Listening to Gerry Ryan on the radio during the big freeze when I was home at xmas mad me realise how out of touch the media are with reality and how they perpetrate their myths on to the Irish people with what I call the Joe Duffy Syndrome. Basically - moaning for no reason. Gerry was saying how in New York they have the streets and pavements cleared in no time. Here's the facts, Manhattan is 13 miles long and three miles wide and is home to 4 million people. Of course they can, the tax revenue is huge with about 80 people living on each 100 feet or so of street. So everyone has to pay for about 2 feet of road clearance. Next up - the law in Manhattan states that every property owner has to clean the pavement in front of their property or face a big fine. In Ireland you were told you could be sued for doing that, helpful. If Gerry had taken a walk out to Queens on the outskirts of the greater New York area he would have had plenty opportunities to slip on the pavement out there where the population is far lower and many stretches are left untreated.

If the media had encouraged people to clean their paths and lets say 50% of the paths were cleaned that would half the chances of elderly people slipping, good reduction. Around my mothers area it was like OAP tetris, many people got hurt. Some quite seriously. Well done RTE. Pass the buck and shift the blame as an operating philosophy.