This being July, you have -- no doubt -- been wondering what government agencies plan to do about Ireland's primary crop: ragwort.

Rest assured: they have established a National Task Force to examine ways of liaising with similarly created task forces in the National Roads Authority, Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Environment and Local Government, the Department of Justice, and the Department of The Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and The Islands.

The National Task Force was first established in 1993, when control of noxious weeds was still a matter for enforcement by An Garda Siochana. Well, the last prosecution for growing ragwort had actually occurred in 1943, when a battalion of German paratroopers had been found skulking in an illegal ragwort plantation outside Enfield. And so, in direct response, control of ragwort was shifted from An Garda Siochana to the Department of Agriculture, finally taking effect (thanks to the observations of various departmental sub-committees) some 50 years later.

As you can imagine, this mad, impetuous transfer caused a major disruption to the work of the various Ragwort Liaison Task Forces. A Special Emergency Responsibility Transference Task Force, consisting of an elite commando of civil servants, was therefore assembled to deal with the crisis. These were men and women who did not know the meaning of pain. Their meetings could last several years. They each went into action with a special molar-cavity, in which was secreted a file -- no, not a phial, a file -- which could slay a hundred taxpayers in single nay-saying morning (otherwise known to the public service as an orgasm).

This Special Emergency Responsibility Transference Task Force was given the job of examining the long-term consequences of transferring ragwort control from the Department of Justice to Agriculture, especially its impact upon the many other liaison teams and their index-linked pensions, maternity leave, annual leave, Christmas bonuses, and uncertificated sick leave. Seldom in the history of government has such undaunted bravery been seen, and in the field. Some compared it with the Entebbe Raid, others to the Dambusters' 'Operation Gomorrah', while some said it was actually quite like 'Kelly's Heroes'.

At this point, there were objections. The Entebbe Raid was a real operation to free hostages by the Israelis. Operation Gomorrah was a genuine RAF bombing attack on the German hydo-electric power system. But 'Kelly's Heroes' was just a film, and therefore, not a fair comparison. This was a matter beyond ordinary resolution, so a Special Comparison Task Force was formed to compare comparisons. After a hectic 18 months of comparing, the Task Force ruled that the gallantry of the Special Emergency Responsibility Transference Task Force was so exceptional that comparisons of any kind were odious, and the only proper reward was for all the members of both Task Forces to be promoted by an average of 1.3 grades, rising to 2.3 grades for Task Force secretary-generals (grades IIIa and upwards).

A Special Pay Task Force was then tasked with analysing the financial consequences for civil service department heads who had NOT served on any of the ragwort-related committees. It was found that they had, both de juro and de facto, been discriminated against: one head, a wheelchair-bound lady of Chinese descent, of Mormon practice and of Sapphic orientation, was found to have been the victim of five further forms of discrimination, over and beyond her exclusion from the ragwort committees. It was agreed that the entire civil service should be compensated pro rata, according to the degrees of discrimination suffered, for not being engaged in the fight against ragwort.

However, a special Task Force then found that the original Task Force members were now being discriminated against. So it was agreed that a special ex-gratia double-payment should be made to them: the first to be paid contemporaneously, the second to be paid shortly before they took retirement, which would then be permanently reflected in their pensions.

So, ragwort-control now the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, under the control of the Ragwort Comptroller--General. But what about docks? Nettles? Let us never forget the gorse family, observed the secretary of the Task Force for examining the role of traditional hand-tools against noxious-weeds: the SAS -- Specialists in Agricultural Spades -- (motto: Hoe! Tares! Whins!)

Another Special Task Force then examined the issue of weeds not falling within the new Comptroller-General's ambit. It ruled that many of these had been discriminated against; and so financial compensation was made available to those unfortunate vegetables at special equality centres across the countryside. And then a civil servant suddenly woke at his desk, looked at the calendar, realised they were half-way through the summer, and they hadn't a break in, well, weeks!

IT was only as the Ragwort Comptroller-General was driving south on the M7 that he saw a vast crop of tall weeds, rank and yellow, covering the motorway banks and central reservation owned and run by the National Roads Authority. Good Lord, he wondered. What on earth can those hideous things be? Do we not have a Government to deal with such infestations? And so tut-tutting, he proceeded on a much-deserved, month-long break to his holiday-home in Kerry.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers