Letters to the Editor 2005-09-29
Letters to the editor
Village is one: Divide between rich and poor
Congratulations on the first year of publication. Your publication has helped to highlight many social problems that otherwise would have been missed. You might consider visiting the cities and towns of Ireland to highlight the forever growing divide between rich and poor, which is not highlighted.
Paul Doran, Dublin 22
DART advertisement: Most drug abusers are employees!
I came across an advertisement on the DART today which baffled me. It was an ad for a drug test kit company, and the headline read: "Most Drug Abusers are Employees!" Naturally, this is true. Most of us have missed more than a couple of Monday mornings on account of alcohol, and with large numbers of people binging on alcohol, there's no doubt that most drug abusers have, indeed, got jobs.
It dawned on me that these aforementioned drug kits might not be designed to detect alcohol which, after all, clears the body within 36 hours. I can only presume, since the ad didn't specify, that the kits test for heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, ecstacy and cannabis. In the case of heroin, it struck me that people addicted to this drug would be better off employed. Indeed, a report published in Glasgow last year confirmed that middle-class heroin addicts with jobs could support their addiction without recourse to theft. It is worth noting that 85 per cent of all muggings and burglaries in the UK are carried out by heroin and/or crack cocaine addicts. Hard-drug addicts need help, but firing them from their jobs is about the least helpful thing you can do.
It would be terribly interesting if our politicians were to be drug tested at random. Cocaine is the drug of choice for the rich, powerful or power-hungry lady and gentleman. A German investigative TV crew found that upwards of 80 per cent of surfaces in the European Parliament building were contaminated by cocaine. Are our MEPs signing in for their pay-checks and then hurrying to the gents to sniff coke from the rim of an Armitage Shanks bowl? Perish the thought! Next you'll be telling me supermodels snort coke!
However, the drug that remains detectable in the body longest is, ironically, the least harmful. Cannabis can be detected for up to a month after use, so that even occasional tokers and those who share company with cannabis smokers and breath second-hand smoke will test positive. Other drugs, taken at weekends, will be undetectable by Monday morning; cannabis will be detectable for a month. With ten per cent of the Irish population smoking cannabis, does it not occur to anybody that this drug-testing mania might be ill thought-out and counterproductive? The only people losing their jobs will be hard drug addicts and harmless cannabis smokers. Can somebody please explain the logic of this to me?
Brendan Hogan, Drogheda
Failure of the Good Friday Agreement - Time for Éire Nua
The series of crisis meetings planned between the British and Irish administrations with loyalist and nationalist leaders over the coming days is simply a smokescreen to cover the failure of the Good Friday Agreement. The current unrest of the loyalists is directly related to the failure of the Agreement in that it promised conflicting outcomes to two different communities. The contradiction at the core of the Agreement is now being exposed, as the upsurge in loyalist violence leads to these crisis meetings. We are now back to a pre-1969 situation in regard to nationalism, where the Provisionals are not only administering British rule, they are determined to stifle any demand for national self-determination. The loyalists on the other hand feel disenfranchised and express it in civil unrest, but in all this confrontation the one document that can resolve the conflict is being ignored.
Éire Nua is the plan for a devolved federal Ireland with a nine-county Ulster, where the Unionists would have a majority. The Irish people, acting as a unit and free from British interference or influence, would resolve the conflict by embracing self-determination in the wake of a British withdrawal. Now is the time for all those leaders genuinely interested in trying to resolve the ongoing conflict to embrace the principles and spirit of Éire Nua. The document recognises the concerns of the unionist population and takes practical steps to assure them that their interests would be protected in a new federal Ireland.
Des Long, Corbally, Limerick
Ireland's maritime future - Stop Irish Ferries
Attempts to introduce new working conditions on Irish ships must be resisted in the interests of safety and national pride. The proposals being advanced by the ferry companies would infringe safety and place the lives of passengers at risk. The owners are trying to introduce longer working hours and to cut back on staff numbers, but it is vital that Irish-owned ships must abide by domestic labour law and observe the highest safety regulations.
