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Why Cuba Beats Caredoc

Madam, - Dervla Murphy describes how the efficient Cuban medical system thankfully saved her from dying of hyperexia (heat stroke), but concludes with the appalling cry “Viva Fidel!” (Letters, December 20th). 

If she is so fond of the Communist prison-state and a dictator whose regime has killed over 73,000 of his countrymen, perhaps she should take up residence in Cuba. - Yours etc,

Source of 73,000 killed by the Castro regime:

Aid and Corruption in Africa

Madam, - It is understandable that Joe Manning, as Sierra Leone's Honorary Consul to Ireland, should want the flow of Irish taxpayers' aid-money to continue to flow into the coffers of the governments of Sierra Leone and elsewhere (Letters, December 18th). 

However, he speaks in contradiction. 

“The main cause of poverty in Africa is bad government and we cannot cure this by ignoring it or working around it,” he writes.  Setting aside for the moment the massive role of Western trade protectionism in perpetuating developing-world poverty, his answer that bad governments will somehow improve if you give them (Irish aid) money makes no sense whatsoever. 

Aid should be directed at those who need it, and that does not include “bad governments”.  That was the point of David Adams' article, as well as earlier letters by GOAL's John O'Shea. 

As for bad governance, this is best addressed by removing the bad governors and fostering democracy.  But, of course, very few care sufficiently about bad governance and the misery it causes to encourage such a solution. - Yours etc,

That Missing Canoeist

Madam, - Everyone has been wondering where John Darwin, the canoeist missing from Hartlepool, has been hiding out for the past five years (World and Breaking News, December 6th). 

The authorities needed look no farther than westward across the water.  As photographs makes abundantly clear, he merely changed his name to Dermot Ahern and masqueraded as Ireland's foreign minister.  That probably also explains the Panama connection. - Yours etc,

Al Gore Eschews Debate

Madam, - So former US Vice-President Al Gore has been and gone to Ireland, where at a conference in Dublin he spoke on climate change to 400 Irish and international company executives and investors as well as Green party ministers (Ireland, December 3rd).  You note, significantly, that  all media apart from official photographers were barred from attending his address, and there is no suggestion that climate-change dissenters were admitted either. 

Is it not extraordinary that this prominent Oscar-winning Nobel-laureate is so insecure that he has never - never - publicly debated his views on climate change with anyone of a contrary view, and that he is well known for carefully screening his audiences?  Why does he appear to be so insecure about the "science" behind his claims?  Can it be that he, like many of us, doesn't really believe all the ballyhoo? - Yours etc,

Israel and the Palestinians P!

Madam, - Raymond Deane of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign once again attempts to portray Israel's self-defence actions, such as the separation barrier, as unwarranted acts of aggression (November 19th). And, typically, he refuses to address the issue in David M. Abrahamson's letter of November 14th, to which he purports to be responding.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved at a stroke. The Palestinians merely have to stop attacking Israel, which would immediately open the way to constructive negotiations. Unfortunately, as we have so often seen, it won't work the other way round.

Anyone who advocates or defends continued attacks by Palestinians on Israel cannot also want a peaceful, just outcome. - Yours, etc,

Dublin Bus Dispute

Madam, - I have no idea what the Dublin Bus dispute is about.  Something to do with additional routes (employees and unions generally welcome expansion because it means more jobs) and extra hours (ditto, unless unpaid).  But to strike in order to disrupt bus services is a ridiculous way for the drivers to argue their case as it can only alienate the general public - being their stranded customers. 

The strikers would be far wiser to run an efficient service but refuse to accept fares.  With the cash spigot closed off, nothing will get the attention of management faster whilst garnering the enthusiastic support of passengers. - Yours etc,

Debate on Hospital Services

Madam, - Dr John Barton's “pride that obstetric patients recently voted our small hospital [ie Portiuncula] number one for obstetric care in the country” is intriguing (Letters, November 9th).  How did the patients know?  Did, for example, each woman produce ten babies in ten different hospitals so that informed judgements could be made?  And if so why?  Would they not wish to patronise the “number one” hospital for each of their infants? - Yours etc,

Pay Rises for Top Politicians P!
“Because He's Worth It”

Madam, - At first, I was as aghast as everyone else at Bertie Ahern's self-awarded 14 per cent increase, bringing his annual salary to an eye-popping €310,000. But then I asked myself what were the most important deliverables of any government to its people. They are first security, then prosperity. By contrast, the rest is either details or trivia.

