Sir, – There is so much wrong in the case of a man who caused the deaths of two teenage girls as he drove at almost twice the speed limit in Co Monaghan (“Driver in car crash that led to deaths of Monaghan teenagers jailed for seven years”, News, May 14th).
The judge was told the car reached a speed of more than 151km/h on a wet stretch of road in an 80km/h zone shortly before the crash.
What needs to be questioned (among much else, of course) is the logic of being able to buy a car that can – not just slightly but massively – exceed the maximum speed limit of any of the motorways of the country.
As we are reminded again, the car is a weapon at these speeds for anyone within the vehicle or on the roads being used by it – and even more so on roads with speed limits of 80km/h or less. – Yours, etc,
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Dr DAMIEN Ó TUAMA,
National Cycling Coordinator,
Irish Cycling Campaign,
An Taisce,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – Once again, I am appalled at the leniency of a sentence received by a driver who has caused a person to lose their life.
Why is it consistent in courts in Ireland that the charge is of dangerous driving and not manslaughter? The guilty driver in this case was driving at nearly twice the speed limit and was asked to slow down by his passengers.
Following the recent death of a member of An Garda Síochána, there were repeated calls for drivers to slow down. That will not happen until a clear message is sent – if you get into a car and drive under the influence of any drug, or decide to disregard speed limits, then any death caused by your decision, will be treated as manslaughter. It is owed to the lives that are taken from their families by the actions of others that the DPP and our courts do this. – Yours, etc,
MAEVE WRIGHT,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.
Activist’s right to travel
Sir, – The denial of the right to travel of Palestinian human rights defender and Gandhi peace award recipient Omar Barghouti is a much lesser crime than the many others being committed against the Palestinian people by the Israeli government (“Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti prevented from travelling to speak at Dublin festival”, News, May 7th).
The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, has said: “The crimes Israel is committing against the Palestinian people are only possible with international complicity. Omar has been a leading voice speaking against that for years. All states who say they support human rights defenders should be calling for his freedom of movement to be respected.”
We condemn in the strongest terms the war waged by Israel against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, which raises the risk of genocide, as determined by the International Court of Justice in January 2024.
We also call for the release of all hostages and captives held by both sides and for fully ending the occupation, as called for by the UN General Assembly last year.
However, it is our strong belief that the path to ending the occupation and apartheid necessitates civil society advocating for human rights across the globe. This advocacy is directly undermined by the Israeli government’s withholding of Mr Barghouti’s travel documents, denying him his right as a permanent resident to travel and return to his country.
Mr Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement, has been a strong advocate for peaceful forms of resistance. He has always sought freedom, justice and equality, including the UN-stipulated universal rights of refugees applying also to Palestinians.
Whether one agrees with the BDS movement for Palestinian rights is immaterial; Mr Barghouti should be allowed to freely express his views, to travel and return to his country, and to meet other politicians, activists and trade unionists.
Mr Barghouti was invited to participate in this year’s Robert Tressell Festival in Liberty Hall, Dublin on May 24th. We demand that his right to travel is respected and echo Ms Lawlor’s call on the Irish Government and wider EU to challenge Israel’s refusal to respect his right to freedom of movement by renewing his travel document. We must ensure this voice for peace with justice can be heard in person. – Yours, etc,
JACK O’CONNOR, Robert Tressell Festival honorary chairperson
KEN LOACH, film director
FRANCES BLACK, Independent Senator
OWEN REIDY, general secretary, Ictu
MARY MANNING, Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid striker
ZOE LAWLOR, Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign Chairperson
For full list of signatories see tressellfestival.ie
Over budget, over time
Sir, – Reading John McManus’s article about the State’s failures to build megaprojects within budget and on time seems shocking but is not unusual (“Chronic inability to build anything big in the State is baked into the system”, Analysis, May 14th).
Consider the HS2 (high-speed) railway in England, which will not be completed as originally envisaged. Your correspondent, Derek Scally, has written many times about the travails of Berlin’s Brandenburg airport, which took 29 years from first idea to first take off.
Furthermore, in 2019 Harry McGee wrote: “Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor at Oxford University, has researched ‘mega-projects’ undertaken by governments internationally and has found massive overspending is a feature in 90 per cent of major public projects. In a paper on this subject he said the ‘iron law’ of public mega-projects is they are ‘over budget, over time, over and over again’.” (“Pattern of overspending in major Irish infrastructure projects”, News, February 11th, 2019).
Even on a smaller scale, there are plenty of home-improvement programmes on television demonstrating how costs invariably overrun and it is miraculous when they are completed on time.
Despite this iron law, the Government has assured us that the private sector and the market will solve the housing crisis. – Yours, etc,
PASCAL Ó DEASMHUMHNAIGH,
Inis Corthaidh,
Co Loch gCarman.
Sir, – Robin Mandal and Ola Løkken Nordrum draw attention to Ireland’s extraordinary inability to develop the essential infrastructure that is routine in other European countries (Letters, May 15th).
In his series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams took us to a planet where they cannot invent the wheel because no one knows what colour wheels should be. Similarly, fire cannot be invented until consumer expectations for fire can be understood.
Adams’s mockery of disproportionate planning, consulting, designing, marketing, managing and checking at the expense of practical achievement seemed very creative and humorous in the 1980s. Today, his writing feels like a sad metaphor for official Ireland. – Yours, etc,
SEAN RYAN,
Mountshannon,
Co Clare.
Harsh political values
Sir, – Michael McDowell’s article suggests that right-of-centre party politics in the West is quickly moving to a position of being tough on migrants but far less tough on the originating causes of migration (“Military axis of Russia, China and North Korea will test what the West stands for”, Opinion, May 14th).
