Letters 2005-07-29
Election predictions
The joker in
the pack
As a political junkie, I was very interested in Garret FitzGerald's predictions for the next general election. As Editor of Community Voice newspaper in Dublin 15 (Dublin West constituency), I was also particularly interested in Vincent Browne's predictions for this area.
FitzGerald predicts the loss of Joan Burton's seat to Fine Gael, citing Leo Varadkar's phenomenal success in the local elections. I think he got the highest first preference vote in the country. However, the sitting Fine Gael candidate is Senator Sheila Terry, so for whom is he predicting the seat?
Vincent Browne predicts a Sinn Féin seat for the constituency. Who does he think will take this? The total votes for each party in Dublin West (Castleknock and Mulhuddart local electoral areas) in the 2004 local election were as follows:
Fine Gael 6,734
Fianna Fáil 4,906
Labour 3,304
Socialist Party 3,116
Sinn Féin 2,504
PDs 1,899
Greens 1,019
Others 1,894
I think that it may be possible for Joe Higgins with his national profile to sufficiently top up the Socialist Party vote to take Joan Burton's seat, but I think it unlikely that Felix Gallagher or any other Sinn Féin candidate will be able to push up the vote enough to take that third seat.
On the other hand, if there is a Fine Gael/Labour pact in play during the campaign, this would probably ensure enough transfers for Joan Burton to hold her seat at the expense of Joe Higgins.
The only joker in the pack might be Mary Lou McDonald. She is certainly being groomed for a Dáil seat and as a possible party leader in the Dáil. She lives in the constituency so it has long been rumoured that she might stand. If she does, then all previous bets might be off.
FERGUS LYNCH
Dublin 15
Visit of US General Richard Myers
Take it sleazy
So the Americans are reportedly annoyed because our Minister for Defence failed to meet their top general in Dublin last week. Well pity about them.
On Wednesday 20 July, a member of An Garda Síochána, accompanied by a uniformed man, who I later realised must have been a member of the US security forces, prevented myself and my partner from entering the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) because there was "a ceremony in progress". The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, was laying a wreath in honour of Ireland's military dead. While it was nice of the general who has served in Vietnam, Afganistan and Iraq to remember our dead, I am sure there was no mention of the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians killed by US and British forces in the past couple of years. And it was too much to hope that the general's Irish counterparts would bring up that embarrassing subject.
I, as an Irish citizen, object most strongly to being kept out of IMMA, which after all belongs to me and my fellow citizens. My companion and I were quite harmless. We just wanted to view one of the exhibitions and have a nice cup of coffee afterwards.
On a more serious note, the general's visit – as a result of an Irish invitation – is just another strand in the weaving of a mesh which entraps us even more tightly into the obscene Bush/Blair wars and their sham and crumbling 'coalition of the willing'. And if (when?) the bombs explode, we – sorry, our rulers – will deny that such invitations and the shame of Shannon had anything to do with it.
And now it seems that Minister McDowell is allowing the CIA to question Irish citizens in private on Irish soil and to search our premises. To put it bluntly, was it for this we won our freedom? I have just read McDowell's insulting and ignorant, dismissive and depressing speech at the McGill Summer School. Poor Patrick McGill must be turning in his grave. As things go from bad to worse in Ireland –where our once familiar greeting 'take it easy' is being replaced by 'take it sleazy' – I am rapidly losing my sense of allegiance to this country.
SEÁN Ó RIAIN
Baile na Lobhar, Co Bhaile Átha Cliath
Rossport pipeline is truly dangerous
With the 'Rossport Five' now entering their second month in prison, it is appropriate to re-examine the reasons for their ongoing protest. This is particularly important in light of Minister Dempsey's announcement of a further review of the proposed 9km pipeline from landfall to the refinery, which had been hailed by some as offering a resolution to the controversy. Three significant issues lie behind local resistance to Shell and the imprisoned men's refusal to accept Dempsey's initiative.
Firstly, appropriate safety distances are at the core of the dispute. How far from houses should a pipeline be when its operating pressure is from 120 to 150 bar and it could, in certain scenarios, reach 345 bar? In fact there are no directly applicable standards; were available standards applied, the proposal could not proceed in its current form. Minister Dempsey stated in the Dáil that "there is no direct precedent". The safety review conducted by JP Kenny for the Department of Marine also noted that "the Corrib gas pipeline is well above the normal design pressure for onshore gas pipelines" and went on to say "it is rare for an onshore pipeline to transport unprocessed well fluid in the vicinity of inhabited buildings".
The design code used for the proposed pipeline suggests that for pressures of 345 bar (a pressure which the Government's own safety review indicates could be reached on occasion [ref. Jonson Report 6.1.2]) the pipeline should be no closer than 170 metres to the nearest dwellings. If US standards were applied (hardly the bastion of extreme ecological views) the distance should be 295 metres. In the case of the proposed Rossport pipeline, houses are 70 metres away. Why is the upstream pipeline being placed so close to houses? Who is responsible for this decision and who will be liable if something goes wrong?
