Villagers: Letters to the Editor 2006-09-14

I refer to the Taoiseach's comments as reported in the media on 6 September: "Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of a fire." Can I respectively suggest to the Taoiseach that to enable young children to be creative, they should have the possibility of doing this in surroundings that they are comfortable in. Here in Gaelscoil Na Camogie in Clondalkin, we have way above the national average child-teacher ratio and sub-standard classrooms (pre-fabs). Put your money were your mouth is, Taoiseach.

Paul Doran, Clondalkin, Dublin 22

 

Laytown primary school: Cross-party collaboration is required

In response to Regina Doherty's letter last week criticising Fianna Fáil's perceived inaction over the Laytown Primary School situation, I would like to hear what specific contribution Doherty made to the debate on the night in question.

May I suggest that instead of employing political point-scoring tactics, it would prove far more beneficial for everybody – above all, in this case, our children – if Doherty adopted a more constructive approach to the issues that concern all of us. I know that there are many good political representatives who have put party squabbles to one side to unite for the common good. Thomas Byrne, the East Meath Fianna Fáil candidate, and Shane McEntee from Fine Gael have recently shown the way on this front, choosing to proactively co-operate on the matters that are important to our constituency. This includes their attempt to resolve the schooling situation in Laytown by meeting with parents in Beech Park and talking with the board of management of both affected schools. Cross-party collaboration is the key to resolving these issues.

SK McKee, Meath

 

 

 

 

Developing Dublin Airport: A new airport needs to be developed

As economic commentators warn of the serious implications of our overheated property market, solutions are being desperately sought by policy-makers. There is considerable reluctance on the part of this government to risk repeating of the consequences of earlier interventions that targeted property-market investors and led to a shortage of rental properties and resulted in an inevitable explosion in rents. The fundamental problem is a shortage on the supply side, not of houses, but of land for housing.

There are thousands of acres of cutaway bogland available not far from Dublin. It is land of little value and its isolated location makes it unattractive for development. How could such land be made attractive for development?

John Kasarda, a leading international expert on aviation economics, says, "Airports will shape business location and urban development in this century as much as motorways and roads did in the last century and railroads in the previous one." For him, accessibility, rather than location, is the new byword of successful urban development.

If the government decided to build a new state-of-the-art airport on such land, a new city could be developed. It could be designed so that residential communities are not put under flight-paths or too near runways. It makes much more economic sense to build such an airport than to continue the unsustainable development of an increasingly inaccessible Dublin airport.

Housing could be made available at a reasonable rate given the cheap land at such an alternative site. And, as this land is state-owned, social housing could be easily and cheaply provided. Industrial development would also be easily attracted to such an accessible site.

These and other spin-off benefits will not arise from the continued uneconomic development of Dublin airport.

On Sunday morning, 3 September, on RTÉ Radio 1, Friends First chief economist Jim Power said a new state-of-the-art airport should be built on a green-field site somewhere like Mullingar, in the middle of Ireland. It could be accessed by a high-speed rail link and a good road network.

Mícheál Martin agreed that such alternatives should be considered and that we need a second airport south of Dublin. He was also concerned that our national planning would continue to be made with a "recession mindset" that underestimates our future needs because it fails to take due account of the real demographic and economic changes that are taking place.

Do he and his government have the foresight to think the unthinkable and the courage to make it happen?

Matthew Harley, Portmarnock, Co Dublin

 

 

 

Aer Lingus: Public should get a vote on privatisation

Privatisation of our most essential national assets – our real silverware – could not be right or natural.

First it was Irish Sugar to Greencore. This was an industry that gave good employment, created and preserved community life, and helped in providing la dolce vita to thousands of people over the past 70 years. Now the entire industry and its factories are closed down, without even a thought for a Bio-fuel or other replacement enterprise.

Next in line, we had the Telecom/Éircom debacle. Our national icommunications network, showing huge potential, was savagely bisected and sold off for 'a song' to investment sharks from here to Australia, with the needs of the Irish people secondary to their lust for monetary gain. Several other state and semi-state set-ups, including Irish Shipping, Irish Steel, Nitrogen Éireann and Great Southern Hotels, have all been similarly peddled.

Now comes the fate of Aer Lingus. We saw an executive put in charge – a man who turned it from loss-maker to profitable enterprise overnight. The government wouldn't support him by 'playing ball' money-wise, so he departed for British Airways. With the floatation of the company now being launched in such a hijacked and handicapped state, one wonders at the outcome. There are so many 'hangers-on' and inbuilt stipulations that is nigh on impossible to predict the success of its future operation.

Irish taxpayers are the real owners of all state and semi-state companies and they should be allowed exercise their democratic right to vote by referenda on such vital issues. We live in vulnerable and changing times internationally, and we would be in a real emergency without control of our power sources, communications, transport, health, postal and food industries.

