Villagers: Letter to the Editor 2005-10-13

Animal Abuse

ISPCA defends Ballinasloe
What a sad reflection on the state of animal welfare in Irela...nd, that protest at the very public abuse of animals at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair, should, this past week, be left largely to journalists and members of the public.
The incidents of cruelty and breaches of the law have been well-aired by now, and would have been readily apparent to anyone visiting the fair, as I did last Monday. How, then, can the ISPCA, the very body charged with protecting animals, be publicly quoted as defending this medieval free-for-all?
While re-hydrating neglected horses was necessary and laudable, why also was the ISPCA not publicly and vigorously challenging the fair organisers about the serious lack of access to drinking water for the hundreds of animals crammed into the fairground? Why were they not publicly demanding that the “sulky run” be disbanded so that some relief might be afforded the extremely young and frightened horses who were being ridden into the ground? How could the dozens of people openly selling adult dogs and pups as pets be allowed to so brazenly break the law in full view of the ISPCA inspectors and members of the Garda Síochána present?
Claiming lack of resources or the need to take a “softly, softly” approach with the organisers of this dreadful event so that the latter will allow them in to take care of the emergencies which arise as the result of wanton neglect is not enough. If the ISPCA is to retain credibility in the on-going and very difficult struggle to improve the lives of our fellow creatures, then it will have to start addressing the bigger political issues which surround the institutionalised abuse of animals,
Giving its imprimatur to the Ballinasloe Horse Fair is not a good place to start!
Nuala Donlon
Galway Alliance for Animal Rights

Rossport Five

An inspiration
to Irish people
The Woodland League would like to salute and acknowledge the integrity, bravery and commitment of the Rossport Five, at a time when so many Irish people are compromised or have sold out on their communities, where corruption is considered normal, where wealth is given precedence over health and human beings are reduced to simple economic values as consumers, where economists (who are meagre money quacks operating in an imperfect science that ignores social and environmental impacts in its blind calculations) are elevated to high status in the spiritual vacuum that is Ireland and the Irish economy.
The sacrifice and subsequent release of the Rossport Five draws a line in the sand which challenges the rot in Irish life and inspires the multitude of other communities under siege by big business, aided and abetted by the elected representatives, the supposed servants of the people.
Thank you on behalf of the many communities and groups we represent and assist.
Always remember the old Druidic triad of Éicse, Fior agus Dúlra (Wisdom, Truth and Nature) – the three candles that illuminate any darkness.
The Woodland League

Morris Tribunal
 
Morris report should be published in full
A statement issued and posted on the Morris Tribunal website has denied that a secret report has been furnished to the Minister for Justice. It states only two reports to date have been issued. However, references are made in the first report to a ‘portion' of the report and in another reference to ‘this section' of the report.
At 4.13 of the first report, Justice Morris states “The narrative which follows in this chapter will be confined only to evidence given in open session of the Tribunal, or to evidence given in private session which does not concern the content of any C.77 form. The reader of this portion of the report is being presented in this chapter with the conclusions which the Tribunal has reached and which are set out at the end of the chapter. They are based on a consideration of all the evidence, that has been heard, both in open session and closed session of the Tribunal.”
Privilege claimed by the Garda Commissioner has prevented publication of the evidence heard in private sessions. Given that Justice Morris found that Adrienne McGlinchey was neither a member of nor an informer for the Provisional IRA, there is nothing in the private sessions relating to Adrienne McGlinchey which would impede upon the security of the state. Separate submissions were made at the end of the first module in private session. These have never been made public.
At 13.37 in the second report, Justice Morris makes reference to the manner in which C 77s relating to Adrienne McGlinchey were made available to the Tribunal. “There was no file and could not have been any file held at Crime and Security in relation to such information. C 77s which were ultimately said by various members of An Garda Síochána to have been based on information supplied by McGlinchey had to be obtained from the respective member's files of C77s. Her reference did not appear on those files, nor did any code number or pseudonym attributable to McGlinchey and indeed the informer was not identifiable from these documents. The Tribunal therefore had to depend on each member examining the files of C77s submitted by him to identify those he believed emanated from McGlinchey.
“At 4.60 of the first report, Justice Morris states that Detective Garda Smith and Tolan sent up a joint C77 to Crime & Security outlining their meeting with McGlinchey on this occasion. They also gave an account of certain other information which cannot be divulged in this section of the report.”
Adrienne McGlinchey has consistently denied being the supplier of information to the Garda Síochána. She has been found not to have been an informer or a member of the IRA. She has from day one waived all privilege and publicly called for the private sessions to be made public. The conclusions to be drawn from the findings of the report is that either all the information in the C 77s are bogus or the supplier of the information is not Adrienne McGlinchey. I call on the Garda Commissioner once again, to waive the privilege he has claimed over the evidence heard in private sessions and to allow Justice Morris to publicise the full account and extent of the corruption by the Garda Síochána in Co Donegal. I call in particular for the publication in full, and without delay, the circumstances surrounding the notification to international police agencies, FBI and MI5 in 1994 by Crime and Security, of a holiday to the United States by Adrienne McGlinchey and Yvonne Devine which resulted in surveillance operations being put in place by the FBI. The current Commissioner Noel Conroy, who had overall charge of Crime and Security at the time of the incident and whose evidence has been heard in private session, continues to claim privilege. Crime and Security were found to be negligent by Justice Morris. I further call for the immediate resignation of Commissioner Conroy for his continuing and deplorable lack of action since the publication of the first report in dealing with the Garda officers who were found to have lied and misled the Tribunal. Promising that a number of gardai who were transferred in June 2005 almost 12 months after the publication of the first report would not be interacting with the public, it beggars belief that one of these officers remains on normal duties in Letterkenny.
Karen McGlinchey
Letterkenny