In terms of security, Ireland over Mr Ahern's decade has neither been invaded nor suffered terrorist attack. And though the crime rate has risen, it still stands comparison with other countries.

As for prosperity, the Celtic Tiger has been flying for a decade, outstripping nearly everyone in Europe and elsewhere. Across the world it has become a model to be emulated. Its economic boom and feel-good factor are everywhere to be seen and felt. And for this, surely Mr Ahern and his ministers can claim a modicum of credit and deserve some reward. They have helped shape the environment and conditions that fostered the extraordinary growth.

So although Mr Ahern's new salary makes him better paid than any other executive leader in the developed world, it should be linked to the GDP-per-person that he has delivered, as this is a very good indicator of the population's average income, the one thing most of us care most about. And on this comparison, he is not greedy at all.

He collects 10 times Ireland's GDP per person, which is comparable to Australia's John Howard. But Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are each paid 12 times their respective GDP figures.

At the top end of the scale is Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong, who is paid a whopping 60 times. And at the bottom? George Bush with a factor of only nine.

So maybe we shouldn't be griping about Bertie's rise after all. Because he's worth it. - Yours, etc,

TONY (not a member of Fianna Fáil)

This letter, and the figures it contains, are derived from my contemporaneous post,
“Bertie: Because He's Worth It”. 

Change in Drink Driving Limits P!

Madam, - Both Prof Joe Barry and Dr Declan Bedford call for the lowering of the blood-alcohol level to below the current 0.8 mg per 100 ml (Letters, November 1st), in the belief that this will reduce road deaths. 

Yet no-one has ever produced any evidence that reducing this figure to the Continental level of 0.5 has any beneficial effect. 

In the case of the very few bits of research that would appear to support such a contention, lowering the limit has been accompanied by much enhanced enforcement. 

It is the latter that makes the difference. 

Elsewhere you report that “Since random breath testing was introduced in July last year there has been a 20 per cent reduction in deaths on Irish roads” [Ireland, November 1st].

Moreover, media reports of road deaths caused by alcohol almost always quote drivers as being “several times over” the limit, not marginally so. 

Not until Gardaí are prepared, with their breathalysers, to systematically ambush drivers in large numbers as they drive away from pubs, clubs and restaurants late at night across the country will there be an appreciable reduction in drink-driving and its associated casualties. 

Of course, this will also deal a mortal blow to many such establishments by frightening away customers and create outrage among a large swathe of drivers who vote. 

That's why it is so much easier to make a gesture like reducing the current blood-alcohol level.  It sounds good but achieves nothing and doesn't much scare the vintners or anyone else. - Yours, etc

The “Fun” of Living in Castro's Cuba

Madam, - For Barry Walsh it is “amusing” that President Bush should call for Cubans to throw off the shackles of Communism (Letters, October 29th). 

Perhaps he would not find it quite so funny were he himself forced to live for the past 48 years in Fidel Castro's brutal prison state that had killed 73,000 of his countrymen in pursuit of the most evil ideology ever created by mankind, one which during the last century caused the deaths of a further 136 million people in the China of Mao Tse Tung and the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin.  - Yours etc,

Back to index

EU Reform Treaty Referendum

Madam, - The Reform Treaty is “a vote for climate change, a vote for environmental policies, a vote for the Common Agricultural Policy, a vote for social Europe, that is a vote for the reform treaty” says Bertie Ahern to convince the Irish to vote yes in a referendum (Front page, October 20th).  This is of course the document which he has already told us is 90% the same as the Constitutional Treaty (Ireland, June 25th) soundly rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Unwittingly, however, Mr Ahern succinctly lists all the reasons to vote no this time around! - Yours etc,

Dog-whistling Floor Space

Sir, - Yasser Arafat used to say one thing in Arabic to please his robust Middle Eastern audiences and quite the opposite in English to placate delicate Westerners.  Some politicians prefer the dog-whistle technique to speak different messages to different listeners. 