This latest move to introduce foreign crews to Irish ships must be resisted because they are less unionised and open to exploitation. There are very serious implications for the health and safety, not only of staff but also for passengers on ferries. It is like Aer Lingus outsourcing to foreign workers. We are seeing the destruction of the Irish merchant marine. It is a sad day when Irish Ferries engage in this type of industrial relations. If the ferry company is allowed to get away with this sort of gunslinger attitude to employees it will be a disaster for the Irish merchant fleet.
As an island we have a proud maritime tradition, but this sort of action by the ferry company has no place in modern industrial relations.
Joe Lynch, Ballinacurra, Weston, Limerick
Response to Dermot Lacey - Bring back rural councils
I agree with Cllr Dermot Lacey in his letter on local government reform (Village, 23 September) that tackling poverty and building communities are best done at local level. Removal of powers from elected members is an affront to democracy. Cllr Lacey mentions 19th century structures: we would be better served if one of those structures, still existed, namely Rural District Councils. Coupled with the Urban District Councils, there would have existed a structure to allow decision-making at the lowest level. Urban District Councils generally survived in different forms and evolved into the current town councils.
The Rural District Councils were largely abolished by the Cumann na nGaedhael government on charges of corruption, yet are echoed to this day in the nationwide Muintir na Tíre community councils. Were these community councils simply given a statutory basis and powers similar to those of English parish councils or Welsh community council (limited though they may be), Ireland's rural, semi-rural and suburban communities would be much empowered and a great step would have been taken towards meaningful reform of local government.
o experience an Irish community council in action, Donabate Parish Council is hosting a public meeting to discuss the planned Portrane Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant on Tuesday 4th October at 8.30pm in Donabate Portrane Community Centre.
Paul Mulville, Donabate, Co Dublin . Information on councils in Britain at the website of the National Association of Local Councils: www.nalc.gov.uk
Question for Martin Manseragh - Irish nation, nations or province?
In his response to John Horan (Village, 23 September) Martin Mansergh refers to the historic Irish nation in terms of "whatever nebulous meaning that may have today". This can only mean that he does not hold a one-nation view of Irish history as I assume he sees no virtue in holding nebulous concepts of any sort.
He has also consistently rejected the two-nations view of Irish history. Thus his attitude appears to be that there is an Irish people but with no obvious national identity or identities. I think a person in his position is obliged to be clear with us on what exactly his view is on this matter. Does he believe that the Irish people are one nation, two nations or maybe no nation? Maybe we are just British provincials that need to be humoured? As all the relevant facts of the matter are as well-known to him as to anyone else I do hope that in any response he will not be in the least nebulous about his position.
Jack Lane, Millstreet, Co Cork
Radio - Saturdays not the same without John Bowman
For many years the enlightened research and reflection of John Bowman has been like early sunshine on winter Saturday mornings. He inspired us, as he trawled the radio archives and celebrated the passing of a special time – a centenary, 25 years perhaps – and shared it with us with respect and profound insight. A writer, a poet, a musician, a President or perhaps even a publication – all treated with critical dignity. Are multiple weekday doses of business not sufficient? Must we swallow another dose first thing on Saturday morning too? "Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan Bowman?"
Bríd Ní Dhonnchú, Co Leitrim
Limerick public houses - Not so public houses
The practice of some Limerick public houses in closing and refusing to serve people who attend funerals in Mount St Lawrence cemetery has to be condemned. The fact is, funerals from working class areas of Limerick are being discriminated against by some pub owners. Mourners are being refused service and this action is based simply on the location of where the deceased person lived. It is discrimination, and I feel that the pub owners who close must be asked to explain their actions.
To refuse a public service to mourners at a funeral simply on the grounds of social status is illegal. I am now urging these pub owners to study the law and ensure that this discrimination is discontinued. It is an insult to all those who attend funerals. The basic point of these pub owners closing for the duration of funerals from certain parts of the city sends a wrong message to the public. This type of action cannot be justified, and as it stands these publicans are setting themselves against the law. Their licences oblige them to open for certain stated hours to provide a service to the public. People attending funerals are now refused a public service simply because of a pre-conceived social prejudice on the part of these publicans.
