Ireland complicit in Senegal ‘madness’

Damien Enright on our Christian conscience.

TO MAKE provision for our children is a basic instinct. But these days, in making material provision for them, we sometimes destroy the planet they will inherit. We give with one hand, and take with the other. While they could do with less and survive, what we take away is irrecoverable, and without it they cannot survive. If we continue the rape of the planet, the truth is that the sins of the fathers will surely be visited on the children.

In the matter of protecting the Irish environment, we have turned a blind eye to lack of water treatment a laissez-faire approach to waste management and to encroachment on important habitat. We are complicit in the planning outrages all over the country, ditches torn out, bogs drained, slurry from massive pig units polluting the air and running into streams and rivers, raw sewage running into bays. Money is squandered on voting machines and toll road deals. Meanwhile, the health service is among Europe’s worst, the roads and transport system are pathetic and Ireland has the second-lowest percentage of protected wild habitat in the EU.