitment was for £1 billion and it was promised this investment would be "front-loaded" over the following three years.

Now, given the economic success that the country as a whole had enjoyed during the previous decade and the benefits that accrued to so many as a consequence, the implementation of the RAPID schemes might be thought of as of major importance.

In the event, very little has been done and the huge enthusiasm generated in those 45 areas by the teams that drew up regeneration plans has been frustrated.

You would have thought this might feature prominently in the concerns and focus of us in the media.

Not a bit of it. Instead, there are frenzied pursuits of a horse's urine.