Sir, – Rob MacGiollarnáth wonders whether our political leaders are up to the job (Letters, December 19th).
He raises a very serious issue because all the evidence would suggest that they are not.
Despite the national exchequer being awash with money for many years, successive governments have failed to solve either the housing or the health crises. The current Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, seems to spend all his time trying to repair the damage to the asylum and migration systems which he inherited from his predecessors.
As your newspaper reported on December 17th last, this Dáil has been one of the least productive for many years in terms of legislation passed. A great deal of Dáil time is taken by Deputies in relation to issues within their constituencies which, in theory, should be the responsibility of local councillors.
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In turn, it is rare for Government Ministers to accept any responsibility within their national portfolios when things go wrong.
The reality is that our talented people have effectively ruled out a political career. The field has been left clear for those willing to pursue a career that involves scrapping for political advantage within multi-seat constituencies and for advancement within political parties that appear to have lost their way. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN McDONALD,
Terenure,
Dublin 12.
Confidence trick
Sir, – I was intrigued by Barry Andrews’s take on confidence, when speaking on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh about Taoiseach Micheál Martin. He said: “I have confidence in his leadership, but confidence just isn’t permanent and it’s earned fresh every day we have problems, we have controversies.”
For those of us who rely on confidence, thanks a bunch Barry. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN RODDY,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – Forty-one (a majority) of the 70-strong Fianna Fáil parliamentary party endorsed Jim Gavin as the party’s presidential candidate.
So why all the bellyaching, the recriminations and the finger-pointing in the aftermath of Fianna Fáil’s presidential election debacle from elements within the party?
Had the Gavin campaign not imploded, and had Mr Gavin actually won the presidency, Micheál Martin would have been lauded to the rafters by the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dalkey,
Dublin.
Funding for schools
Sir, – Your report on Darver National School’s appeal for toilet rolls highlights real funding pressures in primary education (“School withdraws appeal for toilet rolls from pupils but funding strains remain,” December 18th).
But it also points to a deeper issue that remains largely unexamined: governance. Toilets are not just budget items. They are spaces where school culture, dignity and accountability are most clearly revealed.
Repeatedly framing these crises as funding shortfalls risks obscuring how decisions are made, overseen and challenged within schools.
Without transparent governance and safe grievance mechanisms, additional funding may simply sustain the same conditions that lead to such appeals.
A serious conversation about school resourcing must also ask who is accountable when basic standards fail. – Yours, etc,
DÓNAL MANNION,
Carrigtwohill,
Co Cork.
Sir, – I write in relation to a school having to resort to desperate measures to balance its books.
Your article says the “capitation grant” is €224 per student, which works out at €1.23 per head per school day.
The grant, we are informed, is designed to cover costs such as insurance, heating, electricity, cleaning, maintenance and accountancy fees.
Costs of insurance, heating, electricity, cleaning, maintenance and accountancy fees are all outside of a primary school’s direct control and are linked to the wider “affordablility” pressures affecting many sectors of Irish society.
Who benefits, one may ask, if a small primary school has to pay out €9,000 in insurance costs every year?
Why can’t, for example, the public liability part of a school’s (which is owned by the State) insurance policy be paid by the Government?
Insurance companies and the services sector in general are benefiting from the cost-of-living crisis while the Government, having caused this situation, pleads ignorance. – Yours, etc,
TOM McELLIGOTT,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – How is it that the capitation fee for secondary school children is so much higher than that for primary school children – €386 for secondary and €224 for primary, per child per year.
Does the Department of Education not realise that primary school children need just as much heat and light, just as much insurance and accountancy fees and just as much cleaning, maintenance and toilet rolls as secondary school children?
Is there no one in the department with the cop-on to know that? It’s not that the country can’t afford it; it seems that they just don’t care. – Yours, etc,
BILL KEE,
Skerries,
Co Dublin.
Power subsidies
Sir, – Most companies manage profits in order to finance future development and maybe borrow prudently to supplement requirements.
So why are customers expected to subsidise very profitable energy companies? (“Household electricity prices could rise by €1.75 a month to fund €19bn system boost”, December 16th.)
Maybe we should have “another” inquiry. – Yours, etc,
ALEC QUINN,
Limerick.
Kneecap concert
Sir, – Your correspondent Ed Power (“Rambunctious and humorous set with heartfelt moments”, December 17th) in his review of the above concert, describes it as having been “great fun”.
Well, it may have been unless you were a victim of the bloody and pitiless campaign by a group whose name features in that of one of the members of Kneecap.
Unless you were subjected to the form of maiming torture referenced in the name of the group.
And unless you got the dreaded call in the middle of the night from men wearing the kind of headgear sported by one of the group members.
As for everyone else, I am glad they enjoyed the concert and had “great fun”. – Yours, etc,
SEAN O DONNELL,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Simple Simplex
Sir, – I saw the letter about Simplex No: 18,933 (Letters, December 19th) and came up with plenipotentiary in under 10 seconds.
Should I start doing the Simplex regularly? – Yours, etc,
BRIAN AHERN,
Clonsilla,
Dublin.
Israel and intifada
Sir, – In his opinion piece Mr Sears, rightly, makes the point that “criticism of Israel does not automatically equate to anti-Semitism – there are millions of Jews who criticise Israel”, (“In Bondi, on the first night of Hanukkah, the intifada was truly globalised,” December 16th).
However, he then makes a very similar mistake to those who equate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel, when he says: “To those who march every weekend and chant ‘globalise the intifada’, understand what you have been calling for. In Bondi, on the first night of Hanukkah, the intifada was truly globalised thereby equating peaceful demonstrations with sickening mass murder.”