Irish/British relations
 
A very nebulous nation
Dear Sir,
Martin Mansergh has condemned the view that in Ireland there are two nationalities and that a united Ireland is possible only as a multi-national state.
The two-nations view was put forward in 1969 by myself and others who took part in the defence of West Belfast against the Unionist pogrom that August, and those who rejected it (that is, all parties in the Republic), did so in the name of the historic Irish nation. But Martin has now rejected that ground of opposition to the two nations view by describing it as “nebulous”. (But he also describes “an equally nebulous Army Council” (Village, 6-12 October), which, according to his party leader, carried out the Northern Bank robbery!)
Against both the two-nations view and the historic Irish nation view he presents “the living Irish nation” which, presumably has just come into existence since it is not historic. But it is this “living Irish nation” which is nebulous - cloudy, insubstantial. It has no power of concerted action on the basis of majority decision, which is one of the hallmarks of a nation.
He says that in 1998 it engaged in “an act of concurrent self-determination” - a fiction which makes “the living Dáil” seem real and reasonable. In 1998 there were two acts of “self-determination”. They were held on the same day in order to give the superficial appearance of being one and taking the place of the 1918 act of self-determination. But they were no more an act of self-determination of a “living Irish nation” than were the Partition elections after 1921.
The reality of two nations was made evident in the handling of the referendum and election in the North, where the Protestant community was only persuaded to support the Agreement by a small majority when the British Prime Minister sent David Trimble a letter which Protestants took as superseding the Agreement. And, even though the terms of the Agreement were later breached in their favour, they still regarded themselves as having been subjected to a confidence trick.
The “living Irish nation” of the “act of concurrent self-determination” exists in two hostile parts, just as the historic nation came to do, but the latter has at least some historical reality to it. In fact, “concurrent self-determination” means Partition and everybody knows it. Its effective meaning is two nations. The people of the historic nation carried the referendum in the North, while the other people had to be browbeaten and cajoled into bare momentary compliance.
Martin's suggestion that the two-nations view excludes people who wish to be Irish is a groundless and wilful misrepresentation.
There is a case for Irish unity, but it is not a case based on a sense of common nationality. And a two-nations approach to it would not involve playing ducks and drakes with history as is currently being done.
Jack Lane
Millstreet,Co. Cork

