Sir, – A wishlist with no signposts is hardly the professional way to run a country (“The Irish Times view on the new programme for government: a vague and contradictory wishlist”, January 15th). Some changes of responsibility for some departments, a nod toward those extraordinary capital receipts and money directed to some infrastructure stuff. So disappointing.
A government with two lacklustre and tired parties in power but not in control, with little or no courage or indeed any real sense of how uninspiring this programme is likely to be; and all this at a time when, with such capital receipts, the government could have made a real difference. The real sadness is that voters will look upon this programme and ask themselves how politicians cannot see what the voters see needs to be done in a country crying out for change, for immediate action on a real push on housing, on the climate challenge, on helping the just-managing and on so many other fronts in our half-built nation. – Yours, etc,
ALASTAIR CONAN,
Coulsdon,
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What will €230,000 buy in the Dominican Republic, Norway, La Gomera, Fuerteventura and Mayo?
London.
Sir, – Who would want to be a backbench TD in Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, when they see Rural Independents and the Healy-Raes being showered with ministerial jobs? – Yours, etc,
ALAN McCARTHY,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – So that’s clear. No special deals with Independents, just agreements. Parish-pump politics is alive and kicking. – Yours, etc,
HUGH McDONNELL,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.
Sir, – The more astute will already have figured out the number of millionaires we have in the Oireachtas.
Now it appears that we have some sensible people there too.
The only puzzle now is to find out exactly how many of them there are. – Yours, etc,
LIAM POWER,
Dundalk,
Co Louth.
Sir, – Is the “pledge” of four new hospitals set in stone or merely a concrete proposal? – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Dhún na nGall.
Sir, – Where in God’s name is the new government going to get all the carers to look after the increasing aged population and those with disabilities? Three-dimensional printing? As Lord Darzi said in his recent report on the NHS: “If you don’t fix the social care issues you’re never going to solve the hospital overcrowding issue.”
I’m afraid I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. All I see is bigger and bigger nursing homes, not expansion of home care. – Yours, etc,
Prof KEN MULPETER, FRCPI
Consultant in Geriatric and Internal Medicine,
Letterkenny University Hospital,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – It is clear that the Cabinet has been expanding over the years. The most recent additions, the super junior ministers, have always sounded like a bit of an odd group to me. Apparently, they can sit at the Cabinet table but they can’t vote. One wonders what they would be called if they could vote? Maybe they’d be called super-dooper junior ministers. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN CULLEN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Universal basic income
Sir, – A letter writer says that a universal basic income (UBI) of €15,000 for each of the country’s four million adults is unaffordable at €60 billion (January 16th).
Yet if such a measure came to pass, the Department of Social Protection would essentially become almost redundant.
Social protection expenditure was €58.4 billion in 2022 or €11,143 per person, based on preliminary estimates.
Additionally, those already in the tax net would be paying more taxes when their UBI is taken into account, further reducing the overall cost to the exchequer.
The annual €6 billion going to NGOs would also be slashed.
And last, but not least, it would free up thousands of civil servants to work instead on the delivery aspects of government not related to means-testing or assessment of one’s income, living arrangements or health. – Is mise,
TOM McELLIGOTT,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
A chara, – Research referenced in the Low Pay Commission’s report on the issue outlines four possible approaches, with gross costs ranging from €10 billion to €50 billion. These gross figures, however, do not account for lower net costs. Universal basic income could replace many existing welfare payments, and its unconditional nature would significantly reduce administrative expenses by eliminating complex means-testing systems.
A figure of €60 billion ignores the benefits of such a system. Universal basic income could remove the stigma associated welfare while addressing issues such as financial precarity, unemployment traps, and gender inequity.
Substantial changes to the tax system would indeed be required to fund such a transformative policy. The most equitable solution would involve increased taxation for those most able to afford it, ensuring that the benefits of a universal basic income are distributed fairly across Irish society. – Yours, etc,
REAMONN O’LUAN,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.
Goldmine inquiry
Sir, – A public inquiry being held into a gold mine application planned for Co Tyrone has been suspended until March 26th due to failure to notify the Irish Government (“Public inquiry into proposed Co Tyrone gold mine suspended”, News, January 15th).
It should be noted that the location of the proposed mine is in the Sperrins mountains, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Ramsar (Convention on Wetlands) site of international importance for its active raised bog, a Dark Skies Observatory (one of only 200 on Earth), and no less than six Areas of Special Scientific Interest, as well as the Owenkillew River Special Area of Conservation, a site of European significance for several species, including the rare freshwater pearl mussel, the Atlantic salmon and otter. Should this gold mine and its ancillary development go ahead (including a 17-storey mine-waste facility, power line, water discharge and abstraction), it will not only have serious implications for human and animal health, it will also constitute a major loss for the natural and cultural heritage of one of our island’s most precious landscapes.
Salmon don’t stop swimming at the Border, birds and insects don’t stop flying at the Border, and chemicals, including arsenic, lead and mercury, certainly don’t stop at the Border. The mining operation site is linked to the catchment area of the River Finn Special Area of Conservation, posing risks to water quality and water ecology along the catchment, including protected species such as the Atlantic salmon. This planning application entails an unprecedented level of environmental risk on the island of Ireland and requires an elevated level of scrutiny and transboundary impact assessment due to the well-documented negative impacts of mineral extraction on human rights and the environment. – Yours, etc,
Dr AMY STRECKER,
Associate Professor,
UCD Sutherland School of Law,
Belfield,
Dublin 4.