Are you doing something similar over a Planned Parenthood facility in Aurora, Illinois? (“Creative Construction”, October 13th)?  You say it occupies just 22,000 square feet, presumably for the benefit of your angry red-state readers who think this is already too large, but three times bigger - 6,700 square metres - for your more liberal, metric-speaking Europeans. - Yours etc,

US Optimism on Iraq Conflict P!

Madam, - As the millionth brave American soldier passes through Shannon, you can almost taste the despair in Brendan Butler's letter (October 17th [key words transcribed here]) on having read some rare positive tidings from Iraq, namely that Al Qaeda seems to be on the retreat (World News, October 16th). 

Harking back to George Bush's (in)famous visit in 2003 to an aircraft-carrier which flew a banner saying “Mission Accomplished”, he writes as if he fervently hopes that the latest good news will be similarly confounded, infrastructure further destroyed, civilian deaths continue, the war remain unwinnable. 

It seems strange to yearn for failure in a difficult yet honourable venture by the multinational force led by the US, which - at the behest of the legitimate, constitutional, democratic government of Iraq - fights under a unanimous mandate from the United Nations Security Council under Resolution 1723. - Yours etc,

Just Stop the Attacks

Sir, - Brenda Power is perfectly correct when she points out that if criminals in Ireland want to stop getting shot and harassed by the Gardaí they should simply stop breaking the law (Armed criminals forfeit a right to complain, October 7th, p 1-16, no URL available). 

This same principle contains the seed of a solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict.  All that is required is that the Palestinians stop attacking Israel and that war is over, and both sides can live in peace.  It's that simple.  Unfortunately, it won't work the other way round. - Yours etc,

Controversy over Shannon P!

Madam, - Instead of incessantly bleating that "Government", in the best traditions of a Communist state, should solve its Shannon-Heathrow problem, Tony Kinnane (October 5th), Chairman of the Shannon Action Group, should actually take some, er, action.

He and his colleagues are all businessmen so they should know something about business. Aer Lingus has gone: nothing is going to change that. So get one or more competitors in. That's what businessmen do when faced with a supply shortage. Find competitors that can offer lucrative connectivity via Heathrow, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt. Incentivise them with offers they can't refuse.

Make them squabble and compete among themselves for the riches to be had from the Shannon connectivity that the western business seaboard says it needs so desperately and is willing to pay for. Make Aer Lingus rue its decision.

The Shannon story to date is a testament to a local business community grown lazy and complacent over the years through decades of hand-outs and market distortions (particularly the infamous stop-over) imposed on long-suffering Irish taxpayers for no return. It needs to start taking some dynamic responsibility for its own future. - Yours, etc,

Why did the IRFU extend Eddie O'Sullivan's Contract?

Madam, - The IRFU needs to explain why it extended by four whole years Eddie O´Sullivan´s contract as Ireland manager immediately BEFORE the Rugby World Cup began.  His and his team´s abject failure in the competition illustrates the IRFU´s folly. - Yours etc,

Capitalism and Climate Change

Madam, - Eugene Tannam is quite correct to blame climate change entirely on perfidious capitalism (Letters, September 7th).  But we in the West are so utterly immersed and embroiled in capitalism that we are beyond repair.  Not so for others.  Thus, the only way to solve climate change is for the West to immediately cease all trade and investment in China and India in particular, with a view to terminating their capitalistic efforts and forcing their 2½ billion people back to the abject poverty which has been their lot for millennia.  The climate would (perhaps) stop changing and Mr Tannam, at least, would be happily vindicated. - Yours etc

Sectarian Racist Sexist Heterphobic Police Associations

Madam, - The London Metropolitan Police Sikh Association thinks An Garda Síochána is racist for refusing to allow its uniformed members to wear turbans (Ireland, August 21st). 