1916
 
Jack Lane still fails to see the point 
As an event, the 1916 insurrection was made possible by the monumental incompetence of the Castle authorities, notably Augustine Birrell; this situation was further exacerbated by the lack of any intelligence system in Ireland.
The insurrection erupted out of its own marginalised ideological context, it was a “conspiracy in the growing for a long time”. One might liken it to a small neglected, though treatable, malignant tumour, inside an obscure part of the body politic.
There was no symbiotic relationship between revolutionary separatism and the broad spectrum of nationalist opinion before 1916, or indeed up to the end of May 1917. This phenomena only began to take shape at this particular juncture, due to a number of factors, not least of which was Redmond's disastrous decision to forgo Home Rule earlier during that month in preference for an Irish Convention.
The relationship between the First World War and revolutionary separatism-immensely beneficial to the latter - also took hold at this time; assisted by Redmond's death in early 1918, and a hamfisted attempt by the British, to introduce conscription; with rumours abounding in Ireland that the British were planning a strike into the heart of Germany, ‘conscription' was a real factor in the 1918 general election result.
 The national political context of Ireland was divided between Redmondite nationalism (Home Rule) which sought to reconcile Irish nationalism, with Unionism, and an enlightened Empire, and anti-nationalist Ulster Unionism. This was the Ireland in which the insurrection occurred; the political context to which Jack Lane referrers, is sheer myth, it simply did not exist.
 Jack's perspective only makes sense, if one accepts the retro-logical argument - one even used by revisionists - that the 1918 general election result, like that of a magicians wand, cast a spell of legitimacy over the insurrection, thereupon wiping away the stain of criminal madness. This is true revisionism in its most ideological form. This is historiography, but in an Alice In Wonderland fantasy. Most of nationalist Ireland denounced the rising when it ‘happened', and for a long time after, seeing it as a stab in the back and a crime.
 John Dillon's moronic attempt to judge public opinion by trying to ride two horses at once was the exception not the rule. Jack should remember that of the 200,000 Irish volunteers fighting at the front, 60 per cent were catholic. Apart from a handful of malcontents, the overwhelming majority, generally supportive of Redmond, rejected the insurrection as an act of betrayal.
Surely it is time for Jack Lane, Michael McDowell, Brian Cowen, Martin Mansergh, Enda Kenny, and our Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, to leave the headmasters classroom at St Enda's, or in the case of Liz McManus and the nationalist sisterhood, St Ita's, and come to terms with the historic fact that the 1916 insurrection was a crime against Ireland, and that it destroyed the worthy objectives of reconciliation championed by the flawed, though visionary, John Redmond. The positive and truly democratic aspects of the ‘Good Friday Agreement' can traced to John Redmond, and it is an admission by the political established, though they will never admit it, that he was right.
Given the nature of political and public morality in this country, so corrupted by the foundation history of this state, only those who wrecked our future and our history, will be remembered, not the good, and truly brave, who tried to build a better Ireland a long time ago. Their failure was not inevitable, it was the result of the violent actions of fanatical bigots.
Pierce Martin
Celbridge, Co Kildare

Walking
 
Dublin's quays
There are many things to criticise the Government over, but I must congratulate them on the walk along Dublin's quays from O'Connell St to the Point Depot, which I just had the pleasure to walk. I have worked in the Docks area for 15 years now, and at last I can say that Dublin has a beautiful quay to walk along. Go visit, I say.
Paul Doran
Dublin 22

Media
 
Angst at the Indo
One would need to have a heart of stone not to be amused by the apprehension of Independent Newspapers at the prospect of the launch of an “Irish” Daily Mail and accompanying freesheet (Conor Brady, Village 6-12 October).
The spectacle of the Independent appealing to our patriotic instincts in this regard is akin to that of Dermot McMurrough rallying the troops to resist the landing of Strongbow.
I stopped reading the Indo somewhere around the late 1980s or early 1990s, when John A Murphy and Eamonn Dunphy, independently of each other, declared that they didn't like Northeners per se and northern nationalists in particular (Dunphy has since changed his tune somewhat). Up until then I had, with commendable masochism, endured an unending stream of vituperation from a veritable pantheon of columnists whose common main target was the nationalist electorate of the north. Subsidiary targets included the Irish language, trade unionism, the public sector and the GAA. John Hume became a particular focus of their ire when he initiated contact with Gerry Adams in what was to develop into the Peace Process. By all accounts, little has changed over the years. In recent months, one edition devoted 900 column inches to attacking the Republican movement, while according all of two column inches to the murder of a catholic schoolboy by unionist paramilitaries.
When Tony O'Reilly was awarded a knighthood by the British state, it was viewed, rightly or wrongly, by most northern nationalists as a reward for Independent Newspapers' sympathetic treatment of British policy in the North. What a delicious irony that the old knight errant should now be running scared of the media group whose view of Ireland most closely accords with that of Conor Cruise O' Brien, Eoin Harris et al.
Brian Patterson
Newry, Co Down

Airport Runway
 
Scandal of runway being ignored
Every day now we have revelations of huge economic waste by this Government, yet all pales into relative insignificance when compared to the waste of €3billion which will result from the building of a new parallel runway at Dublin Airport. UPROAR (United Portmarnock Residents Opposing Another Runway) has been trying for months to bring this matter to the attention of the media, but have been ignored.
The main loss arises from the massive waste of land involved. Some 840 acres, worth at least €1 million an acre, will be built on, while a further 3,000 acres will have its development value reduced by €0.5 million per acre. These estimates are conservative and put the total cost of the project, including construction costs and the costs of road traffic congestion, noise, air pollution and health damage, at €3 billion. The return, largely from the share of airport charges that can be attributed to the new runway, would amount to about €70 million over a 30-year lifetime for the project. That amounts to a massive loss (“rip-off” if you prefer) of nearly €3 billion and a ratio of benefits to costs of only 2 per cent.
Why is this massive scandal being ignored?
Matthew Harley
Portmarnock  www.norunway.com

