http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1110/1224283020751.html
Pyramid scheme would ramp up North's public works
NEWTON EMERSON
Wed, Nov 10, 2010
NEWTON'S OPTIC: AS STORMONT has refused to take charge of welfare policy, it will have no choice but to implement Tory plans to make the long-term unemployed work for their benefits.
Outdoor relief does of course have a long history in Ireland, from Famine roads to Cork- bound aircraft. However, it will be difficult to occupy idle hands in Northern Ireland today.
The Tories suggest picking up litter but we have already forced Southern councils to take their rubbish back. The Tories also suggest gardening as a punitive form of labour, apparently unaware that Protestants think gardening is the ultimate form of leisure.
All the other demeaning tasks in Northern Ireland are already performed by cheerful Brazilians at wages even the dole won’t undercut. That just leaves made-up jobs in pointless public work schemes.
This has its own unique history north of the Border. During the Great Depression, a vast army of unemployed men was drafted to build an enormous dry-stone wall around the Mournes, for no better reason than to stop sheep peeing in Belfast’s reservoirs. Yet the Mourne Wall has since become a major tourist attraction, complementing Northern Ireland’s diverse range of other wall-based tourist attractions. What can we learn from this fascinating case?
It would seem that a successful “workfare” programme can be based on jobs that nobody else would do or even consider necessary, as long as it leaves behind an enormous stone structure capable of impressing future generations.
One obvious candidate would be completing the long-delayed Giant’s Causeway. A far higher wall around Derry might also be appreciated by the rest of the world.
However, the skills required for this type of work can no longer be found among the long- term unemployed, who have sadly degenerated to a state of almost complete uselessness. Even building the Mourne Wall involved balancing stones carefully on top of each other, which is beyond the ability of most modern welfare claimants.
So what is required is an enormous stone structure that can never fall over, no matter how carelessly it is assembled. The only shape to fulfil this requirement is a pyramid.
With 20,000 long-term unemployed across Northern Ireland a truly great pyramid could be constructed, presumably in Toome.
Similar projects have been highly successful in Egypt, although debate still rages over whether they involved “slave labour”.
Some experts believe that while Egyptian pyramid builders were conscripted they were also fed, housed and paid an allowance. However, as an angry papyrus pointed out at the time, “Sun Cat Vulture Foot”.
A more pressing issue in Northern Ireland would be the need to have four sides, which is two more than Stormont is used to. Pyramids must also eventually come to a point, which Stormont is not used to either.
Most of the practical problems in building a pyramid are managed using an earthen ramp. This will have to be outsourced to the private sector as it means calculating angles using a piece of string and a stick.
However, it will allow everyone to say the project is “ramping up”, which Stormont is very used to indeed.
Once the pyramid is under way we can move on to Tory plans to force young people off housing benefit – or mummification, as I believe it is likely to be called.
© 2010 The Irish Times
Pyramid scheme would ramp up North's public works
NEWTON EMERSON
Wed, Nov 10, 2010
NEWTON'S OPTIC: AS STORMONT has refused to take charge of welfare policy, it will have no choice but to implement Tory plans to make the long-term unemployed work for their benefits.
Outdoor relief does of course have a long history in Ireland, from Famine roads to Cork- bound aircraft. However, it will be difficult to occupy idle hands in Northern Ireland today.
The Tories suggest picking up litter but we have already forced Southern councils to take their rubbish back. The Tories also suggest gardening as a punitive form of labour, apparently unaware that Protestants think gardening is the ultimate form of leisure.
All the other demeaning tasks in Northern Ireland are already performed by cheerful Brazilians at wages even the dole won’t undercut. That just leaves made-up jobs in pointless public work schemes.
This has its own unique history north of the Border. During the Great Depression, a vast army of unemployed men was drafted to build an enormous dry-stone wall around the Mournes, for no better reason than to stop sheep peeing in Belfast’s reservoirs. Yet the Mourne Wall has since become a major tourist attraction, complementing Northern Ireland’s diverse range of other wall-based tourist attractions. What can we learn from this fascinating case?
It would seem that a successful “workfare” programme can be based on jobs that nobody else would do or even consider necessary, as long as it leaves behind an enormous stone structure capable of impressing future generations.
One obvious candidate would be completing the long-delayed Giant’s Causeway. A far higher wall around Derry might also be appreciated by the rest of the world.
However, the skills required for this type of work can no longer be found among the long- term unemployed, who have sadly degenerated to a state of almost complete uselessness. Even building the Mourne Wall involved balancing stones carefully on top of each other, which is beyond the ability of most modern welfare claimants.
So what is required is an enormous stone structure that can never fall over, no matter how carelessly it is assembled. The only shape to fulfil this requirement is a pyramid.
With 20,000 long-term unemployed across Northern Ireland a truly great pyramid could be constructed, presumably in Toome.
Similar projects have been highly successful in Egypt, although debate still rages over whether they involved “slave labour”.
Some experts believe that while Egyptian pyramid builders were conscripted they were also fed, housed and paid an allowance. However, as an angry papyrus pointed out at the time, “Sun Cat Vulture Foot”.
A more pressing issue in Northern Ireland would be the need to have four sides, which is two more than Stormont is used to. Pyramids must also eventually come to a point, which Stormont is not used to either.
Most of the practical problems in building a pyramid are managed using an earthen ramp. This will have to be outsourced to the private sector as it means calculating angles using a piece of string and a stick.
However, it will allow everyone to say the project is “ramping up”, which Stormont is very used to indeed.
Once the pyramid is under way we can move on to Tory plans to force young people off housing benefit – or mummification, as I believe it is likely to be called.
© 2010 The Irish Times
, Yes that was what it was built for but every now a then just for posterity's sake i piss in the 'Shafties' (Belfast residents) drinking water. 