That's a bit rich coming from an overtly sectarian association open only to Sikhs.  Of course it's not alone.  Britain is also home to the similarly sectarian Association of Muslim Police, Christian Police Association and Jewish Police Association, as well as numerous overtly racist associations for black policemen (eg the Metropolitan Black Police Association), the overtly sexist British Association for Women in Policing, and several overtly heterophobic associations such as the Gay Police Association, all of them open only to favoured groupings. 

What is blatantly missing is a Straight White Christian Male Police Association.  That's because this would represent the one group against which it is always permissible to level discrimination but intolerable to raise a defence. - Yours etc, Tony (Straight White Christian Male)

From North Pole to West Bank

Madam, - If the Russians get away with their claim to a million square kilometres of hitherto stateless real estate beneath the Arctic on the basis of planting their titanium flag on the seabed, and the UN eventually ratifies it, this could set an interesting precedent (“Laying Claim to the Arctic”, Opinion, August 13th). 

For the world contains other chunks of stateless land that could be similarly up for grabs by UN member nations.  For example, would not a Star of David, titanium or otherwise, then be sufficient to resolve sovereignty over the West Bank? 

The Palestinians would do well to conclude a two-state deal quickly before Russian antics snitch the prize from under them. - Yours etc,

Time for a coup d'état

Sir, - Out of Ireland's adult population of 3.4 million, not all of whom are drivers, there are - as Kevin Myers astutely points out (August 7th) - no fewer than 400,000 provisional licence holders, and no political party has attempted to change this arrangement. 

The reason is that those people are voters who constitute a potential bloc of some 12%, which renders the problem utterly intractable for a democratic society.  For you can be sure they will be galvanised to vote into oblivion any politicians or parties daring to threaten in a serious way this bloc's unique privilege of driving without proven competence. 

It seems to me, therefore, that the only solution is a coup d'état to install a benign but stern dictator with vision and drive, who will unilaterally fix this and similar problems (eg drink-driving) with no mandate from anyone but our magnificent generals, and who would then, his/her job done, graciously hand back power to democrats and a grateful, forelock-hugging populace. 

Where can I find an application form? - Yours etc,

This letter is based on a post from last April,
“Problems - When Huge - Become Democratically Insoluble”

Role of Shannon in Iraq War P!

Madam, - In their attack on my views, your correspondents Fr Declan Deane and Martin Noone seem to have thrown logic out of the window (Letters, August 3rd).   

Firstly, if the original invasion of Iraq was illegal and immoral because it did not have UN support, then the current war is legal and moral because it is scrupulously in line with a UN mandate, Resolution 1723.  They cannot have it both ways. 

Secondly, even if (which I would deny) additional Iraqi civilian deaths were the result of the pre-war America-enforced UN no-fly zones and sanctions, rather than of Saddam's non-compliance with the numerous mandatory UN resolutions which prompted them, where's the relevance?  That phase is long over.  America today is attempting, however ineptly, to protect innocent Iraqi civilians against insurgents and jihadists.  Why would your correspondents, and for that matter Archbishop Neill, Patricia McKenna and other Greens feel this is somehow wrong?   They seem to prefer that the insurgents and jihadists prevail. 

Thirdly, Mr Noone dismisses Iraq as a constitutional democracy merely because it is new and struggling.  How is this an argument for abandoning it?  If the war is too difficult to win, as many Americans and others now seem to believe, then by all means run away, emulating America in Vietnam and the USSR in Afghanistan.  But don't pretend that what US and other Coalition forces are doing today in Iraq is not in a noble cause.  - Yours etc,

Fr Deane and Mr Noone were responding to
my letter below of 1st August 2007

See the full exchange on this subject here

Shannon's Role in Iraq War P!

