Villagers: Letters to the Editor 2006-07-13

John Waters is right that guilt can be a part of charitable giving (Village 29 June). Simply being born in a place like Ireland at once puts us at the head of queue for the distribution of good fortune. We are all better off than most of humanity.

However he is wrong to feel overwhelmed by the imbalances and injustices of the world. Our Judaeo-Christian tradition has given us a splendid body of values that contributes greatly to our civilisation. We also have social, economic and political institutions to express these values. As citizens we uphold these values in many positive ways as we go about our day-to-day business.

The problem lies elsewhere. Our political leaders decide our foreign policy. Traditionally, the goal has been to promote exclusively the country's best interests. But, as John Waters points out, there is no escaping the inequity of the world, for we see it nightly on TV. The daily TV news is a relatively new phenomenon in the traditional world of diplomacy. Now, citizens of well-off countries like Ireland can see up-to-the-minute pictures of suffering people in Darfur and starving people in Kenya. These pictures, naturally, arouse our desire to help these unfortunate people. Our feelings come from those values we have been reared and educated in. But, as well as responding to appeal's for humanitarian assistance, we should also demand action from our government. Governments of rich countries have a duty to correct the global imbalances that keep millions of people in poverty. So, when they fail to respond adequately we should be angry. Instead of feeling guilty, even after his monthly direct debits, John Waters should feel angry when his government fails to express adequately his values and those of his fellow citizens, as he has a right to expect.

Brian Scott, Chief executive, Oxfam Ireland

Tony Blair - Practice what you preach, Blair

On the anniversary of 7/7, Tony Blair has criticized the Muslim community in Britain for not doing enough to tackle extremism.

Blair seems to be in denial about the role of his government and his allies, the US and Israel, in the radicalisation of Muslims across the world. He says, "You are wrong in your view about the West."

But it is the West which supports and supplies Israel with weapons which have killed many thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children. It is the US and Britain that attacked Iraq using the excuse that it had WMDs.

When that was proved untrue, they said it had links with al Qaida. Well, it does now, but it didn't then. Then they said they were establishing democracy in the Middle East, but, when the Palestinian people had been so radicalised that they elected Hamas, the West and Israel decided to punish their democratic vote.

Blair and his allies need to remove the beams in their own eyes before preaching to others.

Dessie Ellis, Finglas, Dublin 11

Heritage and planning - 'Dick Roche's hypocrisy is stomach-churning'

The only 'wow' factor to Dick Roche's recent announcement on the Heritage Trust is that he understands the meaning of 'heritage' at all. He didn't at Tara. In giving permission for archaeological excavations last year he indicated that "as a statutory consultee on individual planning applications he intends ensuring that heritage protection remains a priority in this area" (press release 13 May 2005).

Why then are the planning applications pouring into Meath County Council, including the most recent for a waste-recycling facility in the Gabhra Valley right beside the historic Gabhra river? This is located at Philpotstown, Garlow Cross and is intended to recycle construction and demolition waste. Sited as it is at the proposed interchange and only 1,525m from the Hill of Tara what will it recycle? The archaeological remains of our ancestors and our history? So much for his aim "to protect the rural character, setting and archaeological heritage of the landscape in the vicinity of Tara and the new motorway" (press release 13 May 2005).

The minister's hypocrisy, arrogance and disregard of his environment portfolio is quite stomach-churning.

Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, Save Tara, Maynooth, Co Kildare

Statement: 8 good reasons to reject the Towards 2016 deal

1. Pay. Towards 2016 offers 4.4 per cent per year (annualised). Annual inflation is 3.9 per cent. Childcare inflation is five times the overall official rate and house-price inflation is nine times the rate. As the ICTU says, "Many firms are enjoying double-digit profit levels." Government ministers got five pay increases in the six months to December 2005.

