Áilín Quinlan: Dáil outbursts just a reflection of our angry and rude society

This might sound a bit OTT, but I’m getting a bit scared at the way so many individuals appear to feel so incredibly entitled to blame other people for their own bad behaviour.

I’m going to keep this simple.

The chaos and fracas in the Dáil last week; the chauvinism, the ignorant behaviour, and the sheer draw-dropping obnoxiousness of people we elected left many of us with our mouths open.

Appalling disrespect was shown to the new Ceann Comhairle, Verona Murphy. She was shouted at, ignored, dismissed.

Then she was blamed.

The Ceann Comhairle was too quiet. She was too polite. Didn’t show enough authority. Failed to shut things down fast enough

Tell me this: Why is Verona Murphy to blame for the outrageously bullying, shameful, hugely embarrassing behaviour of some of the TDs?

What was the woman supposed to do? Pull a Glock out of her pocket and point it at them?

The Dáil is not the OK Corral, whatever some TDs might seem to think.

Tell me something else: If it was, say, a Vincent Murphy instead of a Verona Murphy, would those TDs have even started behaving the way they did?

There is a strong culture of chauvinism and misogyny in Irish society; we know that. Last week that culture appeared to me to rear its head and roared in our Dáil chamber.

The kind of unruly behaviour that has become an international byword for the streets of our capital was ably demonstrated for all to see in Dáil Éireann.

Here’s the thing: what we all know, but what nobody really wants to admit, is that the behaviour in the Dáil is a reflection of the rampant effrontery and disrespect in society now.

One older person said something that I just cannot put out of my mind.

Courtesy, she commented, is now considered to be the result of a lack of education and a weak character.

I was horrified. Is it true?

There is an attitude of rudeness, entitlement and effrontery that we have never seen before in Irish society. It is unprecedented. And it shows everywhere. People have become increasingly angry, aggressive, unpleasant and rude.

A few thoughts to ponder.

Many housing estates – both mature and new projects - are now experiencing all kinds of anti-social behaviour such as vandalism and aggression.

And yet there are no real or effective sanctions for this behaviour.

Nobody seems to be able to do anything about the juvenile offenders who cause so much trouble and stress for decent, ordinary people.

Solicitors, victims and gardaí – whose standing and status is now being further diminished by the introduction of a navy baseball cap instead of the traditional dignified garda hat - all know this.

And so, alas, do the juvenile offenders.

There are ugly antics on public transport and in public buildings. Frightening reports from bus-drivers and train staff. But it’s not just juvenile offenders. Plenty of fully-grown adults as well as young people have lost the run of themselves and forgotten about courtesy and respect to others.

Look at the disgusting abuse often being meted out to nurses, teachers and gardaí, for example.

A garda source told me that the abuse gardaí routinely receive, even when they merely request motorists to reduce their speed, can be nothing short of hair-raising.

A short exchange between a retail assistant and myself in a shop last weekend was too much for the impatient mother who strode up behind us.

Not bothering to wait, nor even to say “excuse me”, this woman, with two young children looking on, rudely barked at the store employee, demanding whether there was any bread to be had.

I looked. There was bread all around us. I watched as the poor shop assistant jumped and scuttled to assist this ‘Karen’.

People stare into their phones as they barge straight into you on a footpath. If you protest, they will self-righteously blame and shame you for not looking.

Have you noticed how many younger people staffing cash registers no longer say please when they tell you how much your shopping costs?

Nor, often, do they bother to thank you when you hand them the money and finish off the transaction.

I re-watched Pulp Fiction recently, and, for the first time, was struck by a scene in which John Travolta and Uma Thurman order food in a restaurant without ever saying please or thank-you, or even properly acknowledging the waiter.

That was back in 1994, in the USA.

Now, three decades on, we’re like that.

Interestingly, while we can’t directly link the massive effect of the time people are spending on screens to the noticeable absence of courtesy in our daily lives today, there is mounting evidence of a link between a regular use of devices and social media from early childhood and issues such as lack of poor eye-contact, empathy, aggression, weak personal and verbal interactions, sleep deprivation, frustration, poor health, depression, and poor academic performance. To name but a few.

We could speculate, as bystanders, about a link between screens and the hallmarks of modern interaction: a huge sense of entitlement, a severe lack of courtesy, and instant aggression.

But anyway, even though there is all this talk and all this concern about the effect of devices and social media on everybody, what do we keep doing?

We continue to not interact with our children.

We continue to keep handing them devices.

I was waiting in my car for a red traffic light to turn green in a Cork town a few days ago.

A young woman walked by, talking into a mobile phone and pushing a buggy. In the buggy was a child of about two. The little girl was tightly gripping the edges of a pink iPad with both hands and goggling at it with an intensity that took my breath away.

This little girl was not looking around her at passers-by, the trees, the sky, the clouds, the cars, the road, or the traffic lights.

The national helpline Parentline has been concerned about the over-use by children of devices for years. Recently, it reported an increasing number of parents seeking help in dealing with children viewing pornography. Calls for advice regarding social media, it warned, had increased significantly last year.

Why is nobody looking at the huge big trumpeting elephant in the room?

We’re literally leaving our children to their own devices, and ignoring the strong price that will have to be paid - until the bill comes due.