Villagers - Letters to the Editor 2006-05-18
Asylum for minors - How about it Taoiseach?
Aged-out minor asylum seekers have been the subject of so many supportive and concerned statements from MEPs and TDs of all sides that I believe there is now general political agreement that the 200 minors in question should be given asylum in Ireland. Politicians are intelligent enough to see the incongruity in our leaders begging US politicians to allow thousands of our young emigrants to stay in the States and at the same time refusing asylum here to a couple of hundred young asylum seekers.
In Dáil Éireann on 27 April Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice, played a very hardball game but he did acknowledge that the young asylum seekers "are of reasonably robust disposition". Indeed if they were from one of the accession states we would be grabbing them with open arms.
Michael McDowell seems to be the only one standing in the way of granting asylum to these vulnerable young people. Is it not time for the Government to talk to Michael McDowell on this issue? The cross-party support which has been expressed should make it a simple (and popular) matter for the Government to decide at a stroke of a pen and grant leave to remain to this small group of young people. How about it, Taoiseach?
There is another issue, in some cases the food and accommodation provided for asylum seekers is inadequate. How often are accommodation centres subjected to unannounced inspections? How often are accommodation centres subjected to any inspection? It reminds me of the industrial schools situation long ago and it also may in the future cause us to hang our heads in shame. Recently I feared greatly for the health of one asylum seeker. Her illness was caused by the food supplied to her – that is not her opinion or mine. It is the opinion of two doctors. How about it, Taoiseach?
SEÁN Ó RIAIN, Gairdíní Bhaile na Lobhar, Bhaile Átha Cliath
Kevin Myers -Gone to the Indo
Absolutely spiffing news greeted my return after a short absence abroad – Kevin Myers has departed the Irish Times for the Irish Independent! Doesn't matter whether he fell or was pushed; once again I can buy the IT which had become quite unsufferable. As nobody in our family has bought the Indo since 1916, when that newspaper called for the execution of the Easter Week leaders, a better bolt-hole could not have been selected... Thanks, Kev.
Seamus Ó Dunlaing, Bray, Co Wicklow
Electronic voting - Paper the only way
While not always agreeing with him, I thought Vincent Browne a valuable and sensible commentator in the public sphere. That was until I read his article declaring that abandoning the present unverifiable e-voting system would be "a mistake". Because there was no independent means of checking the accuracy of the ballot, the proposed unverifiable electronic voting system would have allowed a small number of people with access to the machines and the programmes on which they were based, if they so wished, to write the result of every future election with impunity. No one would ever know, since there was no way of checking. To advocate such a system shows a total disregard for the rules underlying the functioning of a healthy democracy. These rules are based on free, transparent and non-manipulated elections.
Paper ballots are counted in full view of the representatives of the electorate. Objections can be pursued by ordinary people if and when that is deemed necessary. The vast majority of us do not understand and rightly do not trust these machines because we have no means of verifying them. The paper ballot, which we can understand and check, is vital. Until we have an e-voting system which, in cases of dispute, is verifiable by a paper ballot then we should stay with paper ballots.
Vincent Browne's assertion that we should use e-voting because we use the internet to operate "confidential transactions" is fallacious. All financial transactions can be verified by the people involved while unverifiable e-voting cannot.
Anthony Leavy, Sutton, Dublin 13
British imperialism - UK's absolute monarchy over
The case of the forced imperialist occupation of the remote island Diego Garcia by the British military and its subsequent transfer to the US military is one which brings imperialism into conflict with international law.
In a futile move, having previously lost in court on this issue, the British government has fallen back on the last bastion of feudal monarchy, "royal prerogative" (it is right because I say it is right and I am the king/queen/president of Britain/the US). In doing so they have exposed themselves to ridicule in a higher court – a European Court.
The British, hardwired to support imperialism, fail to realise that the world has moved on since 1420. They are also still in denial that, unlike the US president, their queen is no longer an absolute monarch, but is subject to European law.
