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LONGSTANDING NORTH DUBLIN band Aslan will play the first of two gigs this Friday in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.
The band is marking 30 years since the release of their iconic first album Feel No Shame.
Ahead of the gig, Aslan’s frontman Christy Dignam sat down with TheJournal.ie to discuss their music, the highs and lows of the band throughout the years, contemporary pop music, the upcoming gigs, and his own struggles with his health over the years.
While talking, Dignam used some strong language to lay into contemporary Irish society and how it treats addiction, the ongoing homelessness crisis and the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
“I’ve a thing about the whole addiction thing,” said Dignam.
“If we put a quarter of the money into treating addiction that we put into fighting addiction and putting people in prisons and stuff like that.
If we put a quarter of that money into treating addiction we wouldn’t need to be filling our prisons with people that aren’t criminals, that just have some sort of… they have mental illness you know? Treat it as such.
Dignam also took issue with the Welfare Cheats campaign which ran last year while then-Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar was in office.
“For example, Leo Varadkar came out a while ago talking about people on welfare and all ruining the… bleeding the country dry,” he said.
“This country is not bankrupt cos some bloke is claiming a hundred euros or two hundred euro a week.
This country is bankrupt cos the bankers fucking bankrupted us. But they won’t say that, so what they do is they blame this girl who’s claiming unmarried mothers when she’s really living with her fella, they blame her and our attention goes to her.
“And we’re all fighting among ourselves down here while the bankers are still up here making millions.”
And then… we’ve 4000 kids living on the street and in hotel accommodation. It’s outrageous.
You can read and watch our full interview with Christy tomorrow evening on TheJournal.ie.
Aslan play the Iveagh Gardens this Friday 13 July and next Saturday 21 July. Tickets for Saturday’s show are sold out but tickets remain for this Friday’s gig.
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No health minister will have the guts to say “we need to adjust our spending to focus a little less on women and a little more on men”
But there’s no evidence of it being a deliberate policy to spend more on women than men. Women are more likely to demand services (aka “seek medical help”), which means they are more likely to get them. It’s not very clear what the report’s authors want us to do about it, to be honest.
This is simply a product of our evolutionary past. Men are greater risk takers than women and are also more expendable. For a million years humans lived in small relatively isolated tribes of 100-150 individuals. Men engaged in hunting activities and therefore undertook a higher level of risk than the woman back in the camp. Losing a few men (whilst hunting) would not overly affect the fertility rate of the tribe. Losing a few women would have a much bigger impact (1 man can make 2 women pregnant at the same time but 2 men can’t impregnate the same woman at the same time). I’m not saying that we can’t or shouldn’t do anything about it, but that there will always be a difference in men/women mortality rates.
Chuck
It’s much worse than you can imagine. Virtually one hundred percent of what I call the ” variable dollar” is spent exclusively on women’s Health including screening and diagnostics to the complete exclusion of men. Even when Voluntary Organisations are funded by the HSE to provide support for patients you will find that virtually all of this goes to women’s groups and charities. It might seem a bit over the top but in reality Irish men are literally dying while women survive because of the bias shown by everyone from Policy makers to Health providers. About time we changed and if it’s the same dollar then we need to take half away from those currently receiving it.
I’d love to know if the people who red-thumbed rick’s post disagree with the policy or with him pointing it out
I blame male doctors wanting a bit of b**b, frankly.
if the help is there,,do u know we have no oncology surgeon in this country,,
Men.. Always getting the thin end of the wedge.
Cancer doesn’t care whether you’re rich or poor, male or female, adult or child, what race you are or what religion you follow. It is the COMMON enemy. Everyone should be focusing on that nothing else.
Not necessarily. Cancer isn’t one disease – it’s a whole host of diseases. In order to cure it or prevent it you have to look at who it affects, that includes differentiating between men and women, adults and children, rich and poor. For screening purposes finding out this exact information provides quicker access to diagnostic services for those who are at risk. Saying cancer doesn’t care whether you’re a man or woman or whatever – fine, except it does care. You can’t get ovarian cancer if you’re a man, you can’t get testicular cancer if you’re a woman. Cancers require conditions to grow, and many of those conditions do depend on some of those exact differences that you mention.
Not surprising really, we have cervical and breast cancer awareness advertisments and programmes all the time, as well as a whole host of other programmes aimed at women! Men have a patronising booklet where the man is rigged up as a car with a mechanic on him, as if men are so thick they need to have it broken down to vehicle comparisons! Men suffer from
the effects of HPV as women do through penile and other cancers, and yet men don’t get the HPV vaccine, so that is at least one example of where women are targeted exclusively over men in relation to an earlier point someone made!
Irish men are more likely to get those cancers than Irish women, or women generally?
Woo? :(
Glad I’m not a man !!
Lower socio economic status means you are more likely to get cancer? Loads of rich people get cancer too ya know and eat bad food and have really bad diets. Terrible statement to make.
Regardless of accuracy?
Working classes are more prone to bouts of alcoholism and more than likely are eating cheaper food filled with chemicals and probably GM to boot.
So yeah I could easily believe that richer people who can afford the better things in life are less likely to have cancer.
But they don’t give us the accuracy?
The well off are more likely to attend a doctor earlier as they will have the money to pay.
Danny devito, alcoholic, George best, alcoholic, Shane Mc Gowan, alcoholic. All three examples of very wealthy people and all have bad diets. Just because you can afford a good diet does not mean you are going to go ahead and live on a good diet. The statement is flawed unless there was some accurate worldwide survey done to prove otherwise.
Wealthier – More likely to have private healthcare.
Gyms – More affordable for wealthier people.
Food – Wealthier people less likely to purchase cheapest or “value” food which lacks nutrients and minerals.
Alcoholism is predominately lower social class.
Logic good sir. Use it.
And what study have you done to prove this? All of the above is fine but just having lots money does not give you the DISCIPLINE to actually do all of this. There is one thing money can’t buy and that’s self control.
http://epubs.rcsi.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=psycholrep
Lower Socio-economic groups likely to drink regularly, binge drink, smoke, receive injuries, commit suicide and eat less healthy.
Stephen
The three examples of wealthy people all came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and acquired wealth in later life when it was too late to undo the damage.
Stephen
The three examples of wealthy people you gave all came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and acquired wealth in later life when it was too late to undo the damage.
Michael Douglas is a great example of this. Stage 4 throat cancer & still walking aRound. His immense wealth obviously afforded him the best treatment & meds money can buy.
I wonder if people would shut up about cancer studies and not have it percolating in people’s mind would we have a reduction in cases.Studies are only as hood as the data used in calculating the findings.
Not surprising at all.
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