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GRATE EATING - 20th June 1992 Sir, - In Darina Allen's article on outdoor cooking (June 6th), the word barbecue, including its derivatives, was spelt wrongly (barbaque, barbequed, barbequeing, barbaques) no fewer than 16 times. Is this an Irish Times record? But let's be fair; it was spelt correctly five times. - Yours, etc. WALTER C. ALLWRIGHT, 93 Ardoyne House, Pembroke Park, Dublin 4
SHAW'S STYLE - 15th April 1999 Sir, - I have been unable to trace the original of Martin Barry's (An Irishman's Diary, April 8th) quotation of a Shavian observation: "The difference between you and I, Mr Goldwyn .. .", but I very much doubt that GBS would have committed such a solecism. - Yours, etc., WALTER C. ALLWRIGHT, Los Boliches, Malaga, Spain. Back to Index
MOBILE PHONE LICENCES - 3rd August 2000 Sir, - "Telecoms operators will compete for third generation mobile phone licences through a "beauty contest" rather than a UK-style auction, which may have resulted in high prices for consumers, telecoms regulator Ms Etain Doyle has decided" (The Irish Times, July 27th). This is a scandal. When "beauty" not money will determine who wins, the scope for corruption is obvious. (How will the politicians quantify "beauty"?), and this at a time when the Flood and Moriarty tribunals continue to expose the rampant corruption of Irish politicians. Moreover, the airwaves being sold belong to the Irish people not to Ms Doyle and not (yet) to the telecoms company. As such, she has no right to extract other than the maximum price that the market can bear. Failure to do so means tax revenue foregone and therefore an unnecessary extra tax burden on long-suffering taxpayers. Bidders will not bid more than they believe their future customers will be willing to pay for the service - but that is bidders' risk not Ms Doyle's or the Irish taxpayers'. The "beauty" approach is the lazy approach of someone who can't be bothered to spell out exactly what is being sold, to quantify in hard money terms the manner in which bids are to be evaluated and to seek to maximise revenue. No successful, honest, commercial business would evaluate a tender in such a way. Who regulates the telecoms regulator? - Yours, etc., Back to Index
DRUG ABUSE IN PRISONS - 12th August 2000 Sir - It is unfortunate that your Health and Children Correspondent, Padraig O'Morain, relied almost exclusively on the press release of the Irish Prisons Service when reporting on our survey of hepatitis B and C and HIV in Irish prisoners (The Irish Times, July 27th). Prison management is sceptical of our finding that approximately one fifth of prisoners who inject began doing so in prison. The reason for this scepticism is the known propensity of prisoners to blame their health troubles on the authorities rather than themselves. Having carried out two surveys in Irish prisons, the results of one of which has just been published in the British Medical Journal, we believe that those with authority to introduce change in the Irish Prisons Services should look at their own practices rather than seek to spin their way out of accepting responsibility for what has been acknowledged for some time as a seriously deficient system. - Yours, etc., JEAN LONG, M.Sc., SHANE ALLWRIGHT, Ph.D., JOSEPH BARRY, MD, Department of Community Health and General Practice, Trinity College, Dublin 2. Back to Index
MUGABE'S DEMOCRACY - 6th March 2001 Sir, - In your otherwise sensible Editorial, "Mugabe's Democracy (March 5th), you state that "many of the [the whites] have been guilty of treating their workers badly and, in some instances, with a cruelty that stopped marginally short of slavery." I challenge you to provide evidence to support this outrageous assertion. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney Heath, Co Dublin. Back to Index
RTE AND THE LICENCE FEE - 11th July 2001 Sir, - I refer to your Editorial of July 5th and Ms de Valera's response of July 10th. The RTÉ Licence Fee is £70. RTÉ has asked for an increase of 71 per cent (£50). The Minister offered 21 per cent. (£14.50). Since when was a 21 per cent increase in revenue "parsimonious"? - Yours etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney Heath, Co Dublin. Back to Index
THE ABORTION DEBATE - 27th July 2001 Sir, - The essence of Breda O'Brien's article, Time to tackle reasons for choosing abortion (Opinion, July 21st), is summarised in the admirable statement, "But it will remain simply aspirational and a mockery of the distress felt by those in crisis until practical supports are given to reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies." However, the article omits the other key alternative to abortion. In addition to reducing the numbers of unwanted pregnancies, it is equally important to provide material and emotional support for such mothers to proceed with the birth and offer their babies for adoption. There is no shortage of Irish would-be adoptive parents - just look at the numbers who travel to Romania, India, China looking for children. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Back to Index