2. Ten long years. It is folly to tie ourselves to a complicated, elaborate and restrictive agreement for 10 years.

3. Accelerating the 'race to the bottom'. SIPTU stayed away from the talks for four months because no real protection was on offer. But outsourcing is excluded from the new procedure (Section 18) and is agreed to for the public sector. Section 18 only applies to compulsory redundancies. The procedure is a maze: the unions have to go through a new panel, then the minister, who may refer it to the Labour Court. If it's found that the redundancies are bogus and the employer goes ahead, the only sanction is withdrawal of the state rebate on statutory redundancy compensation. All it gives workers is the right to take an unfair dismissals claim, but most of these cases don't result in reinstatement. Towards 2016 would make the situation worse for the unions, who must cooperate with restructuring and must not take industrial action.

4. Assault on public-sector workers. This deal is a watershed in that public sector workers have to give substantial productivity in exchange for the ordinary cost-of-living pay increases of the deal. Under this agreement the parties accept: "cooperation with the implementation of policies, initiatives and reforms following government decisions or the enactment of legislation". This basically requires cooperation with all government decisions. If there's disagreement "staff will cooperate with the changes while the issue is being so processed".

5. Binding arbitration again. Towards 2016 carries over from Sustaining Progress the requirement for unions to accept the verdict of the Labour Court on inability to pay claims, disputed breaches of the agreement and on whether changes being sought by employers are "normal and ongoing changes" which must be allowed.

6. A slap in the face to SIPTU. During the 'partnership' talks the government snubbed SIPTU by deciding to privatise Aer Lingus.

7. Social wage scam. The 60 pages of social provisions in the deal are mostly padding and the targets set are largely aspirational and accord in broad outline with existing government policies. Their implementation will rely on the buoyancy of the state's finances. The 10,000 affordable houses promised in the last deal were never delivered.

8. Nothing on Pensions. The deal gives no protection against the current assault on defined benefit pension schemes and shelves the long-awaited national mandatory pension schemes into a Green Paper discussion document.

Paul Kinsella, Santry, Dublin 9. More Campaign Against the Pay Deal www.tradeunionactivists.org

Greyhound industry - Review of greyhound laws should include coursing ban

The government plans to review the legislation governing the Irish greyhound industry. This is in the wake of damaging reports concerning the way the industry conducts its affairs. I sincerely hope that this review will take a close look at live hare-coursing. Images of hyped-up greyhounds battering or mauling hares to death at coursing venues around Ireland have shamed our nation abroad. Apart from homegrown opposition to coursing, animal welfare groups worldwide have for years lobbied successive Irish governments to ban this obscenity. Independent surveys, all of which indicated huge majorities in favour of a ban, have been ignored.

The first – and last – serious bid to rid the industry of hare coursing was in 1975 when the draft Wildlife Bill was debated in the Oireachtas with a view to making coursing illegal. Labour senator Michael D Higgins moved the amendment. Senators, who had been listening with bored expressions to the Minister for Fisheries and Forestry talk about tree-planting, bat habitats, exotic birds and the mating habits of the Bull Frog suddenly sprung to life at the mention of hare coursing. Empty seats quickly filled up and coursing clubs around Ireland were alerted. After a stormy debate the proposed ban was defeated by a margin of 30 votes to six.

Among the six were two giants of Irish politics: Dr Noel Browne and Mary Robinson.

As Minister for Health, Browne sought to introduce his ill-fated Mother and Child scheme – the church regarded his attempt to provide free medical services for nursing mothers as "unchristian". In his contribution to the debate on hare coursing he described the practise as "a cowardly and indefensible abuse of one of nature's most gentle creatures".

Mary Robinson had already tried three times to legalise artificial birth control in Ireland before she spoke eloquently in favour of banning hare coursing. When she spoke against coursing, one senator shouted: "Is it more than a coincidence that the people who want to ban coursing are the same people who want to bring contraception and divorce into this country?"