Hospitals: Prevention of MRSA better than cure
Three reports in September warned that overcrowded hospitals are a major cause of the rise in the incidence of MRSA infections. Mary Harney has constantly emphasised handwashing as the main solution to the problem.
While handwashing is vital, Harney has ignored the role of understaffed and overcrowded hospitals because she is not prepared to increase funding to public hospitals.
MRSA is a type of bacteria which has become resistant to most antibiotics through overuse of powerful antibiotics in hospitals. While usually harmless and carried in some people's nasal passages, it can be very serious if it gets into a wound or even fatal if it gets into the bloodstream as septicemia because it is very hard to kill. It is a good example of prevention being vitally more important than cure.
A report from the Irish Society of Clinical Microbiologists advised restricting the overuse of antibiotics but also stressed the importance of the bug passing from patient to patient through overcrowding: “Every hospital and healthcare institution must take steps to prevent patient overcrowding and ensure adequate space between adjacent beds.”
This report also stressed the importance of screening staff and patients for infection and ensuring that isolation beds are opened and infection control staff are employed. The report concluded however that “current resources are inadequate” to achieve improvements.
On 16 September the Irish Times reported that: “In a confidential private submission to the Tanáiste and Minister for Health, Mary Harney, the Chief Executives of all five Dublin teaching hospitals said that, in addition to hygiene, inadequate ward infrastructure and high bed occupancy rates were contributing to the level of hospital acquired infections.” They stressed the need for extra beds and staff. They also called for additional single rooms and isolation facilities with en-suite bathrooms.
“Outsourcing” or privatisation of cleaning has meant that private companies cut back on staff pay and hours to squeeze the most profit from contracts. This has meant hurried work and worse conditions for cleaners. It has caused hygiene standards to fall. It also means that sudden increases in the need for cleaning, like during an outbreak of diarrhea and vomiting, are not available.
The nurses' journal, Nursing Standard, reported on 7 September that:
“Changes to the hospital environment had encouraged the spread of MRSA in the UK.” These were: “A reduction in the number of hospital beds, leading to increased ward transfers. Decreased lengths of stay, so that some infected patients leave before MRSA is detected. Increased staff workloads resulting in less time to deal with infection control. High rates of bed occupancy.”
Ward transfers means patients are moved from one ward to another because of overcrowding and this leads to the spread of infection. International studies show that when bed occupancy rates go over 85 per cent MRSA infection rates start to rise despite the most stringent hygiene regime. In Ireland hospitals are often full and occupancy rates go over 100 per cent!
Mary Harney has now announced a plan to make this worse by insisting that trolleys from overflowing A&E departmentss be pushed onto the already overcrowded wards.
At a special delegate conference the nurses union the INO voted to take strike action if Harney pushes this dangerous policy through. Nurses also voted to restart the popular “Enough is enough” campaign to picket and demonstrate until Harney releases the money to properly fund our public hospitals.
For the moment, Harney will continue to wash her hands of the health service she is supposed to be in charge of. A winter of protest and support for action by hospital staff and patient support groups is urgently needed.
Peadar O'Grady
Dublin 12

Statement: Callely's transport conference is a fraud
The Clare Street Initiative transport seminar on 5 October, supposedly seeking to find ways to improve Dublin congestion, chaired by Minister of State at the Department of Transport Ivor Callely, was a fraud.
I attended the conference after reading about it in The Irish Times. I was kindly admitted and given a glossy package, containing a document marked “confidential”. However, within a few minutes I was approached by a Department of Transport official and told to return the document and leave. Apparently, it was an “invitation only” event.
There was no notice requesting submissions from the public in any newspaper. Nor were there delegates from community groups or environmental NGOs, other than An Taisce. On the other hand, commercial lobby groups like IBEC and Chambers of Commerce were present in force.
Given the €12 billion overspend of public money on the roads programme, and massive cost of gridlock to business, the narrow and exclusive approach to finding solutions is tragically insufficient.
The conference was addressing “issues of concern for the travelling public from Dublin's commuter counties such as Meath”. I planned on presenting the following suggestions:
1. Reconsider the current plan to send the M1, M2, M3, and M4 through North Dublin and Meath, just a few kilometres apart, converging on the M50 like bicycle spokes. Besides being a huge waste of money, commuters, shoppers and transporters will only dead-end in Blanchardstown.
2. Re-open the Navan to Dublin railway, and introduce other measures like bus corridors that actually take people off the roads and into safer, faster and more relaxing means of transport that give direct access to city-centre.
3. Drop the tolling of roads.The M3 will have two tolls, leading to the M50, which will have two more tolls, and the Port Tunnel, with a 12 euro toll. Drivers from Meath and Cavan will simply avoid the tolls and continue to destroy the road network, resulting in more tragedies.
4. Urgently re-examine the M3, which adds 3.5 km to the distance between Navan and Dunshaughlin, needlessly crosses the N3 twice with massive interchanges, (adding 50-100 million to the cost of the road), and destroying Tara.
The conference is a fraud. The current transport plan will simply destroy Meath, instead of fixing Dublin. We need root and branch reform.
Given the recent proposal by A&L Goodbody Consulting for €140 billion to be spent on Irish infrastructure, there is no more critical issue in Ireland at the moment.”
vincent salafia
∏ More www.hilloftara.info