Madam, - How shocking that Green Party luminaries including former MEP Patricia McKenna (July 31st) should hold the United Nations in such evident disdain that they wish Ireland to cease co-operating with the implementation of one of its most prominent resolutions. They similarly have such little regard for one of the Arab world's few constitutional democracies that they likewise would wish to impede its legitimate Government's desire for foreign assistance in trying to bring security to its beleaguered people.

The multinational force in Iraq, led by the Americans, is operating in accordance with last November's UN Resolution 1723, valid until the end of this year, which the Security Council approved unanimously at the request of the Iraqi prime minister.

Furthermore, critics should remind themselves that it is insurgents and jihadists, not the Americans, who are doing their best to kill innocent Iraqi children, women and men. The multinational forces are trying to protect them, in light of the 72^[*] per cent of Iraqi adults who voted in December 2005 - in the face of enormous intimidation - for a new, democratic Iraq.

Ireland should be proud of its small contribution in making Shannon available to the brave American soldiers as they try to help the Iraqis. Ms McKenna and her cohorts should be ashamed of their obstructionism and the additional loss of Iraqi life this could entail were they successful in thwarting the Americans. - Yours, etc,

^[*]According to the CIA, there are 16,651,180 Iraqis over the age of 14 years. 
The 12m who voted represent 72% of this. 
In fact since the voting age is 18 not 15, the actual percentage is even higher than 72%.

See the full exchange on this subject here

Back to index

Roma on the M50 Roundabout

Madam, - It is strange that among the many who demand the Irish Government provide the Roma camping out on the M50 Roundabout with shelter and food, none seemed to have opened up their own homes to take them in. Isn't charity supposed to begin at home? When was it completely outsourced to the State? - Yours, etc,

Channel 4 and Climate Change

Madam, - “Don't believe the tabloid rubbish that you hear on Channel 4, which has raised doubts that climate change is down to humans' activities. There is an overwhelming consensus that we are driving it.”  So said John Sweeney of the NUI Maynooth, one of the scientists who contributed to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (Ireland, July 18th). 

Presumably Channel 4's “The Great Global Warming Swindle” broadcast last March and still viewable on Youtube is the programme he declines to name.

Backed up by copious evidence and endorsed by many eminent scientists, this set out, most cogently, an alternative set of causes for climate change rather than human activity.  The programme effectively attributed climate change to sunspot variations, with which earth temperatures closely correlate, and demonstrated that CO2 fluctuations follow and are a consequence of temperature changes, not the other way round.  In any case, compared with the CO2 emissions of oceans, rotting vegetation, animal excretions and volcanoes, those resulting from human activity are miniscule and irrelevant. 

One would have expected Mr Sweeney to refute with rational argument the conclusions put forward by the programme rather than just disparage them as “tabloid rubbish”.  Unless he is unable to.  It is not true that the overwhelming scientific consensus is with him; there is considerable dissent among scientists. - Yours etc.

The entire programme can be viewed,
in eight ten-minute clips, on Youtube, starting here

Non-Recognition of Israel by Hamas

Madam, - Your editorial of July 17th criticises, “the ill-considered conditions laid down to ensure Hamas recognises the state of Israel”.  Does the Irish Times now support the non-recognition of a democratic state created by fiat of the United Nations, preferring the stance adopted by an organization whose founding covenant commits it to the obliteration of that state? - Yours etc,

The relative sentence in the covenant reads,
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it,
just as it obliterated others before it.”

Twelfth of July Bonfires

Madam - On Wednesday night, the eve of the Twelfth, several monumental pyres of tyres were set on fire in Northern Ireland as part of the annual celebrations of the Orange community. 

From the photographs of just one of these massive cones in Co Antrim, you can count the tyres involved and from this estimate the cone's base diameter (23 metres), height (15 metres), volume (2,077 cubic metres) and weight (224 tonnes).  Allowing for steel reinforcement and other materials, some 70 percent of this weight is more or less pure carbon - ie 156 tonnes - which when burnt would have spewed into the night air 575 tonnes of carbon dioxide. 