We appear to be entering a time of harsher political values.
There is much less clemency and welcome for those in great need, while we conveniently, even expediently, ignore the circumstances that compel people, ordinary human beings, in dangerous, challenging and difficult circumstances, to seek sanctuary in Western countries, whether from danger or from exigent circumstances in their country of origin.
There, but for the grace of much more fortunate circumstances, go any of us. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY LAYNG,
Dublin 4.
Putting safety of civilians first
Sir, – The UN member states are meeting in New York for the annual Protection of Civilians Week (May 19th-23rd) at a time when the world is witnessing large-scale attacks on civilian populations on a daily basis.
There is no absence of data or proof. There is only an absence of accountability, adherence to international law, and sufficient political will to put the protection, safety and dignity of civilians first.
In Sudan 26 months of fighting have forced more than 12.4 million people to flee their homes. Half of the population (nearly 25 million people) are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Famine was confirmed in North Darfur in August 2024 and has since spread to nine more areas of the country, placing hundreds of thousands of lives at risk.
Unicef has reported that, in just four months, more than 1,000 children have died from hunger and disease and that, with no alternatives, mothers are now feeding grass to their hungry children. Despite the heroic efforts of agencies on the ground, such as Concern, more children are dying needlessly every day.
In Gaza after 19 months of conflict, approximately 2.1 million people are at critical risk of famine. Nearly half a million people (one fifth of the population) face starvation. Food scarcity has resulted in soaring prices.
But it is not just in Sudan and Gaza that civilian populations are suffering the consequences of conflict. It is in Yemen, South Sudan, Haiti, Ukraine, and too many of the world’s neglected crises – places where people are living, not just day to day, but hour to hour, hoping for moments of peace to find food, medical help, or to just rest before bombardment begins again.
A basic principle of international humanitarian law, the law of war, is that of distinction. This requires all parties to conflicts to ensure they distinguish between the civilian population and combatants. It prohibits indiscriminate attacks or the deliberate targeting of civilian populations.
Yet attacks against civilians are escalating. In 2022-2023 the UN recorded a 72 per cent increase in civilian deaths in armed conflict. It is estimated that one in every six children in the world now lives in an area affected by conflict.
In 2022 Ireland led a process to develop an international declaration to strengthen the protection of civilians arising from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
This declaration was signed by 88 countries, including the US, the UK and France – three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
It is difficult then to reconcile how almost half the countries in the world signed up to this declaration, yet the increase in violence against civilians now rarely attracts condemnation, outrage or reaction.
Despite such political declarations, some governments and non-state actors are openly and intentionally undermining international humanitarian law, eroding the minimum standards of protections owed to civilians. The silence and support of other governments contributes to the growing culture of impunity.
We must end this silence. Ireland has spoken up. Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris have condemned the infliction of hunger and suffering on civilian populations, whatever the circumstances. More countries must do likewise to ensure the protection, safety and dignity of civilians.
Critically, member states must address the deadlock at the UN Security Council. Urgent consideration must be given to the permanent members of the Security Council suspending their use of the veto in the Security Council in mass atrocity situations to ensure the protection of civilians and their safe and unfettered access to principled humanitarian aid.
Millions of people experiencing the horrors of conflict are depending on them to do so. – Yours, etc,
DOMINIC CROWLEY,
Chief executive, Concern Worldwide,
Dublin.
Better tools for inquiry
Sir, – John McHugh’s letter presents Catholicism as a meaningful answer to the existential questions facing young people today (Letters, May 14th). But in doing so, he promotes a worldview that is increasingly out of step with the intellectual and emotional needs of the next generation.
In the past, religion may have offered structure in a morally rigid society. But today’s young people deserve more than a set of inherited certainties.
They need tools for ethical inquiry, personal reflection and critical thinking – not dogma.
Presenting Catholicism as the solution to a so-called “growing hunger for authenticity and meaning” does young people a disservice. It assumes that a single religious tradition can satisfy the search for meaning in an age shaped by pluralism, evidence-based learning and open questioning.
As a former pupil of the Christian Brothers school system, I remember promises of spiritual guidance that often amounted to silence or obedience.
If we are serious about helping young people flourish, we must offer them philosophy, psychology, science, literature – frameworks that invite exploration, not submission. We do not need to return to older answers. We need to create space for better questions. – Yours, etc,
MARK BYRNE,
Killester,
Dublin 5.
Reconsidering JFK
Sir, – I refer to the letter in your paper regarding the parallels between JFK’s and Pope Leo’s quest for peace (Letters, May 15th).
This is far from the truth. During his three years as president of the United States, JFK did everything to wage war against Vietnam by overt or covert means.
One only has to listen to the secret recordings of his years in the White House, which were made public in later years, to see and listen to the hypocrisy of Mr Kennedy. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DORAN,
Dublin 22.
Headlines with a question mark
Sir, – There is an old journalist’s maxim, attributed to various sources, that the answer to a headline that ends with a question mark is always “no”.
That is why I felt no need to read any further than the headline on Finn McRedmond’s article, “Could a Nigel Farage or Giorgia Meloni be good for Irish democracy?” (Opinion, May 15th). Thanks for saving me from wasting my time! – Yours, etc,
JOE MCLAUGHLIN,
Midlothian,
Scotland.
Skorts at the finals
Sir, – Will the referees and match officials be required to wear skorts in the Leinster camogie finals this weekend? – Yours, etc,
CIANA CAMPBELL,
Ennis,
Co Clare.