THE COST OF SMOKING - 31st July 2001 Sir, - David Andrews's article, "Deaths fail to register as deadly addiction continues" (The Irish Times, July 28th) beggars belief! Let me give a few examples of his non-sequiturs, obfuscation and errors. He says, "One can only have sympathy for those who cannot 'kick' the habit." Excuse me, but we are talking about grown-ups here who know what they are doing and are aware of the consequences, yet continue to do it. They are not victims, but willing self-abusers. He quotes the cost to the State of smoking as £1.6 billion a year. But if he wants to talk money, cost is meaningless without also quoting the gain to the State in terms of cigarette taxes and pensioners' early deaths. Not only does he ignore the gain, but he excoriates the tobacco company Philip Morris for daring to do quantify it. Evidently he prefers this information to remain hidden because it more than nullifies his cost argument. Mr Andrews seems to have a penchant for hiding inconvenient information. He wants to rig the Consumer Price Index by removing cigarettes, so as to impose more punishing taxes while hiding the fact that these will be inflationary. Oh, and meanwhile he wants to transfer even more money from smokers to the State! He says: "Where a company has knowingly sold a product that kills, it should be made responsible for this terrible action." He also cites road deaths, but then fails to make the connection: make car manufacturers responsible when cars crash and kill people. Same for manufacturers of kitchen knives, ladders, swimming pools, bricks, hammers and countless others products that are known to kill. He says: "Passive smoking is...more harmful than asbestos." Balderdash. A single inhalation of asbestos fibre can damage lungs sufficiently to kill in later life. Nobody pretends passive smoking is as deadly as that. Was a man of this stunning intellect ever really a Minister? - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Back to Index
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2001/1031/#11 A WOMAN'S PLACE - 31st October 2001 Sir, - Medb Ruane (October 19th), and Nora Stewart (October 26th), lament the low representation of women at senior levels in our public, private and civic institutions, and seem to attribute it to some sort of male prejudice. But surely the possibility should at least be tabled that too few capable women are in fact interested in senior jobs and/or that there is a shortage of capable women. Male prejudice is, however, a much easier target for blame. Perhaps female prejudice explains why so few men breast-feed their infants. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney Heath, Killiney, Co Dublin. Back to Index
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2001/1210/index.htm#5 DEBATE ON ABORTION - 10 December 2001 Sir, - Few would argue with Róisín Ryan-Flood's claim that women have a right to control their own bodies. However, the debate is about the right to control someone else's body, namely the child's. - Yours etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublinhttp://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2001/1227/index.htm#1 DEBATE ON ABORTION - 28 December 2001
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2001/1212/index.htm#9 SUTHERLAND SPEECH ON NICE - 12 December 2001 Sir, - What an astonishing rant from Peter Sutherland to the Institute of European Affairs, berating Ireland for daring to vote No to Nice and asking how Ireland could honourably remain a full member of the EU if the decision was not reversed (The Irish Times, December 11th). He also asked: "How could 1 per cent of the EU population stop 99 per cent?" Rather than arrogantly presuming that the Irish population was wrong to have voted No, or that our veto should be vetoed, perhaps Mr Sutherland should ask why the other 14 governments are too scared to ask their populations to vote on Nice. The answer is clear: majorities of most countries would also vote No, and because they are being given no such opportunity they are relying on Ireland's 1 per cent to save them from their pro-Nice politicians. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Back to Index
