Letters to the Editor: Protect our children from madness of adult wars

If these are our aspirations and, indeed, our expectations for our children, why then is it acceptable for adults to resort to violence when we are angry, frustrated, confused, or afraid? Don’t we have the language and communication skills to resolve our own conflicts without violence — not to mention the moral maturity?

As our esteemed president, Michael D Higgins, has warned us, I believe we are sliding into militarism. Indeed, it would appear that our army is already moving away from its traditional and renowned role as peacekeepers into ‘battle groups’.

Militarism is about misguided attempts to resolve conflict through fear, aggression, and violence, at best, and about bullying and annihilation, at worst. This seems to me to be a very poor example to give our children and young people, and should come with the caveat — do as I say, not as I do!

If we give up our neutrality and our role as peacekeepers and peace brokers, and align ourselves with aggressive military organisations like Nato, we are making our children and young people ‘legitimate targets’ in wars not of their making and of people who might otherwise have been their friends.

The tragic war in Ukraine reminds us all how ever-close the threat of nuclear war is, with its horrendous devastation, and how, even in a war that has not (yet) escalated to nuclear, a nuclear power plant can be damaged, accidentally or otherwise, by military action.

It breaks my heart that we would do this to our own precious children and young people — that we would turn their potential friends into potential enemies; that we would deny them their birthright (Article 29 of our, and their, Constitution) to be the next generation of honourable, respected, and loved Irish peacekeepers and peace brokers throughout the world, and that we would put their inheritance, our beautiful planet, in such jeopardy.

As parents, teachers, and members of other professions working in child welfare and protection, we must take a stand to protect our children from this madness.

Marian Naughton Chartered Psychologist
Naas, Co Kildare

Restricting flights closes the world

RE: John Gibbons, ‘Why we should ration the distance each person can fly every year’, Irish Examiner (June 20, 2023).

John Gibbons suggests a 1,500km annual allotment per person for air travel. So you could do Dublin-Paris round trip. Europe is within reach.

But if you are a new Irish national from Caracas, Venezuela, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-Caracas is a 7,000km distance, just one way. And if you are a new Irish national from Cape Town, South Africa, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-Cape Town is a 10,000km distance, just one way. And if you are a new Irish national from New Delhi, India, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-New Delhi is an 8,000km distance, just one way. Even Rabat, Morocco, is over 2,000km from Dublin.

Under Gibbons’ scheme, as near as I can make out, if you want to visit a historically Caucasian-majority country in Europe, then you can continue to do so, tax-free.

But just go try and visit some third-world country where the majority population’s skin tone has a different complexion, and then you will be taxed for the privilege.

If one of Ireland’s minuscule right-wing nationalist parties proposed such a policy, they’d be labelled bigots.

But if the very same policy is put forward in the name of environmentalism and climate change, precisely what conclusion should we draw?

Seth Barrett Tillman Associate Professor
Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology
Co Kildare

Post-war Ukraine a corporate cash cow

Already the US and the EU are making promising noises to the effect Ukraine will be a fantastic place for international corporate investment once the pesky Russians are sent packing.

The London Summit on economic aid, fired the first colonial volley of corporate cash as the first inducement, in their own interests.

Although these ‘allies’ ought not hold their breath on this account.

We know that these are the same governments who hiked over to Iraq in the early days of that invasion and held meetings made of pure gold, they claimed.

These gatherings were about carving up the massive assets of that nation and transferring them into their own greedy mitts. How did that work out?

Ukraine would want to take notice of this latest ‘promise’ of continuing financial aid. The language is changing in tone, as expected.

Robert Sullivan Bantry
Co Cork

Abortion ‘drift’ is very disturbing

Your editorial of June 20, ‘Unbending abortion laws penalise women’, mentions how both supporters and opponents (like myself) of abortion rights, are perturbed by the jailing of a British mother-of-three who had illegally aborted her unborn child at 34 weeks gestation.

As uneasy as I feel about it, my sympathy for her is tempered by the fact of my own daughter being delivered many decades ago, in adverse circumstances, at 32 weeks.

The medics fought tooth and nail to save her — and did — with never a suggestion they were dealing with a random, unstructured clump of cells, or a life in any way lacking humanity due to prematurity.

Decades later, we have ‘drifted’ to the point where complex, developing unborn life is relegated to a status somewhat below that of a domestic cat, the taking of whose life incurs more criticism than the deliberate ending of a pregnancy.

If a graphic poster depicting the final moments of that 34-week-old unborn was shown in public, more issue would be taken with the image than with the grim and painful reality behind it.

The life ended, and the suffering involved, also need recognition.

Rory O’Donovan Killeens
Co Cork

Banking on PTSB’s human values

As a relatively new customer to Permanent TSB, I’m pleasantly surprised by the sense, cliches aside, that people come before numbers.

Logging in to my bank account today, I’m met with this lovely message: “At Permanent TSB, we are committed to creating a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and supportive environment where our colleagues feel engaged, valued, and are given the support that they need to be the very best that they can be — no matter how our people identify.

“Our support of Pride is one of the many ways we demonstrate the importance we place on inclusivity in the workplace.

“We want to wish our customers and colleagues a very happy Pride — we will be celebrating alongside you.”

Who said banks always have to be cold, impersonal, foreign-based institutions?

Tom McElligott Tournageehy
Listowel
Co Kerry

Forum a cover to ditch our neutrality

The real reason the Government has embarked on the 'Consultative Forum on Neutrality' is to start the process of closer integration with an EU army and delete the process of national vetoes on EU foreign policy and security issues. 

Twice in the last year Micheál Martin has said that he was open to EU treaty change to delete the vetoes held by the Dáil and other national parliaments in terms of EU foreign policy and security issues.

This would be a significant loss of sovereignty and self-determination. It would delete the right of Ireland to pursue our own independent foreign policy. It would be a material step along the process of EU federalisation. Micheál Martin is open, in other words, to reduce the democratic say of the Irish people on incredibly important issues.

This would necessitate a referendum in Ireland, and this is why the Government has started the process of trying to change public opinion. In May, all three Government parties also decided to dump the triple-lock mechanism, the cornerstone of Ireland’s neutrality. 

This was also co-ordinated and would facilitate the ceding of Irish foreign and military power to the EU. I can’t think of another time when Irish neutrality was under such sustained attack by the Government. 

We have a proud history of active neutrality. Our record on UN peacekeeping, nuclear non-proliferation, decolonisation, and aid to developing countries is second to none. Ireland has an internationally recognised position of an honest broker, which is about to be shredded. 

The Government is seeking to tie Ireland to an emerging military bloc, over whose decisions we will have little or no influence. We in Aontú are calling on the Government to facilitate a referendum on military neutrality.

Peadar Tóibin TD Leader of Aontú