The second issue of concern is that Shell's development concept has not been subject to critical scrutiny. Indeed, this matter has been excluded from the terms of reference of Minister Dempsey's latest review. It is not at all unreasonable to suggest that, for example, processing the gas offshore in shallow water would offer a clear solution to the problem.
Indeed, contrary to Shell's repeated assertions of a successful passage of their proposals through the planning process, An Bord Pleanála in June 2002 directly found that "it has not been demonstrated that the remote siting of an onshore processing terminal eight kilometres inland constitutes the best alternative". They requested the company to compare their proposal with "the development of a shallow water fixed steel jacket terminal". The Board's Inspector, Mr Kevin Moore, subsequently found in his report that "the issue of concern is the remote siting of a processing terminal inland, away from the landfall. At no time in the submissions now before the Board and since the Board's request was issued is this concern addressed".
Finally, the effect of an explosion has not been explicitly included in the proposed review. In designing so unusual and dangerous a construction, one must examine the consequences of failure. How many will die in a rupture? What distance might a fireball travel from the pipeline? This is not scare-mongering: this is simply competent design safety investigation. Pipelines do rupture. One of the most recent occurred in Ghislenghien, Belgium last September, killing 21 people and burning everything within a 400-metre radius.
The Rossport Five, their families and supporters have stepped in where the state and its regulatory agents have failed. That their demand for reason and standards has resulted in their imprisonment is a sad commentary on the quality of participative democracy in contemporary Ireland.
Dr Mark Garavan
Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Castlebar, Co Mayo.
Member of the Shell to Sea campaign
? More www.shelltosea.com
Regarding the 'Dalkey House of Horrors' issue, the apparent lack of physical evidence to support 'Niamh's' story and the recently expressed doubts by gardaí about aspects of her recollections, should cause right-thinking people to reflect carefully on headline-grabbing 'shock horror' allegations.
It does not wrong 'Niamh' in any way to have her claims thoroughly and objectively investigated and to approach memories arising from regression therapy with extreme caution. An exhaustive search for the truth about what did or did not occur is needed to set the record straight.
A similarly thorough search for the unmitigated truth is also required in the case of Kathy Beirne's much-publicised Kathy's Story. Beirne tells the chilling story of how nuns subjected her to years of unspeakable abuses. These allegedly occurred in some of the infamous Magdalene laundries.
But the Sisters of Charity, the order that ran the laundries are adamant that she was never resident in any of the institutions. This poses a problem for those who cannot decide whom to believe in the absence of incontestable evidence pointing in one direction or another.
Beirne's book opens with a statement saying that for legal reasons she cannot name the institutions in which she was incarcerated or the people who abused her. She is entitled to make such a statement. It is her right.
I pray Beirne changes her mind and names and shames those she says committed those unforgivable crimes. Failure to do so could damage the cause of abuse victims who wish to confront their accusers. I look forward to the day that Beirne produces names, places, and dates to back up her heart-rending story.
Just as an abuse victim has an absolute right to receive justice and achieve some form of closure, so too are people accused of detestable crimes entitled to answer their accusers.
If they are found guilty in court, the law, one presumes, will take its course. If they establish their innocence, justice will also have been done. It is in nobody's interest that a life is ruined by an allegation that doesn't add up.
The time-honoured principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' must not be turned on its head by a lynch-mob mentality.
JOHN FITZGERALD
Callan, Co Kilkenny
I e-mailed all four Dublin MEPs on 23 June about an upcoming vote on software patents. I had never written to an MEP before and was curious where they each stood.
Only one MEP bothered to respond.
On 27 June, Gay Mitchell, Fine Gael, replied. At a later date he wrote telling how the vote had gone.
I was surprised and raised the issue on the popular political discussion site, politics.ie. Four hours after I mentioned it on the site and 25 days after I first wrote to her, I received an e-mail from Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin) apologising for the lateness of reply, outlining her position and telling me how the vote went. Proinsias de Rossa finally replied a few days ago.
One public representative still hasn't bothered to reply.
It seems strange then that MEPs wonder out loud why people regard the EU as being distant or why voters feel they never see their MEPs until election time.
What people thought was simply Brussels-induced laziness in reaching out to voters can now be seen as a more active policy of disregarding even the most enthusiastic of constituents.
Hopefully by 2009, Eoin Ryan will have ignored and passively insulted enough people to lose his seat.
MICHAEL PIDGEON
Monkstown, Co Dublin
While wealthy Fianna Fáil supporters gather in Galway this week, dining in private with ministers and mingling with those facing or who have faced tribunals, five Mayo men face a far bleaker time in prison.
The harsh reality of Ireland today is a two-tier society with the wealthy and powerful on one side and on the other are those without political influence who are exploited, ignored and deprived of justice.
A more sinister relationship between financial power and politics is now emerging. How many donations have been made by wealthy builders and businessmen to the political parties or indeed to individual ministers?
It is a national scandal that five men are still in prison over a questionable relationship between politicians and a multi-national oil company.