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0119/index.html#1011363136181 US TREATMENT OF PRISONERS - 19 January 2002 Sir, - Stuart McIntyre of Cork Peace Alliance (January 18th) asks whether shaving, shackling, sedating, hooding and caging of Al-Qaeda/Taliban prisoners is moral, just, or noble, and urges they be treated with basic human decency. Taking account of the behaviour and threats of the prisoners, their treatment is justified: Shaved: For cleanliness and ease of identification. Shackled and hooded during the flight to Cuba: for the security of the flight (and bear in mind, the US always shackles its prisoners - even that English au-pair). Sedated: We were told that only one prisoner, despite being shackled and hooded, was so disruptive as to necessitate this for his flight. Caged: just a normal prison cell, but with see-through walls so the prisoners' potentially wild behaviour can be observed/controlled. These men are being adequately fed and watered, have individual toilets, their religious observances are being facilitated, and there is provision for exercise. By any measure, they are being treated with basic human decency. So what on earth are the objectors on about? As for their status, they are certainly not POWs in the understood sense. They were neither part of a uniformed national army, nor regular civilian criminals. They constitute an entirely new category of prisoner for whom new conventions need to be developed. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT,
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0128/index.html#1011363144992 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS - 28th January 2002 Sir, - Your Editorial of January 24th seems to censure George Bush for supporting Ariel Sharon's "dismissive attitude towards Yasser Arafat" . I am one of (I suspect) many Europeans who believe a dismissive attitude towards Mr Arafat is entirely appropriate. He has been a great revolutionary leader of the Palestinians, but he demonstrated at Camp David in 2000 his inability to grasp an excellent compromise deal when Israel offered it. The intifada is the direct result of his failure. Meanwhile, he is unwilling and/or unable to control the disparate paramilitary groups of disaffected Palestinians who are driving the intifada. It is time for him to go and to be replaced by someone who can speak for Palestinians with authority (dare one suggest some kind of election?). No doubt this will be a hard-liner whom Mr Sharon will detest, but who by virtue of his mandate will force Israel to negotiate seriously. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT,
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| http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0311/index.html#1014332622693
US TARIFFS ON STEEL IMPORTS - 3rd March 2002 Sir, - It would be a grave mistake for the EU and other steel-producing countries to impose their own sanctions on US trade in retaliation for President Bush's bizarre 30 per tariff on steel imports (Editorial, March 7th). Far better to mobilise the full apparatus of the World Trade Organisation to resolve the dispute - and launch a propaganda campaign on American public opinion. This would make plain that while there are 160,000 steel workers, the object of the President's largesse, fully 12 million people work in steel-consuming industries (machine tools, cars, oil, white goods etc.) that will be forced to pay 30 per cent more for steel than their foreign competitors. A recent study shows that a tariff of 20 per cent would result in 9,000 steel jobs saved but 74,000 people thrown out of work elsewhere - a ratio of one to eight. Furthermore, the tariff will mean higher prices for every consumer product, local or imported, that contains any steel. In the meantime, the steel industry - in the absence of the competition it fears - will have no incentive to become less flaccid. The American people may not care about the squeals of European outrage, but once they realise the scam that is being played on them by their own government, they will not stand for it. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT,
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0329/index.html#1017357751341 THE PLIGHT OF PETER MASON - 29th March 2002 Sir, - Kevin Myers's piece (An Irishman's Diary, March 26th) about the 49-year-old family man Peter Mason, now blind, deaf and armless as a result of a RIRA bomb at Magilligan Strand, Co Derry, on February 8th, was one of the most moving essays I have ever read. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. The last sentence was deleted by the editor : Letter refers to : http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2002/0326/4217196854DIMAR26.html Back to Index
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0503/index.html Sir, - Cllr Larry O'Toole of Sinn Féin proposes (Letters, May 2nd), in effect, the quasi-nationalisation of motor insurance as an avenue to lowering insurance premia. Apart from the fact that the Soviet Union has already demonstrated how effective nationalisation can really be, there is a much simpler solution. In 1999, when living abroad, my car was comprehensively insured in Holland for an annual premium of 2,688 guilders (€1,220) valid all over Europe including Ireland. But when I moved back to Ireland that year, my Dutch insurance company informed me that EU regulations forbade them to insure a resident of Ireland, and, as a result, I had to change to an Irish company, for which the best offer was IR£ 1,260 (€1,600). It is Irish protectionism alone that allows Irish insurance companies to gouge their customers. If the EU's single market were allowed to operate in the insurance market, premia would drop overnight, and not just for cars. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Letter refers to :
