Dear Sir....Readers' views (06/6/2016)
Can’t trust gardaí who secretly meet in car parks
In what other, modern, properly run western country is it considered normal practice for the head of the police to secretly meet a member of parliament in a car park.
It’s like something from the third world or from some tin-pot banana republic. The fact that neither the former garda commissioner, nor the TD he met, seem to think the meeting itself was wrong beggars belief. And what was it for? So that the head of the police could disingenuously target the reputation of a serving police officer, who was simply trying to expose police wrongdoing, which has since been proven to be true. But, even now, the default mentality of the gardaí, and of the political class, is to attack the whistle-blower, instead of tackling the proven allegations.
How can we trust an organisation that would go to that extreme to protect itself, and how often has it done this before?
It makes you wonder how many other lives were destroyed, over the decades, by the gardaí closing ranks to protect themselves. Think of all those small, rural garda stations, where the only other authority figure was a Catholic priest, and think of the lives they most likely ruined to protect themselves. Did these sort of meetings happen often and who else did the former commissioner meet like this? No doubt, he found a receptive audience among the political class, which has proven itself as adverse to transparency and accountability as the gardaí. The current commissioner must come clean about any secret meetings she might have had.
How many politicians have also had these types of meetings? It is quite astounding that no-one in the political bubble seems to find these meetings outrageous, which implies they knew about them and have held similar meetings. Is it only the gardaí, or, for example, do the tax authorities also have secret meetings with politicians seeking favours for their friends. When John McGuiness was asked to meet the commissioner, what on earth did he think he was doing?
If the most senior police officer in the State is so unprofessional that he thinks there is nothing wrong with a meeting like this, not to mention the purpose of the meeting, then the rot in the institutions of this State go far deeper than our worst fears. The deafening silence from Fine Gael proves, if any doubt could remain, that it has fully taken up the mantle of sleaze and cronyism bequeathed to it by Fianna Fáil, and that it will act in the same way to protect an institution above a person, even when that institution has proven it is not fit for purpose.
Each and every time an institution of the State has been shown to require fundamental reform, what is our default response? First, it is to attack the person making such a claim, and then, when it becomes clear they are right, the next step is to get the head of that institution to retire early, with a fully topped-up pension and a legal agreement absolving them from any liability for the mistakes they oversaw. Then, their second-in-command is chosen to replace them, even when, especially when, suitably qualified, external candidates apply for the job. Because the last thing official Ireland wants is an outsider, especially a foreign one, getting access to how our insiders do things.
It is not credible to argue that people like Enda Kenny, Michael Martin, or, even worse, Norin O’Sullivan and Frances FitzGerald, are capable of, or even willing, to implement the scale of change needed. It’s no wonder the drug lords have no fear of the police and run wild on the streets, when the head of the police, the minister, and the Government spend more time attacking people trying to expose police wrongdoing than they do tackling the drug-gang wars.
Give us a break from Trump
Hey media, how about a 48 hour moratorium on your 24/7 coverage of Donald Trump? That ought to slow his quest for the White House to a crawl and hopefully, to a full stop. Show this loose cannon who’s the ‘sleaze’.
And yes, you’ll be giving us a well deserved break from his constant whining and yammering!
Royalties from oil and gas are ours
It is time for our politicians to take courage, stand proud, and demand fair play for the people. Immediate, bold, and courageous government action is needed to legislate for the placing of ‘fair play’ royalties on all oil and gas taken from Irish waters. All obstacles must be overcome. We cannot afford to complacently sit on the fence, while our infrastructure is crumbling, with vital services diminishing by the day.
The conservative (Fianna Fáil) and ultra-conservative (Fine Gael) parties have prioritised the needs of the banks, vulture capitalists, and vested, private interests over the common good, whilst hospital queues, homelessness, child poverty and the dispossessed are growing in parallel with the annually-published rich list of multi-millionaires and billionaires. They have taken the nation’s vital natural resources out of ownership of the State (the people) and placed them in the hands of private individuals and company boardrooms, leaving the nation bereft of the very means of recovery.
A look at the National Debt Clock of Ireland, this week (sourced from government data), informs us that gross national debt still stands at over €200bn, with interest payments of €10bn per year. Interest is clocking up at €312 per second.
There is nothing wrong with the profit motive of healthy competition, but when ‘capitalism’ has become so ‘liberated’ that life itself has become expendable, and vital services are run into the ground, in the pursuit of super profits, then it is high time for the people to get off the fence, demand legislation, and make their voices heard loud and clear.
Fair play for the people is a legitimate expectation. If the profits of the giant corporations are dented in the process, so be it.
€50 ’fine’ will not deter criminals
The son of a TD was recently in court, charged with stealing a case of beer when he was 17 years old. Although he already had eight previous criminal convictions, the judge “felt” he had “turned it around” and he was spared a criminal conviction, upon payment of €50 to charity.
What message does this send to criminals?
People may end up in prison for non-payment of TV licence, while repeat offenders walk free from court.
Over-prescription is depressing
Dorothee Krien (Irish Examiner, Letters, May 28) presented an impressively detailed appraisal of the metabolic trajectories of anti-depressants. She supported her argument with disturbingly revealing vignettes, which highlighted a grotesque pattern of over-prescription, often with tragic consequences.
She need not have gone to such lengths, since so many anti-depressants have well-documented (sometimes fatal) downsides, which have been reported and published ad nauseam. Depressingly, the status-quo would seem to be immune from any such challenge, with professional and corporate ‘victimhood’ being the fall-back defence against any probing.
Life-distress scenarios do not require medication as a primary response, but do require a hell of a lot of supportive understanding, listening, and exploration, all along the creative therapeutic spectrum. An assessment of each person’s idiosyncratic complexion, vis-a-vis a broad-spectrum experiential review of the self and of context, is vital before we dip into the pill-box, if we ever do. However, a triad towers over the distressed — it consists of the medical, the pharmaceutical and the political. Drugs companies control both the diagnosis and the response, (with biomedics trotting after). They offer many jobs and huge revenue, ensuring biomedical dominance in a field that requires creative, empathic sociological solutions.
The question remains — ‘Why give a pill in the first place?’ It will never be answered convincingly. Depressing, or what?
Psychic Enda?
Is Enda Kenny crystal ball gazing.? His recent comment in the Dail that Trump was indeed “racist and dangerous” would suggest he firmly believes Hillary Clinton is going to occupy the White House next January or was this comment an oblique reference to us all that he was not going to be Taoiseach next March? After all would you invite a man to your house, even with a bowl of shamrock, after that kind of name calling?
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