She may be the Queen of England, be filthy rich, live for free in a string of castles and pay no tax, but she has the same legal standing under European Law as every other citizen of Europe.
Simon McGuinness, Rathmines, Dublin 6
Israel/Palestine - Unquestioned propaganda
It is curious in the extreme to find Sean Gannon of the Irish Friends of Israel accusing the Ireland-Palestinian Solidarity Campaign of "unquestioning adherence to the Palestinian narrative as regards the Middle East conflict". Those recent pronouncements of Sean Gannon's that I have come across – in the Irish Times, in Haaretz and now in Village – show precisely such an unquestioning adherence to the Israeli line. This could be summarised as follows: Israeli violence is not criticised while Palestinian violence is excoriated; the violent history of Israeli leaders is ignored (the thousands of Lebanese as well as Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli Army under Sharon and his successors, for example) while that of the PLO and Hamas put them outside the pale of humanity; civilian deaths caused by Israelis are unfortunate side-effects of reactive security measures, while civilian deaths caused by Palestinians are the actions of irrational fanatics; Israel can choose a leader with a history of brutal indifference to civilian life, while Palestinians must choose leaders acceptable to the Israelis and willing to police Palestinian territory on Israeli terms; the right of return applies to Zionist fundamentalists from New York with very distant historical ties to the Middle East while elderly Palestinian refugees stuck in a Lebanese camp since 1948 must not expect their right of return even to be discussed; police rather than military tactics will be used against violent settlers while an Israeli soldier can empty his gun into an innocent schoolgirl like Iman al-Hams (and even be compensated for his troubles).
Discussing the legality of Israel's actions is necessary at one level, but the debate tends to go round in circles, particularly with someone uncritically wedded to a particular narrative, as Sean Gannon seems to be. It is possible to defend the historical and human rights of Palestinians while criticising, for example, Palestinian leadership and tactics over the years.
A lasting peace can be based on total repression or on some form of mutual respect and recognition. Respect and justice for Palestinians would decrease anger against Israel, make a negotiated peace more realisable and increase genuine Israeli security in the long term. Constructive politics depends on the availability of a narrative that offers hope. If Sean Gannon believes in constructive politics, his world-view will include a constructive narrative for the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. I have not been able to discover any narrative other than submission to Israel's will in any of his recent offerings. Would he show us that his commitment is to debate rather than propaganda by outlining the narrative of hope that he has to offer the Palestinians?
Barra Ó Seaghdha, Navan Road, Dublin 7
Public partnership - Fair play to the nurses
I welcome the fact that the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has unanimously passed a motion of no confidence in the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Mary Harney, at their annual conference in Cavan. Apart from the fact that Harney has allowed the nurses' pay to fall so far behind that nurses and midwives are now the second-lowest paid group of workers in the health service, she has also presided over an ever worsening crisis, with people lying for days on end in trolleys in Accident and Emergency wards around the country, and massive waiting lists for what in many cases is urgent life saving surgery. The INO is one group of workers who will not be cowered and bullied by those hideous so-called "partnership" deals, and who are prepared to fight for a better health service, and for better working conditions. I hope that the INO will also agree to dramatically escalate their ongoing "Enough Is Enough!" campaign, to also call on all health service workers, and also all other workers, the length and breadth of Ireland, to fully support their campaign for a decent, proper health service through a series of nationwide marches, protests, and one-day all-out work stoppages. And if the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) refuses to organise these mass mobilisations, then we, the ordinary folk will organise them instead. Starting with the mass rally which the nurses will be holding in Dublin on Wednesday, 14 June.
Paul Kinsella, Dublin
Irish exploration - Extreme stupidity
I am writing to strongly disagree with Matt Cooper's assertion that our current tax regulations regarding carbon exploration are right.
In the current climate the Irish coast is neither an easy or cheap location for exploration. However, as this century progresses it is very likely that carbon fuel resources all over the planet will become progressively more scarce. This will probably result in less accessible reserves being tapped into as well as technological advances which may make less attractive reserves such as ours more in demand.
