TERAPROOF:User:johntynanDate:31/07/2012Time:22:17:39Edition:01/08/2012ExaminerLiveXX0108Page:

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XX1 - V2

FEATURE 15

Irish Examiner
Wednesday 01.08.2012

Why no Irish need apply

Next season Ill just
say sorry, were full

S a Dubliner living in Australia,

Thomas Dunne
did not expect he
would ban Irish
people from his hostel, but he has,
six years after opening it in north
Queensland.
This year was not the first time
Mr Dunne had trouble with the
Irish, but when two young men
broke windows, a table and chairs,
his decision was final.
The two men were brought to
court and fined, since when, Mr
Dunne has announced he doesnt
welcome Irish backpackers to his
Main Street Backpackers hostel.
Mr Dunne, from Raheny in north
Dublin, moved to Australia in 1986
even though he had a job in hospitality in Ireland.
I remember going up to my boss
at the Skylon Hotel, at the time,
and asking for a reference for the
Australian Embassy, and he said to
me What do you want to go there
for? Youve got a great job here,
Mr Dunne says.
With his wife Audrey, (who had
been working in a delicatessen in
Phibsboro), Mr Dunne moved to
Sydney.
After years working as a general
manager in restaurants and private
clubs around Sydney and New
South Wales, in 2006 the Dunnes
bought the Palace Hotel bar and
hostel in Proserpine, near tropical
Airlie Beach on the Queensland
coast.
Initially, they were happy to welcome young, idealistic Irish people
trodding the same path they had.
The hostel is set up to help backpackers who want to pursue a second-year working holiday visa in
Australia. It is, Mr Dunne says, a
working hostel which operates
alongside their Irish bar, ODuinns.
The point of what we do is we
organise the work for these people
and, after 12 weeks, they get a second-year visa. Once the season
starts, Ive to get 30 people in, in
May.
I ring up the Harvest Trail line
and Ill say I need 30 people and
they put it on their website.
Mr Dunne says that once this notice is posted, he can expect 100
calls in the first two hours from
backpackers around Australia chasing the golden ticket that will allow
them to stay on and live in the Antipodes.
Its cut-throat to get the jobs, he
says. These jobs allow people on a

When the
Dunnes first
set up their
hostel in Oz,
the visiting
Irish gave them
no problems,
but now
theyre a
liability, says
Danielle
McGrane
one-year working holiday visa to
extend it for another year, provided they work a certain amount of
time doing rural work, such as
fruit picking, or farm labouring.
The Irish people dont just
rock in. If we ring this harvest
line, we might get 10 that are
Irish, you might get none. We
take the first 30 that are close by.
But if we get any Irish calling us
for the next season, Ill just say
sorry were full, he says.
The two lads who caused the
damage this year, from Dublin,
came at the start of the fruit-picking season.
For the last couple of years, my
wife and I actually discussed
whether or not well give the
Irish another chance, he says.
This year, at the start of the season, the Dunnes had eight Irish
people living in the hostel, signed
up to go working in local farms.
But in a short space of time,
members of this Irish group
proved themselves irresponsible
and caused criminal damage.
Some young Irish men who
broke items at the hostel even sent

Main picture: ODuinns Pub and

hostel; Thomas Dunne (picture
courtesy of the Whitsunday Coast
Guardian newspaper, Proserpine,);
inset, Thomas and his wife Audrey.
Top: chairs broken at the hostel;
above, the damaged done to a car
lent to one of the back-packers.

abusive text messages to Mr

Dunne and his family after they
had left.
All they seemed to want to do
was get as much drugs as they
could, followed by drink. These
guys werent employable. One of
them said he had started an apprenticeship in Dublin and hadnt
even finished that.
Another one told me he
couldnt go back to Dublin, because he had an impending court
case there, too.
The Irish men were fined $90
each by a local court, and were also ordered to pay Mr Dunne $410
each in restitution.
I wont see any of that money,
Mr Dunne says. They even got
off lightly with that amount. I
posted their letters, from the
court, home to Dublin about two
weeks ago, so it will be interesting
to see if their mammies do anything about it.
While all this was happening, a
broader story was breaking in
Australia.
Refugees, or boat people as
they are known, trying to come
to Australia from various countries, drowned in their attempts to
find a new life.
All these people died around
the same time I had this going on
and I just kept thinking why are
we letting these people drown,
why arent they getting a chance.
Instead, were giving these people

a chance who are

here a few weeks
and theyre smashing
things up, Mr Dunne
says.
Another two Irish lads
were staying with me at the same
time. The farm they were working on didnt want them after two
days, but those lads told me they
had been working hard.
So I stuck my neck out for
them and got in touch with the
farm. But the farm emailed me
back another story and said that
they werent pulling their weight,
they were lazy and talked too
much.
Now theyve told me they
wont take any more from the UK
or Ireland.
Mr Dunne is bemused at their
behaviour, when he considers the
opportunities they are being given: Theyre getting a second-year
visa, theyre obviously not qualified to get it any other way, he
says.
The last Irish person out of
that group was an Irish nurse. We
decided to let her stay, as she
hadnt caused any trouble and was
just a few weeks away from completing her work to get her visa.
On her last night, she broke our
rules and had people back to the
hostel.
We dont allow anyone back
who isnt staying here, its hostel
rules and it dates back to 2009,

