Villagers: Letter to the editor 2006-08-24
So, many of today's students fail to make the grade in the working world, top business chiefs have claimed. According to them, too many of the so-called text generation have little interest in learning on-the-job, they take no pride in their work and they struggle to turn up on time. This is an appalling and outrageous slur on all young people and I demand that Ibec apologise for, and withdraw, these disgraceful remarks immediately. Maybe if these allegations are true, Ibec should ask theselves why this might be the case. Might it have something to do with the fact that many of these jobs are crappy, low-paid, non-unionised jobs? No wonder young people would have little or no interest in their jobs. Ibec would be better 'employed' making sure no young workers are forced to work in such intolerable conditions and that all young workers are allowed to join a trade union of their choice, rather than making cheap and nasty statements about young people.
Paul Kinsella, Santry, Dublin 9
Irish collaboration in Iraq: TDs should resign to end collaboration
I believe no TD can justify remaining in the Dáil under prevailing circumstances. They give credibility to a government that took no significant action to stop mass killings by sanctions on Iraq for years, then assisted in the illegal invasion and now continue to assist in slaughter by permitting the use of Shannon by US forces.
The time for talk and sitting on the fence is over. Each TD must act effectively now to end the criminal collaboration at Shannon and, if unable to stop it, resign. If they don't, we must let them know that failure on their part is not acceptable and that our disapproval will be confirmed at the forthcoming election.
Election promises are useless. If politicians can't end our collaboration in murder today, tomorrow, etc, how will they do it later? If they won't do it now, are they likely to when there is four or five years till the following election?
One could have been jailed just for membership of the IRA because they were killing people. Remaining in a Dáil that gives credibility to a government that assists, as best it can (we have no army, navy, or airforce of significance in modern warfare terms), the carnage in Iraq is a worse crime.
Why, when the three top UN officials in Iraq, and three UNSCOM inspectors, resigned and condemned the UN Iraq sanctions that killed 5,000 children a month for 12 years, did no TD resign in protest at their own inability to end our collaboration?
John Fitzgibbon, Dun Laoire, Co Dublin
Planning: Planning info office is essential
Dublin City Council's Planning Information Office is offering an essential service to individuals and communities.
This service was introduced through the local authority budget in 2004 and has been extremely useful to those who are concerned about planning applications and developments in their area.
Unfortunately we still have a high rate of adult illiteracy in our society, so many people are intimidated by site notices and planning applications and also feel powerless in the face of developments in their area. The Planning Information Office is there to help residents understand planning applications and to inform them of their rights in relation to the planning process.
The service has also now been localised so residents can attend their local city council area-office and arrange to meet a trained planner to interpret any planning matter which is of concern to them.
Cllr Aodhan O Riordain, Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin
AB Yehoshua: Yehoshua is is far from an 'Israeli dove'
The three Israeli novelists Amos Oz, David Grossman and AB Yehoshua are regarded in the West as Israel's 'moral conscience', a status they long-since lost among conscientious Israelis. In the words of political commentator Ran HaCohen, "They were against the previous war, they will be against the next war, they are against all wars. There is just one minor exception, though: the present war, every present war, which they always support."
That these three stooges openly backed the recent invasion of Lebanon was ignored by the western media, while their change of heart some weeks later was widely reported and totted up to their unearned credit.
The savage onslaught on Gaza that began two months ago could have been scripted by Yehoshua. In 2004, he demanded that, in the event of Palestinian recalcitrance, Israel should "use force in a total manner... We would cut off the electricity in Gaza. We would cut off communications in Gaza. We would stop fuel supply to Gaza... It won't be a desirable war, but definitely a purifying one."
Yet he was hailed during his recent visit to Dublin as "a writer for peace" by the Irish Times. Now Colum McCann, reviewing his novel (Village 17 August], hails Yehoshua as "an Israeli dove who has sided, at times, with the Palestinians" and outrageously, obscenely, gleans from him the notion that "there is still some prospect of decency".
McCann refers to several Irish poets whose books he carries around the streets of New York. Several of these beautiful souls – first among them Seamus Heaney – passed a picket of pro-Palestinian activists in Dublin recently to pay homage to another self-styled peacenik, poet Amir Or (Or had published a screed in the Irish Times blaming the Palestinians for their own oppression).
Hailing Yehoshua as some kind of moral exemplar carries naïvety to the point of culpability.
Raymond Deane, President of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Israel and the EU: EU should make Israel pass tests
You have to hand it to Mary MacAleese when it comes to bridge-building. Since her election as president, one of her special goals has been to make time to visit the Protestant people in the North and for them to visit her in Dublin.
On the other hand you have to wonder at a similar situation in Israel.
There you have the prime minister, who is in the job about one year and in a recent four-week period he has overseen the destruction of 146 bridges in Lebanon.
In recent decades, Israel has quietly built up trade deals with the European Union, which have been extremely beneficial to Israel, and has opened doors for Israel to be associated with many democratic countries.
As we know, all countries seeking to join the European Union have to pass stringent tests, one of which is the emphasis of proclaiming democratic provenance.
In this respect, the European Union should seek to review its trade agreements with Israel, with a view to honouring democratic principles by example.