This catcall could have been turned around: Was it more than a coincidence that the people who sought to deny Irish people fundamental human rights like divorce and contraception were the same members of parliament who backed the savage, sadistic organised baiting of hares at coursing meetings?

John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co Kilkenny

Mental health - New dawn for mental health?

As I hadn't yet managed to secure a copy of the 2005 report of the Mental Health Commission published on 6 July, I was surprised and pleased to find it as the lead subject of your News & Views section (Village 6 July). However, your account of this report indicates once again the unacceptable conditions and neglect found in Irish mental health services.

Might I draw you and your readers' attention to the almost simultaneous, but coincidental, Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health & Children report on the high level of suicide in Irish society, launched on the 5 July but regrettably not covered by you.

This report opens with an executive summary in which a short paragraph devoted to mental health states: "Those with mental illness are known to be at higher risk of death by suicide but the type of mental health service one can access is a matter of luck. Funding for mental health services is allocated in a random manner with scant regard for need. The provision of mental health services for adolescents is high on aspiration but low on action."

It closes with 33 recommendations, of which one states that: "Recommendations from the inspector of mental health services must be implemented within a five-year period of his/her report or a resignation from either the inspector on a point of principle or the minister with responsibility for mental health services, because of the failure to support the inspectorate must follow as a matter of course."

Could this mean a new dawn for the Irish mental health services?

Siobhán Barry, Clinical Director, Cluain Mhuire Service, Blackrock, Co Dublin

Rossport Five split - Rossport split article was 'skewed'

William Hederman's article (No Split in Rossport Five, July 6-12), purporting to refute my story in the Sunday Times on the divisions within the group, was an unfair and skewed attack on my work.

Hederman implies I made little or no effort to contact members of the Rossport Five. I reject this.

While I did not succeed in making contact with the men, I did speak to the principal spokesman of the Shell to Sea group, Mark Garavan, who confirmed that Brendan Philbin was no longer taking part in the Peter Cassells-led mediation process between Shell and the Five.

I emphasised this to Hederman. He chose to ignore it in his article.

Hederman writes that Philbin attends weekly meetings of "the group", but does not make it clear that these are not weekly meetings of the Rossport Five group but meetings of the wider opposition platform known as Shell to Sea.

Brendan Philbin is no longer part of the Rossport Five's engagement with Peter Cassells and Shell. Since his departure from that process, there has been at least one significant disagreement between the other four, a very heated row over Micheal O Seighin's decision to "accept" a public apology from Shell MD Andy Pyle.

Whether that is or is not a split is a matter of interpretation thereafter.

Stephen O'Brien, Political Correspondent, Sunday Times

EU propaganda - NewsTalk's EU ads are in breach of law

A series of political advertisements publicizing the "Europe Direct" information service which NewsTalk and some other local radio stations carried on a daily basis during March and April were ultimately paid for by the EU Commission. They conveyed messages that were in effect propaganda for the EU, some of it extremely unbalanced and tendentious, calculated to influence the voting behaviour of citizens, and were therefore in violation of the provisions of the Irish Broadcasting Acts, which forbid political advertising in this country.

Last week NewsTalk 106 carried two further advertisements on behalf of "Europe Direct" relating to people's rights to healthcare treatment in other EU countries and the rights of passengers under EU law if they travelled abroad by air.

Perhaps the station was assured by the advertising firm placing these ads that they were conveying factual, truthful and objective information and that therefore NewsTalk was not in breach of the law in carrying them. If that is the case the station is being misinformed.

The political nature and character of broadcast advertising does not depend on the truthfulness, objectivity or factual accuracy of the statements made in the adverts, but on whether they are capable of influencing the voting behaviour of citizens in general elections or referendums.

These EU-related ads are undoubtedly so capable, which is why my organization is concerned about the matter. NewsTalk 106 should not allow itself to be used by the Brussels commission or its Irish representation in this fashion – however tempting the financial rewards may be.

Anthony Coughlan, The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre