Bizarre outcry over Kate pictures

The recent hysteria that accompanied the decision by the Irish Daily Star to print topless photographs of Kate Middleton is even more evidence of this country’s perverse fascination with the British royal family.

What is most bizarre is not the public outcry, or lack thereof (there were no public complaints to the Press Ombudsman over the publication of the pictures) but the reaction of certain politicians, pandering to the same tabloid media that they purport to regulate.

Needless to say, this should not be entirely unexpected from the elected representatives of our little ‘Republic’.

When Queen Elizabeth II visited Ireland in 2011 there was a significant portion of the population that was not in total agreement with her presence. The relatives of the 33 people murdered in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974 had their protest completely ignored by an Irish political elite who were more content to pathetically fawn over a foreign Queen and lap up a public appetite for celebrity worship than perform their basic duty in society which is to uphold the fundamental rights of all the people they are elected to represent.

Another example of this ignorance can be seen by the fact that it took Minister Alan Shatter no less than 24 hours to respond to a ludicrously over-hyped story involving blurry photographs of a foreign princess on holiday, while the victims of the worst crime in the history of the State are still waiting for some semblance of justice 38 years later.

A fine testament to an absent notion of duty to the people of the Republic of Ireland.

David Levy

Passage

Cork