Paddys cross sometimes, sometimes not

'Nurses up in arms at shoddy treatment by National Lottery'.
Nurses across the nation had the mercury boiling in their thermometers at their perceived slighting in the recently launched TV advertising campaign for the new Millionaires Lottery, which will cost €20 a ticket and be limited to only 300,000 tickets. (See the actual TV advert on http://www.newbornmillionaires.ie/ )In the expensive TV ad campaign, a covey of innocent-looking, younger nurses is shown dancing suggestively to a tongue-in-cheek C&W song in a public maternity ward, wearing retro-white uniforms and caps, while slavishly sucking up to a fat, wealthy, adult male patient, playing the new-born baby millionaire. The unfortunate skit resembles a cross between a Benny Hill-esque soft-porn movie and a drawing of the winning tickets for the 1963 Irish Hospital Sweepstakes.'I haven't felt so embarrassed for my profession since that 'Carry on Nurse' picture was shown in the Adelphi in 1968' said Molly Maloney, a nurse manager at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. It just goes to show how much our nursing degrees and professional code of conduct is valued in Lottery HQ. They must have been speaking to someone in the HSE. Next thing you know, they will be showing us doing the bed-pan boogie in A&E, to a tune from Riverdance. I am going to call on my fellow nurses to boycott the Lotto until they withdraw that denigrating advert. Bunch of chauvinist pricks. They ever going to show male nurses in that ad? I doubt it! How equal an opportunity would that be?’A spokesperson for the RMA (Retired Matrons Association) who wished to remain anonymous said 'Those Nurses were a disgrace. That sort of thing gives nursing a bad name. That degree of sucking up to a patient would have been reserved for Priests, Bishops, Hilton Edwards, Gay Byrne and the wives of senior politicians in our day. The cheek, imagine where that sort of behaviour would lead? Why it's no wonder our dear consultants cannot get a private bed when they need one for a real emergency like swollen ankles or a botoxomy.'The Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association chairman, Liam Doran was fit to be put in a straitjacket, saying his hands were tied, but he would like to see how health Minister Mary Harney would react if she and her cabinet colleagues were shown in a TV advert, goo-ing and gaa-ing around their fat new Taoiseach in the manner the nurses did over the newly-minted millionaire. 'I’m delighted they didn't cast any of my psychiatric nurses in that advert, or the whole place would be shut before you could say Kent Station Cork'.A Senior Secretary in Prof. Brendan Drum’s HSE HQ thought the nurses looked very comely, hmmm, very comely indeed, in their nice tight uniforms, but he wouldn't be drawn any further on the matter, saying he couldn't comment, on or off the record as his job might be on the line. A spokeswoman for the Irish Patients Association pointed out that 'those little nurses hats are a source of MRSA and those blue cardigans don't come with shoulder pads, they shrink and pill too easy and anyway they were probably made by sweat-shops in Burma and only contributed to perpetuating poverty in the third world.' Pavee Point's spokesperson was not available for comment as he was attending the first annual Lakota Sioux International Casino Franchise Convention at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Connecticut. However he later issued a press release, bemoaning the lack of a Travelling Nurse or even a token Nigerian, Roma or Phillipino in the cast of the Millionaires Lottery ad and they would be raising it in the Dail, if they ever got past security.Meantime the National Lottery said they had no comment to make. However when pressed, their spokesman Kip Delally, went on to point out that the National Lottery intended to call a halt once and for all and curb Clubs and Charities raising funds for themselves, by running illegal €20-a-ticket limited raffles. 'Those cute feckers are trying to circumvent the perfect political patronage system we have built in partnership with FF and the PD's, where TD's get to dole out Lotto funding for their pet parish projects, like it was their own money'.

He then went on to add. 'We will beat those Clubs at their own game. There won't be a single Euro left in their members’ pockets by the time we are finished with them...and never you mind the nurses, we fairly showed them the last time they went on strike. Not a red cent will they get for appearing on our advert. They should be happy we let them on the TV at all. FYI

The Irish National Lottery sales during 2006 were €679.1 million, up some 10.2% on 2005. A total of €362.1 million was distributed as cash prizes. Operating costs in 2006 represented 14.6% of sales, or €99 million, which includes €42.1 million paid to retail agents in commission and bonuses.Does anyone really know where the balance of €118 million went to? That’s an awful lot of pork and a hell of a lot of pocket votes! No wonder we don't have a proper stadium, school gymnasium or 50 metre pool in any county. And now the Lotto is adding yet another game to their offering, one that directly competes with Club, Charity and other Association fund-raising? The life (and the money) is being sucked out of local communities with every keystroke of this government's term.

I dunno guys.... Down with that sort of thing!***************************************More info on Lotto Ireland?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lottery_(Ireland) and http://www.lotto.ie/