Sean O'Neill, Rosbrien, Limerick
Junior Cert celebrations - Those pesky journalists
It appears that last week every media outlet in the country dispatched a "journalist" to follow (spy on) a group of youngsters celebrating their Junior Cert results. The best, the brightest but mainly the baby-faced of the Irish journalism elite were all on the trail of that goldmine; the drunk teenager breaking something, regurgitating something or better still, something being done to that teenager ie a fight or bit of amateur sex is pure gold. Last Wednesday, there were probably more journalists wandering around the Dublin city centre than there were drunk teenagers. The journalist-to-student ratio must have been greater than the teacher-to-student ratio that the kids enjoy at school. I bet those ungrateful little drinking swines didn't appreciate this supervision either, probably too busy enjoying themselves. Next year is going to be different though. Next year I'm going to employ a group of 50 teenagers to follow the journalists on results night to see what they get up to, I might even employ them to cover the different journalist Christmas parties as well, just as a counter-balance to the years and years of finger-wagging in the teenagers' faces. Not sure how I'm going to be able to pay them though, they're demanding little blighters, maybe I could get some sponsorship for my project, Diageo, Durex and Marlboro? Alternatively, I could just buy them drinks from the off-licence? I'd have the gardaí after me if I did that though, and some journalists might even want to talk to me. I promise not to employ those teenagers next year if the broadcast and print journalists promise not to act surprised next year whilst reporting on the annual debauchery that is Junior Cert results night. We all know teenagers drink alcohol. We know because we did exactly the same thing. So give them a break or this time next year a young person with really bad acne might be blackmailing you with a hazy camera-phone picture of you getting up to something much worse than anything he could even have thought of.
Shaun Gavigan, Harolds Cross, Dublin 6
We are what we read - Ireland without a mouthpiece
Irish people always looked forward to a regular read of the local newspaper -Tipperary Star, Leinster Leader, Kilkenny People, or maybe the Longford Leader. They took an intimate and trusting interest in it as being part and parcel of their local community. To tune in to their favourite community radio, TippFM or whatever, is also a routine exercise. I wonder how many readers and listeners realise these and several more local and regional publications and radio stations are now in the hands of UK interests. The most recent acquisition being the Leinster Leader Group of "humble local rags" by the English Johnston Press for the exorbitant sum of €138.6 million. We are what we read. Nothing can be more subtle and conniving in influencing the manipulation and thought pattern of the human mind than repetitive media can, even more so in the case of the local press. Having attained bodily and national freedom after generations of British colonial domination, are we now going to voluntarily submit our minds and the minds of our children for their brainwashing and remolding? Already, revamped Irish editions of UK newspapers account for nearly a third of all Sunday titles and daily paper sales (Village, 23 September). Just imagine the Irish Sun (English) is the second-highest selling daily paper here, with the News of the World (English) – the third largest selling Sunday newspaper in Ireland – in excess of 164,000 each week. The time is ripe for the Government communications department, the Monopolies Commission and the Competition Authority to take serious notice. Since joining the EU the question has been posed many times: "Did we sell our souls to the Devil at Mastricht?" Are we now also selling our minds to the "British brainwashing factories?" Ireland, as a nation, is rapidly dissolving. Our identity, our culture, our customs and now the last resort, our only mouthpiece, the national media is slipping from our grasp. We are told editorial policy will remain unchanged. Time will tell.
James A Gleeson, Thurles, Co Tipperary
Response to Gerry Adams - Clinton's Billionaire Club
It was startling to read in last week's Village Gerry Adams' enthusiastic embrace of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference. The CGI promotes neo-liberalism (private investment, free trade) and philanthropy as essential to bring about an end to poverty. In his article, Adams appears to concur with such neoliberalism through his advocacy of the need to target "trade barriers" and for "corporations, NGOs, and private donors" to work together to eliminate poverty. Adams described attendees at the conference in a positive light as "people committed to multilateralism and collective action in global affairs". Yet the attendees included Bill Clinton (while US President he ordered military attacks against Serbia, Somalia and Iraq), Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz (all guilty of the 100,000 dead from the invasion and occupation of Iraq), George Bush Snr (who led the Iraq War in 1991), and Madeleine Albright, who as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, described the death of 500,000 children in Iraq from US sanctions as a price worth paying. Shimon Peres, Israel's vice-premier said, also at the conference, that "the time has come to privatise peace". CGI's advisors include the CEO of Starbucks, the Vice President of JP Morgan Chase and the president of the Africa Group of Coca-Cola. I was surprised that Adams did not ask an obvious question: How can one of the principal causes of the poverty – the obscene wealth and profiteering of such private corporations – be part of the solution? These companies are not giving money for the good of their health. They have made billions in profit and want to make more. In order to attend the conference participants had to pay a whopping $15,000. Is this Adam's vision of participatory democracy? By expressing such support for the likes of Clinton's Global Institute, Adams contradicts Sinn Féin's stated opposition to privatisation and neoliberalism. If he was genuinely following in the tradition of the great socialist James Connolly, Adams would have nothing to do with Clinton's billionaire club, the CGI. Instead, he would be loudly advocating the complete and unconditional debt cancellation for developing countries. He would also argue for increased taxation of the profits on Starbucks, Coca Cola and Soros' millions to pay for public investment in health care and education. A genuine anti-neo-liberal approach, rather than advocating the "targeting of trade barriers" as Adams does, would instead make the case for individual countries' right to subsidise and protect their own industries against the ravages of competition under globalisation. Such an approach would also be at pains to defend the labour rights and the environment that the corporate friends of Clinton are currently destroying across the globe.
Rory Hearne, Dublin
Statement - No Irish Music
We have an article coming out on our site this week entitled, The Brainwashing Of A Nation. This article follows a survey we carried out around the country in pubs, shops, hotels and supermarkets. Approximately 97 per cent of the places we surveyed had no Irish music playing on their in-house systems. This week we will have the complete figures. We discovered that Centra stores run by Musgraves have to pay extra if they want Irish music for Saint Patrick's Day. Dunnes Stores: no Irish bands. Tescos: no Irish bands. The other stores we surveyed the same. In last week's Village (23 September) there was an article on the British take-over of all our media in the country. The biggest British propaganda tool is Sky Television. I nearly got sick when I read the facts. And what's more, our idiotic politicians sit back and do nothing about it. This is discrimination against our own music-makers and also it is anti-competitive. We have been taken out of the market. We hope to take the matter to a European court if we can fund it. It is a breach of our civil rights.
Sean Treacy, President, Music Makers Association of Ireland www.mmaoi.ie
Village GAA Reporting - Paul Rouse must be substituted
Now that the Sam has been emphatically concluded and shall be returning North yet again, reports have been made of Paul Rouse heading in the opposite direction on a back road somewhere with a chicken under his arm. This is not at all surprising. Has there ever been such a poor record of calling it so wrong, so badly, so often? His dislike of Ulster football is matched only by his complete ineptitude to understand the events of the summer. The "myth of Ulster dominance" he was so willing to debunk was never going to happen. His remarks about southern Irish writers being too lazy to understand the game are utterly laughable. He also says Monaghan were knocked out by "Louth, the worst team in Leinster". Not true. Having dispatched league finalists Wexford (also from Leinster), Monaghan were knocked out by Tyrone, who, and you really should write this down, went on to win the All-Ireland. Monaghan also beat Meath in a league final this year. Cavan forced a Tyrone replay, Armagh bet Laois around the place, and Dublin wilted in its Tyrone replay. It is Leinster teams rather than Ulster teams who have been hyped to the ridiculous. So if you see Paul Rouse, tell him. It's time for Village to hire a real sports writer.
Philip Connolly, 32 Hillview, Navan
An open letter to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin - The future of Europe
Dear Archbishop Martin, I read recently in the Irish Catholic that you would be giving a lecture at All Hallows College on "The Future of Europe: Challenges for Faith and Values" on Monday 26 September, as the first of two events on "The Future of Europe" being sponsored by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and jointly funded by the European Commission, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish Jesuit Province. The second of these events, on Tuesday 27 September is a conference in Croke Park Stadium to be addressed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Messrs Peter Sutherland, Alan Dukes, David Begg, Dan O'Brien, David McWilliams, and Dr Brigid Laffan and Mrs Doris Peschke, all of whom are, so far as I know, strong supporters of the proposed EU Constitution I was also recently informed – with what truth I do not know – that your colleagues in the Hierarchy decided some months ago that in the event of this State having a referendum on the "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe", you alone would speak publicly on their behalf on the matter.