Our most valuable

national resources

countrys greatest
wealth is its people and
Ireland has been blessed
with fantastic individuals who symbolise the good in being Irish.
Maeve Binchy, who has died aged
72, was one of our national treasures. But who else should be
awarded that title?

MAEVE BINCHY
We are told that we Irish are a nation of storytellers and no-one embodied this trait more than the
wonderfully warm and witty
Binchy. At Dalkeys much-loved
Book Festival each June, she would
hold court in Finnegans pub, in the
village, on a Sunday morning,
where she might read from a new
work and spin tales from her own
life, while her adoring audience
munched on smoked salmon on
brown bread and sipped bucks fizz.
Anyone who witnessed the writer
in full conversational flow couldnt
but realise that she was a national
treasure.

IMELDA MAY
Have you met anyone who dislikes
Imelda May? Her natural effervescence and upbeat personality are the
obvious things to like. But when
May talks, you realise she is a young
woman comfortable in her own
skin, who knows exactly who she is,
who loves her family, and is hugely
proud of them and of her inner-city
Dublin background.
May has charm and grace, and
when she sings she touches your
very soul. Gay Byrne said of her, on
the Late Late Show 50th anniversary
special, that he had never known
anyone whom the country seemed
to fall in love with so completely
and so quickly.

OLIVIA OLEARY
Journalist and broadcaster Olivia
OLearys laser-sharp wit, and in-

Writer Maeve
Binchys death has
prompted
consideration of
notables who
might be described
as our national
treasures, says
Barbara Scully
sightful musings on the countrys
politicians and their doings, make
her weekly radio column on RT
Drivetime essential listening.
OLeary effortlessly taps into the
zeitgeist and articulates beautifully
thoughts the rest of us had not yet
fully understood we were having.
Her early days hosting current affairs prime-time shows revealed
her incredible intellect and her
political insight, traits which have
been matched by few since.
Politicians did not face interviews with Ms OLeary lightly.
On a panel discussion on the Late
Late Show in Jan 2011, OLeary
proposed that children should
spend their first year in secondary
school learning how to think. She
said Its the big lack in our education system here ... we have
never been taught how to think ...
As a result, our ability to debate,
to decide on the sort of values we
share, is something we dont
have.

JOHN LONERGAN
Former governor of Mountjoy
Prison, John Lonergan comes
equipped with a ready smile and
soft Tipperary accent and is the
embodiment of compassion. During his 40 years or so working in

when a
staff
member
was hit over
the head with a
bottle by someone
who wasnt staying here.
Not only that, but she had the
use of a car to herself . When I
got the car back, it was covered in
goon [cheap cask wine] boxes and
glasses, and the plastic panel on
the inside of the door was ripped
off.
Mr Dunne says its only in the
last three years that the hostel has
been having problems with people
causing damage.
It hasnt always been like this.
We always had problems with
Irish and English lads staying up
late drinking, but its only in the
last three years where weve
steadily been having problems
with damage.
I just read recently that 40% of
the under-25s in Ireland are unemployed. And thats apparently
official figures, its probably more,
and when you see the Government is doing nothing for them,
bailing out banks and developers
and doing nothing for the ordinary people ... it seems the Governments strategy of growth is for
people to emigrate to get
thousands of people overseas and
out of their hair, he says.
Plenty of highly skilled Irish
people are leaving, and getting on

well. But I think what is happening

is theres a lot of people with no
skills and no hope in Ireland and
theyre coming over here, too, and
its unfortunate, because weve had a
few land at our door.
Mr Dunne says Australian government training schemes for young
people have been a success and he
suggests this is a better idea for
growing the country and an example the Irish could follow.
If they [the Irish Government]
keep taxing people, they just wont
have any more money to spend. My
daughter works full-time here now
and she did a school-based apprenticeship. From the age of 15, she
worked one day behind the bar, got
all her courses, and a tutor came out
to her once a month.
With the school-based apprenticeship, we got a government grant.
Its a good system the government
has set up here. Maybe the Irish
Government should consider doing
something similar, he says.
Mr Dunne knows other bars and
hostels would like to ban the Irish,
too, for bad behaviour, but will
keep their silence.
They think it will be bad for
business, so theyre afraid to say anything, he says.
But more and more people are
contacting me and saying they agree
with me and that it was about time
someone said something.
All thats left for Mr Dunne now
is to maintain his stance.

