Letters to the Editor: Road safety aspect of Sale of Alcohol Bill
Is Government Proposing The Rise Trading Increase Asks The Hours, In Is One Deaths Steep But Appalling, Reader Roads On To Alcohol The Why
The steep rise in deaths on the roads is appalling and clearly needs a strong response. But why is the Government proposing to increase alcohol trading hours through Minister Helen McEntee’s Sale of Alcohol Bill?
Of driver fatalities in Ireland, 37% have a positive toxicology for alcohol. 71% of these fatalities occurred on rural roads. Findings from a 2020 systematic review concluded that there was an association between increased trading hours and drink driving. Recent in-depth analysis in Norway has demonstrated up to a 30% increase in collisions in rural areas in Norway for a one-hour extension.
Before these proposals go any further, a health impact assessment should be carried out to look at road safety and other areas of concern. Surely our policy makers need facts not just views from vested interests.
2023 has sadly seen carnage on our roads. 2024 must be the year that the Government ensures that its own actions do not add to this terrible burden on families across the State.
I read with sadness Matt Cremin’s account of corporal punishment in Farranferris in the 1960s (Irish Examiner Letters, January 20, 2024). Sadly such experiences were common enough in Irish schools at the time and we can trace much of today’s anti-clericalism and anti-Catholicism to these roots, especially among people of a certain vintage which they in turn passed on to their children. But how did Catholicism — at core still the loving redemptive message of Jesus Christ — take on such a rough form at times in 20th-century Ireland? Outrage at the Church was surely that it failed in so many ways to live up to Christ’s message? There are a number of reasons.
1920s Ireland was trying to emerge from the bitter divisions of the Civil War. The State shrewdly recognised the one uniting factor in the country was its faith, this surely lay at root of some of the special consideration given to the Catholic Church, the genuine piety of many elected officials notwithstanding. Once the shadow of the Civil War receded, we were not long in seeing our political class abandon Catholicism in their election manifestos and speeches. Yet, had the nation not shared a largely common religious outlook, these divisions might have taken far longer to heal and done greater harm. The Church brought us out of Civil War faster than otherwise might have been the case. If we compare with Spain post-1937 we see the iron fist of dictatorship was used to unite that country where not even Christianity was shared by all. Ireland did not go that route and its democracy has always been fairly robust. However, it also brought about a level of deference to the Church and clerics that was a serious obstacle to dealing with abuses, where respectability was valued over humanity.
A deeper factor was the long history of poverty and emigration in this country. Eldest sons inherited the farm or family business, daughters married off or went into service. The options open to other siblings were limited. Entry into various vocations and religious orders was an attractive option, adding respectability to the family name and a career path for youngsters. Many of them went on to give sterling service to their fellow man (and woman) and the State, becoming teachers, nurses, missionaries, and charitable volunteers. Had it not been for their largely underpaid work Ireland would not be where it is today. Even many of the Church’s most vocal critics nowadays still benefitted from the education it provided on behalf of the State and hospitals run like clockwork, where “cleanliness was next to Godliness”.
However, it also meant thousands of people pushed into “vocations” for which they had no real calling, deeply resentful, and probably eventually took their frustrations out on those unfortunate enough to be placed in their “care”. Corporal punishment was also fairly common at the time among families so those who entered religious orders brought this world view with them for better or worse. The brothers and nuns often simply mirrored their own learned experiences from home. Added to the resentment at being in a vocation they didn’t want, it was a recipe for disaster.
It is obvious that Ireland today is a different place. Only those with a truly Godly vocation will likely enter religious orders or seek ordination as it’s a career path attracting more suffering than old-fashioned respectability. But it also means our ordained will be much closer to the image of Jesus Christ in his mission on Earth.
If physical violence and inhumanity is found today it will be on our streets and polling stations rather than in our seminaries and religious orders. It is my firm belief that those living at the close of the present century will have a very different memory and view of the Catholic education they received and the Catholic Church in general. I only wish I could live to see it myself.
Once again we have a big power trying to bully a small neighbour, as shown by the ever-increasing threats, as well as the dangerous use of Chinese war planes and rockets close to Taiwan, attempting to intimidate the peaceful population of Taiwan’s 23m.
Beijing and its increasingly aggressive rhetoric in its campaign to add Taiwan to its communist rule needs to remember that China never ruled Taiwan, and so Taipei is well within its rights to maintain its long-established independent and democratic status, as long as its population wishes to maintain that status. Taiwan has been careful not to “declare independence” so as to avoid provocation.
Because China’s autocratic president has recently sacked scores of army generals, he may not risk invading Taiwan currently. However, the world’s democratically elected populations need to watch this situation closely in the coming months.
Isn’t there a certain parallel between Benjamin Netanyahu and Oliver Cromwell? As punishment for the Irish rebellion of 1641, Cromwell came to Ireland with his army going from town to town plundering and killing tens of thousands of people and banishing the survivors to Hell or to Connaught.
He then confiscated their land and installed settlers from England and Scotland.
As a punishment for rebellion, he introduced a series of penal laws against Catholics.
The Israelis have been doing much the same in Palestine since the Israeli state was established in 1948. The Palestinian people are now left with less than 10% of their land and even that is under threat from new Israeli settlers. The genocide perpetrated by Cromwell and Netanyahu have much in common.
Cromwell remains a deeply reviled figure in Ireland to this day. The legacy of Netanyahu is certain to be the same among the Palestinian diaspora.
With three royals off work, will the world end or will it just be the gossip magazines looking for new faces? Britain’s King Charles and the Princess of Wales are getting some medical work done and Prince William is on carer’s leave. I assume they all had to fill in the same boring paperwork we all have to and provide a doctors certificate or have their pay docked.
The king’s prostate troubles are common for men of a certain age.
It is important that he is having treatment and drawing attention to the need for check-ups — a matter I am familiar with after having successful treatment for prostate cancer.
Hopefully, they will all be well soon as they won’t want to bring the ‘spare’ back into action.
Rawlton House, Ridge Hall, Holiday Inn Express, refugee tents Sandwith Street, Caiseal Mara Hotel, Ludden, Great Southern Hotel, Kill Equestrian Centre, Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin, Ross Lake House, Shannon Key West Hotel, Lanesboro Convent.
The ever-growing list of buildings associated with persons seeking international protection subject to arson or attempted arson attacks.
In many cases, it was known locally that these buildings were about to be used as refugee centres. Some were even the subject of protest prior to the attacks.
Am I the only one in the country disappointed with the apparent lack of operational planning displayed by An Garda Síochána to “prevent or catch in the act” these attacks which have been ongoing now for a number of years, before someone is killed or seriously injured?
The Taoiseach stated he has been informed that arrests are imminent which is welcome. Now let’s see some creative thinking around crime prevention and reduction to best fulfil the Garda mission statement of “keeping people safe”.