Villagers: Letters to the editor 2006-11-16
Vincent Browne's piece on 'On this day 28 October 1492' (Village 2 November) celebrating – if that's the right word – Columbus Day gives a definite opinion that it was savagery by Europeans that brought about the virtual collapse of the native American populations and culture.
Not so. It has been well established for some time that it was the infectious diseases – smallpox, measles, tuberculosis – brought by the Europeans that were the major cause of this, not human brutality, no matter how frequent and unjust this was (see Plagues and Peoples by WH Mc Neill).
Paddy Sleeman, Ballyvolane, Cork
Michael McDowell: McDowell's car-crash coalition
The Comptroller and Auditor General's office has published yet another damning account of this stuttering coalition's massive failure. Michael McDowell's (pictured) excessive purchasing strategy for a new prison site highlights the ever-increasing confusion now apparent in most government departments.
Not to ignore the same office's recent damnation of the abysmal and continuing PPAR's system by noting that nobody appears to have been in charge of it for this past year.
One wonders now if there is any actual leadership in existence in this country. Besides, I mean, the corrupted leadership writing a draft in a bank somewhere to 12 'friends'.
Sleep depravation and constant fatigue have now been proven to be a major contributing factor to the appalling loss of life on our country's roads. Basically, some people are falling asleep at the wheel, to horrific detrimental effects. This wearied (nine-year) coalition appears to have succumbed to a similar fate.
Keith Connolly, Rathfarnham, Dublin
Gaza: Bloodthirsty IDF response, as usual
Multiple deaths in Beit Hanoun (pictured), Gaza this week, including many children killed by Israeli tank fire, and all we get from the US administration is a request for the parties to show restraint. You would think they were commenting on the so-called game played at Croke Park recently.
Yet again the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has shown a disproportionate and bloodthirsty response to militant rocket fire from Gaza. They have employed collective punishment on civilians as they have done previously in Jenin and southern Lebanon.
This is in contravention of the Geneva convention but of course our friends in the current beleagured US administration have never paid much heed to international opinion. This can be judged by their attitude to the International Criminal Court and recent US legislation allowing use of coerced evidence.
Yet again there will be the 'assurance' of the usual IDF investigation and a subsequent whitewash.
The Gaza strip continues to be a festering sore which humanity should be ashamed of but is too afraid to confront for fear of percieved anti-semitism.
Barry Walsh, Blackrock, Cork
Noel Dempsey and Shell: Dempsey's self-serving comments
The dismissal by Noel Dempsey of Shell to Sea's Initiative of 6 November is most disturbing. This follows his self-serving declaration that the Erris situation is as intractable as that in the North.
Let us be quite clear. Shell's modus operandi is firmly established internationally: it will only operate to the minimum standards required by the client government. It is not Shell but Dempsey's government which dictates the play. It forms one side of this dispute. On the other side is the community at large and its right to be fully informed on how its natural resources are to be used, together with the community of Erris and their genuine environmental concerns at a local level.
Dempsey cannot have forgotten that it was through his predecessor, the disgraced Ray Burke, that the current regime under which our oil/gas reserves would be exploited was devised; that through his colleague, Frank Fahy, Shell was provided with a state-owned site and highly questionable licences and pipeline permissions; that through his government's local Mayo councillors permission for Shell's refinery was delivered on a singularly inappropriate site. It is now through the daily deployment of large numbers of gardaí – our gardaí, at our expense – that the refinery's construction is being forced on the people of Erris.
Dempsey's reference to the North, designed to suggest his impartiality, was laughable. It does, however, have some ironic resonance.
In the North, a government which represented sectional interests continually failed to address the rights and concerns of a section of its community and for years failed to respond to initiatives, using the might of its police force to suppress dissent in the belief that it would dissipate. It did not dissipate and the situation could only be resolved by external intervention.
The dissent of the people of Erris will not dissipate either. Here in the South, Dempsey's government can not be allowed to 'say no'. It is now time for independent intervention and a public commission of inquiry to investigate this project in its totality. This inquiry must include all national and local concerns: technical, environmental and financial, including any contributions that may have been made to political representatives, local businessmen or landowners. This is the least the Irish taxpayer deserves.
Bernard Grimes, Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Rossport is of national interest
In August I wrote to Noel Dempsey TD, in his capacity as Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, to ask why he would not consider a visit to the Rossport/Bellanaboy area to see the situation for himself and to speak with the local people.
In a (very) brief reply on 21 August the minister stated – "As a minister I am very well aware of my responsibilities and duties. They involve ensuring due consideration of the national interest not just narrow local interests."
A natural asset of the Irish nation has been given away for nothing. A CPO has been used for the first and only time for the benefit of a private company. The Irish taxpayer faces a bill of about ?750,000 for policing on behalf of this company. Irish citizens are potentially being put in danger to suit this company.
At what point will the minister see the matter become one of national interest?
Richard Murphy, Public Relations Officer, Westmeath Environmental Group, Mullingar, Co Westmeath
Leas Cross: We must protect the rights of the elderly
Parts of the Leas Cross nursing-home report make frightening reading. It has a chilling echo of another time in Ireland when life went on as normal outside the industrial schools that contained and facilitated the living nightmare of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Though we have hopefully moved on since then, it is evident that bullies and abusers are still out there. Today, it is senior citizens who find themselves at the mercy of cruelty or neglect, as evidenced by the Leas Cross nursing-home scandal and other exposés.
Relatives of all people who reside in nursing homes or sheltered housing complexes should ensure that their loved ones are being well looked after. Both forms of care are open to abuse and have been abused.