Peter Kennedy, Sutton, Dublin 13
US hypocrisy: US needs to open its eyes to the truth
The man President Bush wanted dead or alive, Osama bin Laden, once had his training camps in Afghanistan funded by, and weapons supplied by, by the CIA. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. He was their man then, just as Saddam Hussein was their man when Bush Snr sent his very good wishes to him via Rumsfeld.
The US always propped up dictators when it suited, people who are exploited and not expected to get vengeful – including the infamous Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti and his son Baby Doc. Then there was the folly of the road-map, where enemies were asked to live side-by-side in peace and harmony. The Bush administration exaggerated the terrorist threat for its own purposes.
The world's foremost Islamic scholar, Bernard Lewis, wrote that in devising means to fight terrorists it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them. President Kennedy once wrote a book Why England Slept during the second world war. Who will now write a book to tell Americans that they are sleep walking through it all.
It's time to give Fox News a holiday and look beneath the surface of things and seek the truth. The president sleeps well because he says it is God's war but the carnage from Tora Bora to Tel Aviv is of his making. God is in the dock and men have lost their reason.
Marie Lyder, Dartry, Dublin 6
STATEMENT: UN would be bolstered by women
There seems to be a crisis within the women's movement, added to by an article in Sarah Baxter in the Sunday Times of 13 August – she appeared to accuse feminists of abandoning the old Greenham Common anti-war principles in favour of an insane support for Hezbollah and she tried to make out that there was no such thing anymore as independent women's voices. This neocon journalistic provocation has been seized upon with glee by a number of men "of the left".
To counteract such notions, we have set up a petition to be sent to Kofi Annan at the UN (New York, NY 10017, USA) – as follows:
"We demand, as an immediate priority, that you call an emergency meeting of all NGO women's groups that are committed to ending war and the tools of war, and to the relief of the victims of war, in order to implement the UN resolutions already passed which state that women must be accorded their rightful share in all combat-solving negotiations and post-war compensation – bearing in mind that women and children make up the greatest number of victims of war and grassroots women carry the greatest burden of rebuilding war-torn society. You yourself have said that the UN has never been so weak: the way to strengthen it is to implement what has already been agreed, and to let the NGO women's groups deal directly with the Security Council. Let the women of the wworld confront the nations of the world."
Never has it been more urgent for women to use power to end all wars and tools of war. Pressure must be put on the UN by the NGOs before we are all swallowed up and put back in the cage.
Margaretta D'Arcy, Women In Media & Entertainment, 10 St Bridget's Place Lower, Galway. margaretta@iol.ie, 091 565430
STATEMENT: TD refuses to meet with Rossport residents
The Westmeath Environmental Group would like to know why Noel Dempsey TD continues to refuse to meet with, and talk with, the people of Rossport, Co Mayo. The very title Aire, or minister, implies that you care for and serve the people. Not that you suit yourself, or serve the interests of big business only.
So, why not meet with them?
The deal struck with Shell et al is now revealed to be a complete giveaway, with no direct benefit whatever to the Irish taxpayer. On top of that, the company wanted to suit itself as to how the gas came ashore. And your government fell over itself to facilitate them. The compulsory purchase of Irish land for the benefit of one private company was a first, and a sad episode. And it may not stand up to constitutional challenge. The concern of the people of Rossport and its surrounding area for their safety and their environment have not been given any consideration.
And, yet, you refuse to travel to the area and to meet them.
Oddly, when these people sent representatives to Norway, to lay the facts before politicians and people, they had little trouble in being heard and in having efforts made in support of their case. Can it really be that their own government will continue to stand aside and refuse to talk to them?
We are well aware that you can act decisively – when it suits you. When some brave councillors listened to the people and resisted your Waste Management Strategy, because it introduced largescale incineration, you instantly changed the rules to remove all democratically elected local representatives from all decisions on waste matters. And we know to whose benefit.
Will we again see you behave in an anti-democratic way by refusing to meet with, and talk with, the good, caring, republican and democratic citizens of Rossport, Co Mayo? Or will you line up to the real meaning of your title and deal with the people?
Richard Murphy, Public relations officer, Westmeath Environmental Group
Revenue and Irish language: Revenue reply was 'dishonest'
The Revenue Commissioners' senior press officer, Dave Colemen, is less than honest in his reply to Eoin Ó Murchú about the provision of service in Irish (Village 17 August). Nowhere in Ó Murchú's article does he criticise services being provided for Polish speakers, and I agree with him that that's a good thing.
But recently I had occasion to do business in the Revenue office in Cathedral Street, Dublin. There were various signs there in
English and Polish, but no signs in Irish.
Under the Offical Languages Act, the Revenue Commissioners, like every other state body, is required to offer bilingual English- and Irish-language services and information.
I've complained directly to the Coimisinéar Teangan about this ignoring of Irish by the Revenue in its central Dublin Office – and that implies no criticism at all of the provision of any services in Polish or any other language.
Coleman's reply is an attempt to portray Ó Murchú's criticism as a complaint about Polish, when in reality it's obviously a complaint about the lack of Irish.
Coleman and the Revenue Commissioners would serve us all better if they actually addressed the issue raised and set it right, instead of trying to cover themselves by snide innuendos and dishonesty. Shame on them, and well done Eoin Ó Murchú.
Ann Carroll, Ringsend, Dublin 4