Cool for Cats
If you do down to the woods today you might bump into a group of teddy bears. But if you take a stroll in the Stormont estate you are likely to trip over "a group of current and past civil servants" who feed the wild cats on a regular basis. So says the Finance Minister Nigel Dodds. Answering a question from the SDLP's Tommy Burns, Mr Dodds can't give a precise figure for the "small feral cat population" in the estate.
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© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~13~RS~)
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Mark
Maybe you and the BBC crew could adopt a cat and give it a home in the basement?
Or maybe each of the parties could take in a cat each?
A cat could feel at home at Stormont, sleeping most of the day and eating the rest :-)
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How about this Mark?:
If you go down to the stormont today
You're sure of a big surprise,
If you go down to the Stormont today
You'd better realise,
Sitting there will be Robbo and Marty,
How things have changed their having a party,
I wonder if today's the day the Shinners will get more concessions
Put together in a few seconds. not bad I thought
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Mark
If current Civil Servants are feeding wild cats they much have too much time on their hands. Maybe they need more work.
Stormontspy
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Not bad trad. (Do you mind if I call you that?)
A lot more poetic than the stuff you usually make up.
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Hi, I'm a former civil servant in a small capacity, and happened to be watching today's Stormont Live programme when Jim Fitzpatrick made mention of a question asked in the Assembly about the wild cat population in Stormont Estate and that civil servants were feeding them!
I can confirm this is in fact true - and can provide a LOT more information!
The "colony" dates from the 1980s and 1990s, and is centred on Craiganlet Buildings off Stoney Road. This has been redeveloped and modernised, and a series of temporary buildings adjoining it replaced...BUT before this was done, in the 1990s and decades before, this building had formerly been the home of CISD, the NI Civil Service computer branch, that was later privatised and the services it provided leased back by the Civil Service. After a year the private company CFM that was formed out of the rump of the privatisation had to move out of Craigantlet Buildings so it could be refurbished. This comopany later became part of ICL here, now Fujitsu.
BUT....in its thirty-year heyday as CISD, Craignatlet Buildings housed a number of big old mainframe computers in a computer suite in the temporary wooden construction annexe to Craigantlet Buildings, and this required very heavyduty airconditioning and ventilation. The Messengers at Craiganlet House/CISD, and a number of staff based there began feeding a small number of wild cats and abandoned kittens...for they helped keep rats and other vermin out of the underfloor airconditioning ducting!!! Over the years a number of employees were reassigned across the road to Castle Buildings rather than go private with CFM, and they continued to feed the cats on their way to and from work! This colony is still well-established in the rough ground and undergrowth around the rear of Craigantlet Buildings facing the DHSS, and has now spread throughout the estate.
On an off-colour note - on very hot summer days, civil servants WALKING from the Stoney Road entrance to the Estate towards Castle Buildings MAY notice a particularly pungent odour arising from the low bushes in a number of flowerbeds beside the pavement running alonside the Castle Buildings carparks. This bed was used for decades by the feline colony as a toilet....
Philip Boyd
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Dont mind at all RJ.
Glad you enjoyed it
see you sneaked that wee comment in at the end. nice work ;)
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