SEN MONCRIEFF
ON

wednesday

Are you ready for Celtic

Tiger 2.0 - in Barryroe?
Clockwise, from top: Author and raconteur Maeve Binchy, who died
this week; singer Imelda May; current affairs broadcaster Olivia
OLeary; former prison governor John Lonergan; broadcaster John
Bowman; former President Mary McAleese.
the prison service, he spoke endlessly about how prisons are full
of broken people. He worked
tirelessly to persuade us of the
need for prison reform, always
coming from a place of empathy
and humanity. He was a constant
voice for the socially disadvantaged, the mentally ill and the
lost, who often end up incarcerated. Our broken little country
needs more voices like John Lonergans.

MARY MCALEESE
Mary McAleese should have had
an impossible task when she took
over the presidency from Mary
Robinson in 1997. Robinson,
who had been elected on a tide of
goodwill and enthusiasm, and
who exhorted us all to dance with
her in Eireann and burn a light in
the window of the Aras, was a
hard act to follow. But President
McAleese began slowly and quietly, working away on her theme of
building bridges. Who could have
dreamed that, by the end of her
second term in office, she would
have been hosting Queen Elizabeth on a state visit to this republic?
We now know that both the
former president and her husband,

Martin, worked tirelessly and

courageously creating links with
loyalist communities in the North.
It was, therefore, right and proper
that this work culminated in the
historic royal visit last year. History will surely record her presidency as one of the most important
in the history of this State.

JOHN BOWMAN
The elder statesman of Irish current affairs broadcasting, its hard
not to miss Bowmans voice and
intelligent moderation of programmes such as Questions and
Answers on RT television. As an
historian, he brought a certain
gravitas to such programmes and
was able to place current political
activity into a broader context.
Although he himself possibly saw
his role in simpler terms, having
once remarked the broadcaster in
a programme like Questions and
Answers is the gatekeeper against
bullshit and nonsense. As for
Bowmans handling of live general
election coverage, in the days before computer-generated graphics
and computations well, thats
just the stuff of legend.
To add your contenders to the
list, see the Irish Examiner page on
Facebook

F theres anyone with an

ounce of gumption living in
Munster they should already
be organising the importation of
crate-loads of Stetsons and cowboys boots. The OReillys God
bless em say theyve found a
viable oil field close to the parish
of Barryroe in County Cork: and
this time the nation should rise as
one and make sure that the assorted whingers and doom-sayers and
rabid lefties dont interfere with
the
party.
Second chances dont come
along too often, but now one has
been dropped, fresh and still flapping, into the empty bowls of the
Irish nation. Because this find
doesnt just give us security of
supply or billions in tax dollars,
but a chance to create Celtic
Tiger 2.0 and this time we can
get it right.
Why did the Celtic Tiger go
wrong the last time? Even by typing those words I have to force
my eyeballs not to roll back into
my head. The honest answer is:
who cares? During the last boom
we (ie middle-class people) all
partied. And we want to party
some more. The last time we
waited too long that was the
problem. And when we finally hit
our stride all that Lehman Brothers nonsense happened. And we
can hardly be blamed for that.
First things first: Barryroe has to
get ready for the 21st century.
According to one website, the
parish rates 4.3 out of 5 for quality of life mostly because its
quiet and has a good community

spirit and all that Waltons-style rubbish. Sod that: in preparation for the
new age, the Government should
immediately act to stimulate a
building programme of vulgar
ranch-style houses, lap-dancing
clubs, Starbucks outlets and restaurants with French names which
serve tiny cubes of pork for 200
each. If any bearded sandal-wearers
travel down from Ranelagh to
object, they should be immediately
and ruthlessly cut down and their
bones interred in the foundations of
the massive statute of Tony OReilly
which will be constructed in the
centre of the new Barryroe High
Street. He will be portrayed as a
muscular and visionary creature,
more Greek God than man, staring
dreamily out to sea.
Meanwhile, in a radical re-design
of our system of governance, Enda
should also announce that to go
along with the legislative, executive
and judicial branches, one more will
be added: the Entrepreneurial.
Headed up, naturally, by AJ himself, it will consist of a series of
Business Elders, all of whom are
Irish Squillionaires and who will
travel to Dublin on a monthly basis
from their tax havens to remind our
elected politician that they have
loads of money and know how to
fix the country.
After all, running a company is
the same as country, isnt it? By
even the most conservative estimates
we should get a decade of four holidays and new car every year out of
this. Until theres another meltdown
and we start calling for all these
business types to be sent to jail.