According to the CarbonNeutral Company, a flight from Belfast to New York produces 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per passenger.  Thus, the environmental damage caused by the celebratory bonfire was the equivalent of flying 958 people to America, or about three aircraft. 

Who would have thought that Orangemen could be so, er, un-Green?  - Yours etc.

This letter is based on my post, “Ungreen Orangery”

Madam, - Father Tony Flannery (Opinion, June 26th) and his defender Karl Deering (Letters, July 9th) both suffer from the same fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus' position in relation to poverty.  They seem to believe that when Jesus praised the poor, he was in fact praising any economic mechanism provided it would make or keep people poor.  Voluntary alms-giving is one thing, and certainly to be encouraged.  But what amounts to enforced alms-giving through high-tax, socialist, anti-capitalist policies that suffocate enterprise and the job-creation that follows is quite another. Jesus never advocated denying the poor the chance to become richer through hard work. - Yours etc,

Madam, - Scooter Libby is the only person tried, convicted and sentenced in connection with the leaking to the press of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, a felony under US law (World, July 4th).  Mr Libby's crime was perjury.  Yet the men who actually perpetrated the leak, Richard Armitage and Karl Rove, are not even brought to trial, nor is the journalist Robert Novak who wrote the story, nor the editor of the Washington Post which published it in 2003. 

Is this not an extraordinary way to run a justice system?  It perhaps adds some perspective to George Bush's intervention on behalf of Mr Libby. - Yours etc,

Americans are Defending Iraqi and Afghani Democracy

Madam, - Various tired left-wingers regularly rant in your letters column about America's so-called penchant for torture, invasion, terror, civilian slaughter etc (eg Letters, June 28th).  But may I remind them of a central truth about Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is Islamicists, not Americans, who are initiating and perpetrating the butchery of ordinary people in both those benighted countries, in their violent attempt to overthrow the clearly expressed will of Iraqis and Afghanis for a democratic future, and to institute fascist regimes.  US forces are opposing the Islamicists, and yes both Islamicist fighters and the civilians they hide behind are dying as a result.  Under international law, such civilian deaths are attributed to the militants hiding among them in violation of all civilised norms. 

By all means criticise the Americans for military and administrative incompetence, and suggest constructive improvements.  But if they don't stand up to the Islamicists no-one will, and it will be only a matter of time before this cancer reaches our own shores. 

To object to the Americans' defence of Iraqi and Afghani democracy is to support and provide comfort for the enemy. - Yours etc,

High Rises for Dublin

Sir, -  [Columnist] Kevin Myers is right to extol the virtues of high rise apartments (Comment, 26 June).  City-centre high rises make the land-cost per apartment trivial, since so many people share it, as well as minimising the construction and maintenance costs.   They thus allow for proper, roomy, well appointed, efficiently sound-proofed units to be built. Moreover, the reduced costs coupled with increased availability are also likely to drag down the price of other properties in the city to more sensible levels. 

So, at a stroke,

And the beauty is that it can all be accomplished entirely through the private enterprise of people like Sean Dunne. 

Yes, Dublin's skyline will change, though whether for the worse or better is a matter of personal opinion.  But something has to change and no-one has come up with anything better that does not entail huge cash infusions from the brow-beaten taxpayer (eg building overhead highways, underground railways, “affordable” housing etc).

And if apartment-dwelling is good enough for New York millionaires (few of whom live in houses), it should certainly be good enough for Dubliners. - Yours etc,

This letter is based on a (in retrospect somewhat premature) 2004 blog-post,
“Dublin Climbing Skyward - At Last”

Unskilled Labour Flown into Africa

Sir, - British entrepreneur Tanya Goodin felt pleased to have brought her 40 employees to Cape Town on a week-long team-building exercise spent constructing school facilities for deprived children (“UK firm builds a new kind of hope in Africa”, World News, p 1.25, June 17).  Undoubtedly team spirit was much enhanced among her staff, but she deludes herself if she thinks did anything much for Africa.  In a country with 25.5% unemployment and a struggling yet sk