Statement: Limerick park plans infuriate locals
The destruction of part of the heritage of Limerick by the further erosion of the open green area of the People's Park is to be raised in the European Parliament by Munster MEP Kathy Sinnott, who has backed a local campaign to prevent more residential development.
Plans for more housing and the felling of chestnut, lime and elm trees have local residents up in arms, the MEP heard on a visit to inspect the Park.
I am a local community activist and I showed Ms Sinnott around the People's Park (see photo). I told her that already almost a third of the green area has been sold for luxury apartments.
Now there are plans to fell mature trees planted in the 1850s and this is akin to destroying part of our heritage.
The fact is this deal with the developer was done without any adequate public consultation and as local residents we object to any further housing in the vicinity.
Having visited the Park and having seen for herself the scale of the development, Ms Sinnott has now promised to investigate the matter fully. She is also concerned about the felling of the mature trees: only few years ago experts were brought in from Britain at considerable cost to save the trees in the People's Park.
We welcome the intervention of the MEP and hope that she will be able to raise the issue in the European Parliament.
Sean O'Neill

Turkey and the EU: Turkey talks

The application of Turkey to join the EU should not be agreed until the issue of the “disappeared” of Cyprus is resolved. A hypocritical approach is being taken by the EU to the application from Turkey in that no focus is being placed on that country's record of torture and killing in divided Cyprus. The Turks also have a notorious record of human rights abuses of the Kurds in their own country and it must be remembered that in Cyprus more than 1,600 men, women and children are still missing after last being seen in Turkish custody.
In Ireland there is emphasis on the question of the disappeared and those killed in the ongoing conflict, but this issue seems to have been ignored in the current dialogue between the EU and Turkey. In a way the same narrow-minded approach that marked the failed Stormont Agreement is being taken with Turkey and this method of negotiation can only store up conflict for the future. Turkey is mostly in Asia and not Europe, but the EU is pushing ahead with this expansion simply in the interests of building a new empire.
“For example, last July, Turkey cleared the last obstacle to EU talks by extending its customs union to include the new member states, including Cyprus. Yet the Turkish leadership also issued a declaration making it clear that it does not recognise the Greek Cypriot government. It is this type of fudge – a contradiction at its core – that has the failed Stormont Agreement stalled, with no hope of a real or lasting peace for the people of Ireland. The EU must demand that Turkey faces up to its invasion of Cyprus and recognises the rights of the Greek Cypriots and withdraw from Northern Cyprus and the EU must insist on this as a condition for any future talks.
Des Long
Limerick Republican Information Service

The good terrorist
Up to last week we were being terrorised with fear about allowing Turkey into entry talks to the European Union, and then agreement was reached on this matter. This was possible because Croatia was allowed into entry talks also. At the previous meeting of Foreign Ministers earlier this year, Croatia was not allowed in until it handed over a war crimes general to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Last July the Chief War Crimes Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, made a visit to the Vatican. The Croatian general was hiding in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia and Carla sought the assistance of the Holy See to co-operate with the Tribunal (without success) to get the general.
Dermot Ahern, at the Foreign Ministers' meeting earlier in the year, strongly supported Croatia's entry to talks. He was ignoring the proviso that Croatia hand over an alleged terrorist to Carla Del Ponte before entry talks!! Dermot forgets that there two sides in the war, ie the Serbs and the Croats.
Poor Kofi Annan appointed Dermot as an aide to reform the Standards of the United Nations. I am sure that Kofi does not want any advisers who will leach out good standards and replace them with faulty procedures!
Peter Kennedy
Sutton, Dublin 13
Prospect, Limerick