The Rossport Five will not be invited into the Fianna Fáil hospitality tent. Instead the representatives of the multi-national companies will be wined and dined and no doubt donations will be made to the party.
The hospitality tent has become a symbol of our two-tiered society where those with power and wealth are admitted while the vast majority of ordinary law abiding, tax-paying people are excluded.
JOHN FITZGERALD
Callan, Co Kilkenny
It is simply incredible that the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, now thinks that St Ita's Hospital in Portrane is a disgrace and is amazed at conditions there when Vincent Browne has been shouting about St Ita's for over 10 years now. What have the Tánaiste and previous ministers for health been doing for the last decade? They are the disgrace.
PAUL DORAN
Monastery Walk, Dublin
Certain agenda-ridden publications would have us believe that we have entered dangerous times, that our streets are out of control, that binge drinking has engulfed the lives of many and that people cannot walk the streets for fear being attacked by out-of-control hoodlums. The cause of this is the youth of the great unwashed, the working class.
Nobody condones criminal actions of thugs who terrorise neighbourhoods. At the same time nobody can condone the criminal under-investment by successive Governments in the few areas where anti-social behaviour and crime are prevalent.
Similarly, it must be made quite clear that just because people dress, talk, walk and act in a certain way that they disapprove of, does not make them criminals. Nor does it make them anti-social. Activities like kicking a ball against a wall, hanging around street corners or being loud (without causing a nuisance) are not criminal activities. Nor should people who engage in such activities be criminalised.
Examples given by politicians for the necessity of ASBOs include harassing old ladies (that's a crime), causing a disturbance (a crime too), vandalism and drug pushing (both crimes). How about asking the gardaí to enforce the wide-ranging powers they already have under the Misuse of Drugs Acts, Public Order Act and the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act?
Fianna Fáil Cork North Central TD, Billy Kelleher, a representative for some of the most deprived areas in Ireland, has campaigned tirelessly for the introduction of ASBOs and curfews for young people. Never have I heard Kelleher damning the extreme poverty that many of his constituents are forced to live in. Never has Kelleher gone to the press demanding funding for the communities where crime is a problem.
This is not to say that Kelleher has been wrong to highlight the climate of fear that has enveloped some of Cork's northside, but simply to say that there are adequate laws in place to deal with such thugs and that the real problem is inadequate enforcement of those laws. The solution is more gardaí on the streets, gardaí who treat all with the respect and dignity they deserve and gardaí who have the trust of the community.
LIAM THORNTON
Togher, Cork City
An urgent programme of police action to prevent gangs roaming housing estates and breaking into the homes of elderly people is now needed in Limerick.
Home breaking is one of the fastest growing crime sectors yet police response has been inadequate.
People in northside estates and those living in isolated rural parts are terrified of these gangs with fast cars to enable them to hit a few houses in a short time.
Some sleep by day because they are awake at night in fear. Other elderly people who cannot afford it leave their house lights on through the night as they feel it gives them some protection.
These elderly people are living in fear and yet their plight is being ignored by society in general. Elderly people are being murdered in isolated areas and there has been no real police response.
It would be of some reassurance to elderly people if the Limerick police came up with a plan to patrol the neighbourhoods at night.
MICK 'THE QUILL' RYAN
Ballynanty, Limerick
The hostile reaction from Messers Mansergh, Lane, O'Riordan and Leavy (Village 22-28 July) to my letter disputing Lane's claim that the 1916 Rising had a 'utilitarian' value is symptomatic of southern nationalism's denial regarding any suggestion that a malevolent motivation lay behind the insurrection.
Mansergh's quaint view that the intention of the rebel leadership was to establish "a national Government represenative of the whole of the people of Ireland" requires a drastic suspension of incredulity to be believed.
The ruthless cadre who drove the Rising – the IRB and their cohorts – fully understood what a successful German-backed putsch would be involve. Represenative Government was not part of the agenda.The defeat of the rebels in 1916 saved them from historical infamy, and our forebears from the horrors of German-backed Irish republican 'totalitarian' rule, a state of affairs which would have been preceded by a terrible war.
It is difficult to believe that Mansergh is so historically myopic as to believe that there is a comparision between 1776 and 1916. The American declaration of independence was issued on 4 July by the represenatives of the United States of America. In Congress just under a year before that, the Continental Congress had formally declared the reasons why the colonists had decided to fight the British. The American war against Great Britain was not sprung on an unsuspecting American public during a holiday period by a cadre of underground violent fanatics while most of America's manpower was abroad fighting alongside the British in a world war. If such an event had happened it would have been treason against their own American countrymen.
Even though freedom's banner is inevitably stained with blood, there are occasions when violence is neccessary to secure liberty. The period from 1916 to 1923 was emphatically not one of them, nor were there any conditions subseqent to 1923 that justified political violence in any part of Ireland or Britain. We should view our past with honesty and objectivity. This requires the abandonment of 'creationist history', to use Peter Hart's term. No where is that more enshrined than in the so-called 'hallowed ground' of the republican plot at Arbour Hill.
PIERCE MARTIN
Celbridge, Co Kildare