As any fuel deposits which may be beneath our seabed have been there for a couple of thousand centuries, and are unlikely to leave unaided, I do not see the rush to give it away cheaply now.
I believe that future generations may look upon the decision to give our natural resources away to foreign multinationals as extreme short-term stupidity.
Matthew Sadlier,Fernhill, Limerick
Dublin not the first -Community TV in Cork
The sub-heading on your article about local TV is incorrect. DCTV is not the "first ever not-for-profit community television station".
Dan Joe Kelleher has been broadcasting community television in the Macroom area since the early 1980s. He is almost 70 and has installed transmitters on mountains around the region and shoots and edits the programmes himself in his farmhouse.
His station is called LTV 1 and he has helped set up LTV 2 in nearby Millstreet – another community television station.
Dan Joe will be featured on Flux, RTÉ Radio 1, Monday, 29 May, at 8pm.
Ronan Kelly, Producer, Flux, RTÉ Radio 1
1916 - O'Connell's legacy and 1916
It seems that for Maurice O'Connell an electoral mandate is all important when military action is taken without it, but is unimportant when military action is taken to implement an electoral victory. The Easter Rising was wrong because Pearse and Connolly had not won an election, but the War of Independence was also wrong, even though it was fought to give effect to an election result which the British government refused to heed.
He derides my description of the Ulster revolt against Home Rule: "Jack Lane builds a picture of a massive Ulster Volunteer Army willing to die rather than submit to Rome (sic) Rule." (Village, 11 May)
Does he deny that an illegal army of 100,000 was raised in the Protestant parts of Ulster in 1912/13, armed with guns imported from Germany, officered by senior personnel of the British Army and supported by the Opposition Party, whose leaders said civil war was preferable to the implementation of Home Rule?
When the shedding of blood began again in 1969, it was in entirely different circumstances. And I wasn't an armchair revolutionary. I helped to defend West Belfast against the Unionist/Loyalist pogrom in August 1969 and then I and other comrades-in-arms proposed that the Ulster Protestant community should be negotiated with as a distinct nationality. Some of today's most prominent revisionists denounced us then as being nothing short of traitors to the historic nation.
We are presented with a Daniel O'Connell who, "above all, laid the foundations for an Ireland which would be ruled, within the context of the supremacy of law and constitutionality, by the people. If I am to be convicted of revisionism, let it be, not to the Union or some Ballingarry cabbage-patch borrowed 19th century fantasy nationalism, but a super-revisionism back to his vision of an Ireland that was (incidentally) inclusive, European and global."
Perhaps it is because I was not reclining in an armchair in academia but was on the ground in Ulster, that I find the idea of Daniel O'Connell as an "inclusive" reconciler quite absurd. The profound rupture between the emerging national Ireland and the Ulster Protestant community began with O'Connell's ignorant abuse of the Presbyterian reformers who had supported Catholic Emancipation but did not follow him instantly into the Repeal Movement. In the process he created the infamous concept of "The Black North".
O'Connell condemned the use of force for political ends when it was directed against the British State in Ireland, but not when the British State did it around the world. But he gained Emancipation by means of an implied threat of force. He tried the same thing again in 1843 at Clontarf, but then told the people to go home when the government did not back down a second time. So his message for 1919 was that the people who had voted for independence should forget that they had voted when the government just carried on governing. But they choose to re-enact the"Ballingarry cabbage patch" on a larger scale. That led to an independent state that has now nearly a century of successful, and ever more successful, constitutional national development behind it - something that never before happened in Irish history.
The great lesson of the previous attempts at constitutional national developments under British Rule, personified by O'Connell and Redmond, was that they never succeeded and were killed off by force – in 1843 and 1912.
Jack Lane, Millstreet, Co Cork
Easter 1915
In the House of Commons debate on the Home Rule Bill, Redmond declared that Britain's position in Ireland was based not on democracy or popular consent, but on force. There is nothing shocking about this. It was merely a statement of the obvious.