Now that the people of France and the Netherlands have rejected this mistitled Treaty-cum-Constitution – which was of course a Constitution for the EU rather than for Europe – we shall not be having a referendum on it here, but there is still likely to be much interest in your lecture among those who follow these matters. As you are doubtless aware, the European Commission, which is helping to finance the Croke Park conference, is a highly self-interested party in the debate on the future of the EU and its Constitution. As the non-elected executive of the EU and sole possessor of the right to propose EU legislation, the Commission stood to gain huge additional power and perquisities if the EU Constitution had been agreed. The recent allocation by the Commission of many millions of euros to advance the cause of ratification of the Constitution, or some further treaty based upon it, is disturbing to democrats across Europe who regard this body as being, in the words of the late French President Charles de Gaulle, "an areopagus of technocrats without a country, responsible to nobody." Tuesday's well-financed propaganda initiative by the Brussels Commission should therefore alarm everyone who believes that the democratic verdicts of the French and Dutch peoples on the EU Constitution should be respected – which means they should be abided by.
Over the years the European Commission has succeded in co-opting European Transnational Big Business, many senior Trade Unionists, significant sections of the feminist movement, the anti-poverty lobby and many social science academics into supporting the EU integration project through the establishment of various slush funds, the network of EU-financed Jean Monnet professorships and the like. As you will also be aware, the Commission and the European Movement have in recent years turned their attention to the Christian Churches, in particular the Roman Catholic Church and the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches, and have systematically set out to woo them into supporting the EU integration project, with its erosion of national democracy and national independence and its concentration of power in the hands of powerful supranational political, economic and bureaucratic elites, at the heart of which is the EU Commission itself.
Many people in Ireland, among them many Catholics, were very disturbed that the European Committee of the Irish Hierarchy should have been responsible for a statement supporting the Yes side in the Nice Treaty referendums of 2001 and 2002. They found it highly regrettable that the Hierarchy should have endorsed a statement on such a secular matter which implicitly urged people to vote Yes, especially as the Irish Bishops had never intervened before in any of our constitutional referendums on European Treaties, not even in our original 1972 EEC Accession referendum. This development points to the success of the co-option exercise referred to – as indeed does the Commission-funded conference to be held on Tuesday next, with its ludicrously unbalanced panel of pro-EU Constitution speakers. With all due respect to your episcopal colleagues and yourself, one must wonder how it is possible for the Irish Catholic Bishops to obtain responsible and impartial advice on EU-related matters, when its relevant European Advisory Committee consists overwhelmingly of ardent proponents of EU integration, with all critics of that highly contested process being excluded from it?
The most important political aspect of the proposed EU Constitution is that it would for the first time have made us real citizens of a new European Union organised in the constitutional form of a supranational Federation – and not just notional or honorary EU "citizens" as at present. If the EU Constitution were to be ratified, we would consequently owe this new Union – which would be constitutionally, legally and politically quite different from the present EU – the prime duties of citizenship, namely loyalty and obedience to its laws. These duties would override our obligations to Ireland, in as much as the EU Constitution and law would be superior to our national Constitution and law. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which constituted Part two of the proposed Constitution would give the new Union and its supreme court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the final say in deciding our human and civil rights in all areas covered by EU law, which is now vast and whose limits and boundaries would be decided by the ECJ itself in the event of any dispute as to where those limits might lie. This proposal raises some of the most important issues of law, morality and politics. You will surely agree that it is hard to imagine anyone who is genuinely concerned with people's rights and who knows how the EU and its Court of Justice work, welcoming the EU being given the power to decide the human and citizens' rights of some 450 million people, over and above their national Constitutions and Supreme Courts and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? You will be aware that last week the ECJ, that "court with a mission", to use the words of one of its judges, made a hugely important judgment which opens the legal door to conferring a criminal juridiction on the EU, including harmonised penalties for breaches of EU law and harmonised supranational court procedures that could in time threaten such fundamental rights of our system as trial by jury and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The Irish and other EU Governments were thrown out in their attempt to stop the Court of Justice greatly increasing the power of the Commission by this judgment. If you would like to discuss these issues with us at any time, we are at your disposal. Because of the public interest nature of this matter, I am sending a copy of this letter to your colleagues in the Hierarchy, to His Excellency the Papal Nuncio, and to the media and various opinion formers who may be interested in it.
Yours sincerely, Anthony Coughlan Secretary, National Platform EU Research and Information Centre