President Higgins and Nato
Sir, – I write with regard to criticisms of President Michael D Higgins for his response to Mark Rutte’s (secretary general of Nato) statement that “increased military spending may cause pain in the present so as to achieve security in the future, even at the expense of investing in education, social protection and health” (Letters, January 14th; “President Higgins’s remarks about Nato criticised by former Estonian president”, News, January 11th).
I wholeheartedly agree with the moral stance taken by President Higgins and especially given the enormous amounts of euros and dollars spent on building up weapons of war when the monies should be allocated to addressing global poverty, rising inequality and tackling the climate crisis, as President Higgins rightly pointed out.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a crime against humanity, but Nato’s policy of creeping ever closer to Russia’s borders has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of innocent Ukrainians. George Frost Kennan, an American diplomat and historian and one of the most influential critics of the decision to expand Nato into central Europe, called the decision “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era”. Instead of a permanently divided, militarised Europe, he proposed welcoming Russia into the European family, as Mikhail Gorbachev had also called for after the break-up of the Soviet Union, but was rejected. With international law lying in tatters on the blood-soaked soil of Gaza and the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock now at 90 seconds away from midnight, surely the surest way to maintain peace and security is by diplomacy and cooperation and not by ramping up spending on ever more lethal killing machines. – Yours, etc,
MARY BRENNAN,
Kiltimagh,
Co Mayo.
Kneecap and the Baftas
Sir, – According to your headline, the Irish taking British awards is “f**king hilarious”, or so say Belfast hip-hop artists Kneecap (“Ireland taking British awards is f**king hilarious’: Kneecap’s six Bafta nominations a leap forward for Irish-language film”, Film, Analysis, January 15th).
Am I the only Irish person to have a sense of humour failure in relation to a band named after one of the most vicious forms of torture used by the Provisional IRA, deployed mainly on the Catholic community it claimed it was defending? – Yours, etc,
DAVID CLARKE,
Edinburgh.
Defining anti-Semitism
Sir, – The commitment to give effect the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism in the programme for government is a cynical betrayal of Ireland’s stated commitment to Palestinian rights (News, January 15th).
Genuine solidarity means confronting injustice, not silencing those who speak out against it. If the new government is serious about standing with Palestine, it must reject any attempt to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Otherwise, its claims of leadership on this issue ring hollow.
More than 100 civil society organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, have warned that the IHRA definition has been weaponised to stifle free speech and shield Israel from accountability. Even Ken Stern, who helped draft the definition, has condemned its misuse as a “blunt instrument” to suppress dissent.
Where in the course of government formation talks did the commitment emerge? – Yours, etc,
GLENN FITZPATRICK,
Dublin 12.
Sir, – It is deeply concerning that the programme for government agreed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and regional independent TDs pledges “to give effect to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism”.
As the definition’s lead drafter Kenneth Stern has observed, organisations aligned to the Israeli state have repeatedly exploited the definition to “suppress – rather than answer – political speech they don’t like”.
The programme for government does not specify whether the working definition will be “given effect” along with its controversial accompanying “examples”, the majority (seven out of 11) of which serve to limit discussion of the Israeli state. This omission is worrying in itself, as having successfully inserted the thin edge of the wedge, pro-Israeli lobbyists both within Ireland and further afield will no doubt be determined to hammer home the payload of the weaponisable “examples”. The definition’s seventh and most problematic supposed “example”, that of “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”, demonises Palestinians simply for speaking the truth of their own dispossession, subjugation and exclusion, based on their ethnicity, at the hands of the Israeli state.
In jurisdictions where it has been adopted or endorsed, the IHRA working definition has proven to be a chilling factor, buttressing the impunity that we have seen the Israeli state count upon throughout the last 16 months of shocking slaughter.
The IHRA working definition denies the fundamental human right of freedom of expression, and must be resolutely rejected in this country. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Dublin 4.
Tackling the housing crisis
Sir, – Anne Barrington, chair of the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance, is dismissive of the role of institutional investors in the delivery of social and affordable housing (Letters, January 15th). Institutional investors who are members of Irish Institutional Property are enabling and delivering both directly and in partnership with the voluntary housing sector many thousands of both social and affordable homes. I regularly share platforms with leaders in the voluntary housing sector and larger approved housing bodies who have given public affirmation to our positive contribution to new housing delivery and share the analysis that we need significantly more investment from institutional funds to effectively tackle our housing challenge. – Yours, etc,
PAT FARRELL,
CEO,
Irish Institutional Property,
Dublin 2.
The winds of change
Sir,– Enda Cullen is on the ball with the description of our clothes drying methods in the past (Letters, January 16th). And being masters of the euphemism, our comment on a hurricane would be, “There’s great drying out.” – Yours, etc,
MATTIE LENNON,
Blessington,
Co Wicklow.
Start spreading the news
Sir, – Since reading your restaurant review (“A new gastropub on Dublin’s north side without the usual cliches”, Food, Online, January 16th), I have decided that I will no longer countenance eating any form of butter that does not taste “foie gras-adjacent”. – Yours, etc,
GERARD REYNOLDS,
Dublin 16.