The original Arabic meaning of “intifada” is rebellion, with one example given in multiple dictionaries of intifada beyond that in the occupied territories being the Easter 1916 uprising in Dublin.
And if the last 100-plus years of Irish history shows anything it is that resistance and rebellion can be both peaceful and murderous but that one way of avoiding the latter is by striving to increase understanding of different sides of an argument; a point Mr Sears makes so poignantly himself.
As families across the world mourn those who were killed last Saturday, let us hope more people take that approach. – Yours, etc,
CIARÁN NORRIS,
Dún Laoghaire,
Dublin.
Sir, – I thank Oliver Sears for, in his article, agreeing that criticism of Israel does not automatically equate with anti-Semitism.
Former president Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Micheál Martin expressed the same view but were accused of that very thing by the Israeli ambassador to Ireland and by Israel’s president Binyamin Netanyahu. – Yours, etc,
LEE HEALY,
Ballincollig,
Cork.
Sir, – Brian Ó Éigeartaigh is mistaken when he states “the Israeli state has never been the subject of economic sanctions or arms embargoes by the West” (Letters, December 18th).
As a nascent state in 1947 when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (the Partition Resolution), the US imposed an arms embargo on all belligerents in the region.
This embargo continued after the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948 until the end of fighting between Israel and her Arab neighbours in 1949.
Subsequently, Israel was threatened with economic sanctions during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and subjected to further arms embargoes by a range of countries during the Six Day War in 1967.
Even today, following Hamas’s attack in October 2023, many countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Japan and Spain, etc, have imposed arms restrictions or embargoes on Israel. – Yours, etc,
DAVID M ABRAHAMSON,
Co Dublin.
Human rights Convention
Sir, – Ireland was one of 12 states to sign the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1950, a regional human rights instrument setting out minimal rights guarantees for those within the jurisdiction of states that sign up to the Convention.
Those rights are interpreted by a supranational court of subsidiary jurisdiction in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights, for the 46 states that are bound by the Convention.
That court can seem friendless when it displeases states and disappoints human rights idealists, but it has operated as quite an effective guarantor of basic human rights for almost 75 years.
Ireland has had a largely positive experience of engagement with the European Court of Human Rights and has put the ECHR to good use as a pragmatic and “neutral benchmark” of rights protections in the context of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in both parts of the island of Ireland.
In a thoughtful paper delivered by Jim O’Callaghan TD at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 2021, before he became Minister for Justice, the now Minister stated: “At present the European Convention on Human Rights applies in both jurisdictions. That should form the basis for the legal protections enjoyed by persons living in a unified Ireland ... All rights currently enjoyed by people living in either jurisdiction should be maintained. It would be regressive and unsustainable to remove rights currently enjoyed by people living on the island.”
As recently as last September the Tánaiste and former minister for foreign affairs, Simon Harris, stated in an address delivered at Oxford University: “The ECHR’s guarantees cannot be negotiated away, despite what some politicians might claim. Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious: protecting fundamental rights protects everyone. The ECHR does not take sides.”
It is, therefore, perplexing to see the Minister for Justice aligning Ireland with a group of states that back a political declaration that would, on any objective analysis, whittle away important rights protections developed by the European Court of Human Rights on the highly questionable basis that these changes are somehow needed to preserve states’ powers to manage migration.
There will be further discussion of this troubling initiative when foreign ministers of the Council of Europe gather next May, by which time it should be possible for Ireland to clarify and correct its position on an international instrument of core importance to the maintenance of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, an international instrument of differing but no less importance.
It would be “regressive and unsustainable” for Ireland not to do this. – Yours, etc,
PROF DONNCHA O’CONNELL,
School of Law,
University of Galway.
The sweet life
Sir, – As I write this, I am travelling on the Sligo-Dublin intercity rail service, having boarded at Edgeworthstown. A few minutes ago, when I spotted the Onboard Customer Service agent approaching my seat, I instinctively reached for my ticket.
Instead, he placed a tin of Quality Street in front of me and offered me a sweet – just as he had done for all the other passengers.
Kudos to this man and to Iarnród Éireann. It was a simple gesture, but it put a smile on my face that will undoubtedly last the day. Which other rail provider, in any country, would do this for its passengers? Now, who says there’s no Santa Claus? – Yours, etc,
T GERARD BENNETT,
Westmeath.
MetroLink and traffic
Sir, – The main problem with the location of the terminus for the MetroLink at Charlemont is that the main traffic route to Charlemont, from the south side of Dublin and beyond, passes through Ranelagh village. The recent removal of the filter lane for Rathmines, at the Triangle, has turned Ranelagh into a mile-long traffic jam.
It recently took me eight minutes to drive the 50 yards from the PTSB Bank to the Triangle, due partly to two sets of uncoordinated traffic lights on this stretch.
I am as concerned as anyone else with the safety of cyclists, but there were other ways of ensuring their safety besides the removal of this crucial filter lane, to make room for a cycle lane. I am also a strong supporter of public transport, but the junction at the Triangle, without a filter lane, has now become a nightmare for bus drivers, especially those who drive the S2 bus from Irishtown to Rathmines and beyond.
These buses are now themselves a considerable source of congestion, often stuck in the middle of the road through no fault of the drivers.
It seems to be that there can be no question of locating the terminus of MetroLink at Charlemont when one of the main access roads to it, which will be essential for many buses, taxis and cars dropping off passengers for the airport, is already choked to death by incredibly poor road design. – Yours, etc,
MARY REILLY,
Ranelagh,
Dublin.