Easter 1916 was a momentous military occasion. But Easter 1915 saw an event described in the London Times as the largest military display that Dublin had ever witnessed. To get a further sense of Redmond's understanding of things, consider his speech after the great Easter 1915 review of an armed muster of 30,000 National Volunteers: "It was not until the threat of physical force was being used to prevent the final success of the peaceful constitutional movement that the Volunteers were brought into existence... The question is whether we will defend ourselves if necessary, or not... The policy of the Volunteers will be to uphold the national rights of Ireland and to make certain that force will not be allowed to rob us of victory."
Redmond's speech was followed by John Dillon's: "For the first time in 120 years a great body of armed and drilled men, under nationalist leadership, was marched through the capital of Ireland. For 120 years such a thing would have been a weighty criminal offence... When an hour comes to make the supreme appeal to the National Volunteers ... when the National Volunteers may be again summoned to this capital and shall march, all armed and disciplined, and drilled, through the streets of Dublin ... it will become manifest to every politician, be he English or Irish, that Ireland free and indivisible must be conceded, or we will want to know the reason why."
So the Redmondite view was that, physical force having been initiated by unionism and its allies, they were themselves preparing for a resort to military methods.
A readiness to go to war in an effort to obtain sovereignty outside the Empire is one thing. Colonial intransigence has forced many countries down this road. But it is evident that Redmondism was prepared to plunge the country into further warfare for the paltry objective of a subordinate parliament, a mere county council without control of its revenues and foreign relations. Such a modest objective was hardly worth fighting and killing for. So it must be concluded that it was the Redmondites who were the most belligerent, and who had the least aversion to bloodshed in Ireland or anywhere else.
But perhaps Redmondite blood and thunder were merely ill-judged bluster, not to be taken seriously? I'm afraid not. After all, it was Redmondism which committed Ireland to the criminal slaughter of Flanders and Gallipoli on behalf of the genocidal British Empire. Alignment with a power which for the past three hundred years has been more or less constantly making war in other people's countries – for democracy, world peace, tolerance, fair play, the underdog, the opium trade – is hardly a recipe for peace. Is it any wonder Redmondism was rejected?
Pat Muldowney, Derry
STATEMENT - Need for more social housing
More social housing is vital to break the chain of homelessness. Focus Ireland welcomes the announcement by the Government of €50 million in funding for homeless services and accommodation for this year.
We also welcomed the fact that this annual funding will see less spent on emergency accommodation and more directed towards services and the long-term accommodation support required to help people escape homelessness.
The large majority of the €50 million (€36.7 million) will be for services in the Dublin area.
However, less than one-third (€15.8 million) will be spent on emergency B&B-type accommodation in Dublin while in 2003 nearly half of overall funding was allocated towards emergency services in the capital city.
We welcome the shift away from emergency accommodation towards longer-term solutions and it reflects the good work going on in the homeless sector in areas such as settlement services and prevention work.
The €3.9 in funding Focus Ireland will receive will go towards helping us to deliver upon our own five-year strategy to tackle homelesss (2005-2010). We aim to secure 800 units of accommodation through a combination of direct acquisition, partnership and building programmes during this period.
Eighty per cent of this housing will be for single adults (the majority group of people who are homeless) with 20 per cent for families. In addition Focus Ireland's tenancy support and settlement service is being doubled and aims to help 1,210 households move on to independent living.
However, despite improvements in recent years – such as a drop in rough sleeping and a cut-back in the use of emergency accommodation – more social housing is vital in order to provide effective and long-term solutions to homelessness.
The reality is that we are still falling significantly short of the level of social housing development required. The latest figures show while total national housing output continues to grow, social housing output (6,500 units last year) is still falling far short of that required - given that over 43,000 households remain on local authority waiting lists.
The NESC has previously called for social housing supply to be increased by 73,000 between 2005 and 2012. These figures of roughly 10,000 social housing units per year reflect Focus Ireland's own repeated demands for increased provision in this area.
Roughan MacNamara, Focus Ireland. www.focusireland.ie