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0521/index.html#1017357798926 GUESTS OF THE NATION - 21st May 2002 Sir, - Surely no more than a handful of Irish voters can possibly support the Government's plan to provide exile to two of the 13 Palestinian militants from the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. What on earth can be the benefit to Ireland of accommodating what Israel describes as dangerous terrorists, as if we didn't have enough home-grown ones? - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Letter refers to : Deleted from the end by the Editor :
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0601/index.html#1017357810028 IRELAND'S ALCOHOL PROBLEM - 1st June 2002 Sir, - So the Strategic Task Force on Alcohol trots out in its report the old chestnut that the allowable blood alcohol levels for motorists should be cut (The Irish Times, May 29th). Though Environment Minister Dempsey mooted something similar last March, as have various British Ministers, such a cut is utterly without foundation. The Irish and British limit is 0.08 mg/ml; most European limits are 0.05 mg/ml. There is a wealth of irrefutable evidence that blood-alcohol contributes directly to motor accidents, but no research has ever been published that shows that the lower European limit lowers the accident rate. What undoubtedly does lower the accident rate is enforcement (think Scandinavia), of which here in Ireland there is almost none. The Strategic Task Force on Alcohol should therefore argue for enforcement of the existing blood-alcohol limit rather than the meaningless gesture of lowering the existing, unenforced, limit. But, of course, enforcement would be very unpopular with many drinking voters. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Refers to :
HOSPITAL WAITING LISTS - 19th July 2002 Sir, - Dr Orla Hardiman, consultant neurologist at Beaumont Hospital, tells us (July 16th) that "clinic staff are increasingly subjected to appalling verbal abuse by patients waiting for long periods to be seen in particularly busy and overbooked clinics". Such behaviour is unacceptable and I would advocate that hospitals adopt a policy of putting every abuser immediately to the back of the queue. - Yours etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0805/index.html#1027742403367 CORRIB GAS FIELD EXPLOITATION - 5th August 2002 Sir, - David Smith (July 31st) finds incomprehensible the "scandal" of the Irish Government settling for a 12.5 per cent take from the Corrib gas fields, when the Norwegian oil tax is a "thumping 78 per cent". Incomprehensibility disappears when you look at the facts of hydrocarbon business life. Despite the hundreds of millions spent exploring here over several decades, Ireland is a dreadful oil and gas province. It has no oil and only two small gas fields. Kinsale, containing 1.7 TCF (trillion cubic feet, 1 TCF being equivalent in energy terms to about 0.17 billion barrels) started producing gas back in 1978. And now Corrib, with 0.85 TCF, is planned to come on stream in 2004. Compare this with the Norwegians. They began their highly successful exploration in the 1960s and to date their proven reserves are 36 TCF of gas plus 5.7 billion barrels of oil, with the same amount again not yet proven. So perhaps Norway's gargantuan hydrocarbon riches explains why its government can drive such a hard bargain with oil companies, compared with the driblet - 1/27th of Norway's production - that Ireland has to offer. So without a competitive tax regime considerably more favourable than Norway's or the UK's, Ireland would have no chance at all of attracting the €840 million needed to develop Corrib. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. See also Tallrite Blog #4 of 4th August 2002
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/0926/index.html#1032941248343 DEBATE ON THE NICE TREATY - 26th September 2002 Sir, - Lucinda Creighton (September 25th) reiterates an oft-quoted non-sequitur: "if we vote No to Nice. . .Ireland would no longer be at the heart of EU decision making and would be marginalised in Europe. Our bargaining power would be dramatically reduced. . .Foreign investment in Ireland would fall as we were seen to have lost our traditional influence in Europe." On the contrary, a Yes vote would be taken for granted by EU politicians. We will be just the 15th ratifier, nothing special, and we'd soon be forgotten. A No vote, on the other hand, would cause ructions among the EU politicians. The whole Nice treaty would have to be renegotiated and you can be sure Ireland would be listened to very carefully - if resentfully - in those discussions. In other words, Ireland's influence, with its pesky devotion to democratic behaviour, would be enormously increased, both in the Nice renegotiations and thereafter - at least until we are persuaded to change the Constitution to eliminate referendums. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Letter from Lucinda Creighton to which
