The Irish Medical Council has 25 members. 12 of these are elected by their peers from the Irish Medical Profession; they are elected doctors, in other words. The other 13, the majority, are appointed by the government; they are non-elected lay people with government affiliations. The 12 doctor-appointed members tend to be conservatives who canvassed their conservative colleagues for votes to be elected in the first place.

The government will not talk with farmers protesting about the taxes on fuel. Instead, they try to send the army in against them. The army, to their lasting credit, shows considerable reluctance to move against their own people. So what does the government do next? They pepper-spray the protesting farmers. They won't talk with them; they pepper-spray them instead. Pepper-spray is extremely painful and can potentially cause permanent eye damage. This is disastrous. All the gov