Letters to the Editor: Right-wing rhetoric has little to offer the people of rural Ireland
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Mick Clifford is on the ball with his column — ‘Independents add fuel to fire’ (Irish Examiner, May 4). “The rhetoric is designed to pander rather than address fears,” he wrote of the right-wing Independents in Dáil Éireann.
Cork South-West TD Michael Collins says the EU asylum pact is a deal done by a “dirty government”. Yet his shock-jock EU candidate Niall Boylan thinks nothing of interviewing a person who has sex with animals.
The “frightening statistic” that Michael Healy-Rae speaks about has no basis in fact and Limerick TD Richard O’Donoghue’s contribution that “people in this country are scared” is straight out of the conservative/Trump playbook.
Meanwhile, Ciaran Mullooly, Independent Ireland EU candidate for the Midlands-North-West constituency, takes issue with his party leader saying on the campaign trail last week: “I don’t think Ireland is full” and “There are so many derelict buildings”.
A letter from a Kenmare businessman John Goode — ‘Rate hikes will hollow out communities’ (Irish Examiner, April 24) — that was also published in which economist David McWilliams then picked up on, would seem to back up the former RTÉ journalist.
Mr Goode explained how the heart has been torn out of a once-bustling town as businesses shut and footfall declines, while commercial rates rise.
As more businesses close, the rates on the remaining businesses must go up to meet the shortfalls.
Kenmare — once a lively tourist attraction for nationals and internationals — is on a “steep decline”.
And this is right on the doorstep of the Healy-Rae headquarters. And what is their plan, one might reasonably ask, for small businesses or those that can’t acquire or afford a home or the farmers who are increasingly beginning to despair? Rhetoric it seems is their only plausible answer for rural Ireland.
A fair question: If they are not going to be part of any solution, then what is the point in voting for some of these right-wing candidates?
Nobody can condone the protests outside politicians' homes. This type of intimidation does nothing to encourage proper public discourse and those who perpetuate this type of extremism must and should be dealt with robustly within our laws.
The use of Section 7 of the Offences Against the State Act or even the Special Criminal Courts to prosecute agitators, or categorising them as domestic terrorists, when the use of much simpler laws like the Public Order Act would be more than ample will, I believe, only add fuel to the fire.
The Government and certain politicians who categorise all that protest as terrorists will only fuel the monster of extremism.
Many people just think the inward migration of asylum seekers or those seeking international protection is out of control.
Many citizens have seen their communities overwhelmed by hundreds of people from Eastern European, Asian, and African countries. Accommodation centres are being filled without the authorities engaging with their local communities.
What enrages me and many other people is that many of whom we hear about are coming into our country without the proper documentation or with forged documents, yet they are given room and board, etc.
Meanwhile many citizens are finding it difficult to access services like housing, health, etc, that they pay for through their taxes.
Categorising all protesters as extremists, while failing to act on the huge numbers coming into our country is a step too far and one this Government and politicians will rue when it comes to election time.
I am confused.
I read a press report of a High Court defamation case taken against a national daily newspaper.
One feature of the reported proceedings that struck me was the fact that confidential journalistic sources could not be called as witnesses.
And the journalist involved said that the sources of the relevant article could not be spoken about.
Then I come across a full-page ad issued by Local Ireland and NewsBrands Ireland featuring the Defamation Act 2009 and asking: “Is the law there to protect or hide behind?”
Protection of sources is heralded as the cornerstone of journalism; and is clearly accepted by the courts.
Any litigant, other than a journalist, cannot make unproven assertions in court. Such assertions would be immediately stopped by the presiding judge.
Yet, time after time, journalists use protection of sources, thereby absolving them from the burden of proving their assertions.
I think the press enjoy quite enough freedom as it is. The law is above us all, we are told. And a fundamental part of the law is he who asserts must prove.
Anne Baily wonders if renewable energy will ever allow us to be energy secure — ‘Ireland has an insufficiency of renewable energy’, Irish Examiner Letters, April 26.
Ms Baily also wonders if a national energy emergency team would ever include small modular nuclear reactors in their discussion. The answer to both, regrettably, is an emphatic never.
Wind energy is notoriously unreliable depending on the vagaries of the weather. Perusal of wind patterns on Eirgrid’s daily and monthly reading shows typically wild variations ranging from 4.8 GWs to zero as shown in the accompanying screen shot for March 2024.
Ireland currently has about 5GWs of installed wind capacity, and it is planned to have an extra 7GWs by 2030 and 30GWs by 2040. Irrespective of installed capacity, however, similar wild variations will always occur, requiring backup of either natural gas, biomass, batteries, or nuclear.
With regard to nuclear, the current situation is curtailed by the Electricity Regulation Act 1990 (section 18) which rules out the use of nuclear energy even though we are importing up to 20% electricity from the UK, some of which is generated by nuclear power. We are also in the process of building a subsea cable from France to import electricity which will be generated by up to 70% nuclear power.
An Irish solution to an Irish problem but Eamon Ryan, the environment minister, refuses to even discuss the possibility of safe and clean home-grown nuclear power, which of course is carbon free.
Sadly, Ireland’s energy security has for long been on a knife-edge due to political dogma and incompetence and is putting our long-held international reputation in jeopardy.
According to the IDA, the result is that many of the major international companies currently located in Ireland and giving huge employment, are now forced to look elsewhere to invest.
Clare Clifford writes that as a Catholic parent she has a right under the Constitution to have Catholic faith formation teachings taught to her children in Catholic ethos schools — ‘Removal of faith formation in Catholic schools’ (Irish Examiner Letters, May 4). However, unlike mathematics and chemistry Catholic faith formation is not actually a straightforward science subject that teaches certain objective facts, figures and theories.
Catholic faith formation on its positive side does teach about useful moral codes which are derived from the Ten Commandments. But on the other hand Catholic faith formation has many teachings which are, I believe, little more than the assertion of mere unverified beliefs, opinions, and feelings.
Take for example the Catholic Church’s teaching about the Blessed Virgin Mary as being forever “ever virgin” and how this prominent teaching sets an unreachable high standard of sexual purity for Catholic families to follow.
The Catholic Church’s teachings shouldn’t be making God difficult to understand but instead ought to be doing the very opposite and endeavouring to bring God closer and more easier to access down at a personal level. This portrayal of what is divine as lofty and remote has sadly over centuries, I believe, in a quiet way (and sometimes not in a quiet way) encouraged many lay Catholics to unfortunately turn towards the many material addictions of life in order for them to attempt to fill the empty place of a God who appears in their hearts to be nowhere around when they need him.
For young students to be expected to just simply overlook or ignore the unrealistic nature of such extreme faith formation teachings like that of Our Blessed Lady as being forever virgin is to encourage them become slow and dull witted as they travel forward along on their future journey through life as to what is in fact really going on in the true world.
So if Catholic parents sincerely want the non-scientific teachings of Catholic faith formation to be taught to their children at school then there should be an obligatory warning notice for their children to take heed of which should be put up on a wall or a desk of the classroom where they are taught this emotionally charged subject.
This type of warning notice should relate what the true nature of the teachings of faith formation really are. Its true nature being, I believe, that its teachings are not scientific facts and are in reality the teacher’s own sincerely held beliefs as well as also being the sincerely held beliefs of the Catholic Church itself too.