A government incapable of appointing and supervising independently-selected, top-grade executive boards to run these services and ensure they break even or show a profit, is not worthy re-electing. The government will retain a 25 per cent share after the launch stage and then dilute it, as it did with Greencore. Not good enough.

JAMES GLEESON, Thurles, Co Tipperary

 

 

 

 

Katrina and Colum McCann: Halliburton 'rebuilding' New Orleans

"Today there are thousands of people attempting to return to their badly-damaged homes in New Orleans, but they are being kept out by barbed-wire fences, armed guards, snapping dogs. It's a scene reminiscent of a refugee camp in some ill starred part of the world." From Colum McCann's column (31 August - 6 September).

Could there possibly be a connection between these 'facts on the ground' and the fact that the rebuilding programme and funds were allocated to organ-grinder Dick Cheney's recent employer Halliburton – the same crew playing Joseph Heller's Milo Minderbinder role in the structural adjustment programme running since Operation WMD was launched in Iraq?

These boys made their billions milking the cash cow of Vietnam and sure as Krupps, they own the current politbureau. And is it true that they have most of the Irish media terrorised into granting them anonymity?

Damien Flinter, Headford, Co Galway

 

 

Ryder Cup: Bertie has lost touch with reality

I heard the Taoiseach on the radio from Westport, early on 5 September, speaking of Ireland as "one of the best countries in the world... Irish people can do anything."

Over an hour later, on the same radio station, a Straffan resident emailed about effectively having foreign rule in his area, due to the Ryder Cup competition.

Seemingly, people's movements are monitored, with restrictions on visitors to the neighbourhood. I remembered a similar situation for President George W Bush's brief stay in Shannon in June 2004, when his security and military personnel, with the Garda and Defence Forces, held sway.

I wonder whether the Taoiseach has lost touch with the reality experienced by ordinary Irish people.

COLM RODDY, Dublin 13

 

 

Mary Kenny: No more 'chicken and chips'

Dublin based political pundits from the media always patronisingly describe senior politicians' visits to local Cumhann as the "chicken and chips" circuit! When was the last time these experts dined outside the 'Pale'?

Keith Nolan, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim

 

 

 

Reaction to John Waters: Who really rules the world

 

I seem to be living on a very different planet to John Waters. I can make no sense of such thoughts as "the generation of pampered western pop children who now reign supreme over the West under a make-believe cloud of illusory oppression" (Village 7 September). Does he really think that the rebels of the 1960s, with their "neurotic" imaginations and support of Fidel Castro, "reign supreme"? May I recommend he switch his channel to Fox News for a while to see who really runs this world.

Or let me take him to the University of Wisconsin in 1967, when the first student sit-in took place. The students' "neurotic imaginations" had been upset by images of Vietnamese children in flames after being struck with napalm by US forces (they were the first TV generation). They were further shocked when their peaceful demonstration was brutally broken up by club-wielding state police. Within months the protests had spread to most of the campuses in the US – four students were shot dead by state troopers at Ohio State University in 1968.

There are some who believe the world is divided between good and evil, and that the USA and its allies are leading the fight against evil and can never do wrong. And it is they who reign supreme today, while those, like Noam Chomsky (pictured above) who voice their opinions on what they see as American war crimes, are marginalised.

No, Mr Waters. Power in the West resides with those like yourself who prescribe unquestioning allegiance to authority.

Mick Nolan, Kilcolgan, Co Galway

 

 

 

 

Middle East: Israel's 'democracy' isn't worth defending

 

I note in recent correspondence to various broadsheets, the defenders of Israel have been highlighting its credentials as the only democratic state in the region and its right to defend that democracy.

Lincoln once said, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

Think of this in the context of Israel, where millions of people under its military rule have no democratic rights worth talking about and are forced to live in an apartheid state. When they exercise their democratic franchise, they are castigated for producing the 'wrong result' in electing Hamas.

The irony here, of course, is that Hamas was in part set up by the Israelis to counter the secular PLO and Fatah. Hezbollah really only started to flourish during Israel's brutal invasion of the Lebanon in 1982 to crush the PLO.

This is the country which has defied 246 UN Security Council resolutions and has continuously ignored UN resolution 194, which enshrines the right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland. This resolution has been reaffirmed 135 times to no avail. Forty-two per cent of the Palestinian homeland is now annexed with illegal Jewish settlements.

Again and again the Israeli reaction to threat is to over-react and actually cause the entrenchment of extremist ideas amongst their neighbours. Most Palestinians only want peace and the dignity of a decent life, yet they live in constant fear. How long more should they suffer for the past crimes of European nations?

Barry Walsh, Blackrock, Cork