this letter refers :
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/1014/index.html#1033174051158 CHURCHES AND HOMOSEXUALITY - 14th October 2002 Madam, - I was shocked by the comments made by Mgr Andrew Baker of the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops, no less (The Irish Times, September 28th). Here are some of his choice phrases : "homosexual tendencies are aberrations that can and should be addressed by both the individual and by competent experts with the aid of behavioural sciences as well as by spiritual means, including prayer, the sacraments and spiritual direction. . . "Homosexuals may be more familiar with certain patterns and techniques of deception and repression. . .Nor can a homosexual be genuinely a sign of Christ's spousal love for the church. . .if the homosexual could be healed from such a disorder, then he could be considered for admission to the seminary and possibly to Holy Orders, but not while being afflicted with the disorder". In effect, the Vatican seems to be saying that homosexuality is a curable disease. Like leprosy, perhaps. I can imagine little that is more un-Christlike and therefore un-Catholic than sentiments such as these in respect of people unlucky enough to be born gay. Suppose the word "black" or "disabled" were substituted for "homosexual"? I would invite a senior Catholic cleric, perhaps Cardinal Connell, to comment on Mgr Baker's remarks. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Article to which this letter refers : See also Tallrite Blog Issue #11, dated 6th October 2002, "Catholic Church : A Source of Evil ?"
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/1028/index.html#1033174064395 DEMISE OF HARLAND & WOLFF - 28th October 2002 Madam, "It is surely time for the Government of this island nation (that once built ships for half the world and bred seamen in all its many ports) to take steps to restore Ireland's maritime economy and stop leaving the seas to other continents", writes John de Courcy Ireland. Instead of castigating the Government he should save his tirade for the executive managements of Harland & Wolff and the Irish Shipping Company. It is those individuals who, by failing to preserve profitability, ensured the downfall of the two companies and thereby failed their workforces. These senior managers were delighted to take the fat pay and perks reserved for executives; taking the blame is the other side of that coin. Don't let them off the hook by blaming governments. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin. Item to which this letter refers :
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2002/1109/index.html#1036708344297 SUPPORTING THE US ON IRAQ - 9th November 2002 Madam, - Anti-warriors such as Vincent Browne (Opinion, November 6th), Paolo Cerioni (Letters, November 8th), Bill McSweeney (Opinion, November 8th) and countless others share three characteristics. The first is a singular lack of appreciation of how the world has changed since the Twin Towers attacks last year. That dreadful event, followed by the recent attacks on the French oil tanker, in Bali, in Moscow - and preceded by the bombings in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania and, yes, the Twin Towers in 1993 - show the unrelenting face of organised, Islamic-centred terrorism that is already engaged in a merciless and savage war against the free, democratic world. Second, the anti-warriors never ever come up with a coherent alternative strategy for dealing with the terrorism, other than to do nothing or to negotiate - but with no fallback proposals should negotiation fail. They also bandy around speculative figures such as "tens of thousands of civilians will be killed" without a shred of evidence, not least from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Third, they bring up the West's lamentable acceptance of Saddam's behaviour in the 1980s - if not complicity with it - as well as the presence of oil in Iraq, as two classic, but utterly illogical reasons for doing nothing about him today. Saddam's track record - (a) invading neighbours; (b) gassing his own people; (c) repressing their freedoms; (d) flouting 16 UN binding resolutions; (e) building up weapons of mass destruction - demonstrates his malevolence beyond all reasonable doubt. He cannot be allowed to continue, because it is inevitable he will sooner or later use, or allow to be used, his weapons of mass destruction weapons for terrorist ends. Sentence omitted by Editor
Ireland should be proud of its role in disarming Iraq by backing the upcoming UN Security Council resolution, not to mention providing tangible support in Shannon. This behaviour will help make the world a safer place for all. - Yours, etc., TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.
Three items to which this letter refers :
See also Tallrite Blog Issue #16, dated 10th November 2002, "Iraq Anti-Warriors' Sterile Arguments"
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