I am aware of a case where a woman in sheltered housing was subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. She was not believed at first and it was only when independent eyewitnesses came forward that the bullying ceased.
Just as many Christian brothers and nuns were decent people, in spite of the image presented by an abusive minority, so, also, are the majority of carers completely above board in their work.
Sadly, there appears to be a small number of carers who are unwilling or unable to treat elderly people with the respect and consideration they deserve.
It is up to all of us to help protect the human rights of those who have reached the autumn of their lives. We can't wait around for undercover TV reporters to catch the offenders. Our own vigilance is required.
Advanced age awaits most of us – God willing. Any of us could spend some time in a nursing home or sheltered housing. So this issue concerns every man, woman and child in the country.
Having failed to tackle the horrors of a darker 'Hidden Ireland', can we now afford to look the other way when another group of Irish citizens could be victims of institutional abuse?
John Fitzgerald
Callan, Co Kilkenny
Buttery Bar: Closure of Trinity's Buttery bar a huge loss
Students must demand the re-opening of the Buttery Bar in Trinity College, Dublin. The closure of this bar is a huge loss. Our TCD Dáil senators are surely aware of this bar's cultural significance.
The Buttery bar was not only a place to relax and enjoy, but the only bar on campus fully accessible to those with certain disabilities. This is a very important point as it centres around the whole issue of inclusion. That some people are now excluded from enjoying a drink on their campus is unacceptable.
The 'Student Involvement' section of the European Students' Rights Charter clearly states: "All students have the right to a social space for interaction."
We had this space in the Buttery.
A bar in a city-centre location with a student population of 15,000 could surely run perfectly with the right management given the amount of TCD alumni. Perhaps a phrase like 'Students and Culture before Profit' might be appropriate here? A broad, cost effective, advertising campaign would easily ensure enough profit.
Students must now lobby to get our bar re-opened. Re-opening this bar will be a great social moment in Trinity's political and cultural life. Students must now shout loudly and campaign to demand this happens. I have raised this issue at council and executive level. My motion to re-open the bar was passed at council.
Wayne Tobin, Bray, Co Wicklow. (Member of TCDSU Executive and TSM Conveynor)
Statement: Government is eager to abolish children's rights
Barnardos' proposals for amendments to the Irish constitution promise to remove existing safeguards rather than provide new ones.
The first proposal is the addition of an extra subsection to Article 40, which deals with fundamental rights. Unfortunately, the proposal fails to define the rights it is ostensibly intended to protect.
Article 42.5 of the Irish constitution reads as follows: "In exceptional cases, where the parents for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children, the state as guardian of the common good, by appropriate means shall endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child."
Barnardos' second proposed amendment is the replacement of the existing Article 42.5 with the following: "In exceptional cases, where parents fail to protect the welfare of their children, the state shall take such action as is necessary to ensure such protection."
Taken together, the proposed amendments give unrestrained and unlimited power to the state to remove children from their parents. In neither one is "welfare" actually defined. The state is the only party whose "rights" are given form: the state is to be allowed to remove a child from its parents for any number of reasons, including financial, "to ensure its protection".
The proposed amendment to Article 42.5 is potentially in breach of Article 9.1 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states: "States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will," and limits state intervention to cases of neglect or abuse, or decisions regarding place of residence in the case of parental separation. The provisions of Article 42.5 are consistent with this convention.
The government, manifesting great enthusiasm for Barnardos' proposals, has no hesitation in recommending yet another hasty and ill-advised referendum with a minimum of debate.
Cathal Loftus of Comhair Críostaí (Villagers, 9 November) is correct in pointing out that the problem is not the absence of constitutional rights but failure to enforce them. But given the current administration's track record in the matter of constitutional rights, their eagerness to abolish them is not surprising.
Andrew McGrath, The Tara Foundation, 16 Glenmore Road, Dublin 7. More Tel 01 8686558
Niall Meehan article: Loach and Meehan miss context
There is a memorable Latin phrase from Seneca: veritas nunquam perit (truth never dies) In a recent article in Village, Niall Meehan exhibited a contemptible disregard for this maxim. His preposterous allegation that "Protestants were persecuted, not by republicans, but by the police" is testament to the desperation that he, and his cohorts, are now experiencing in their losing battle to defend on moral grounds republican terror, and murder, from 1916 to 1921-23.
Embattled and demoralised by the ongoing relentless march of revisionist critique, they now seek to turn history into a purely fictional narrative. One might justly point out that nationalist historians have always practiced such deceit. However, there is a new cynicism abroad which amounts to spitting on the graves of the innocent victims of republican homicide during the so-called 'fight for Irish freedom'.
In order to support his 'police persecution of Protestants' hypothesis, Meehan cites the experiences of merely three Protestants. The last figure he mentions was obviously either traumatised by events, or a Sinn Féin sympathiser. The two other individuals were clearly victims of the fog of terror inflicted by the IRA. How pathetic can one get?
Meehan should note that all three civil wars (from 1916 to 1921-23) were started by republicans. The brutal modus operandi of IRA insurgency – long before the arrival of the Tans en masse in September 1920 – encompassed the mass murder of RIC men, house burnings and the coldblooded killing of civilians defined in the same manner as the RIC, as that of "England's janissaries", a term incidentally liberally applied to Protestants and Catholic ex-servicemen.
The so-called "reprisals" were in fact defensive counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the Irish RIC and, later on, along with the Black and Tans within a context of republican-induced anarchy. Context is everything – it exists neither in the Loach film nor in the mindset of Niall Meehan.
Pierce Martin, Celbridge, Co Kildare