Dear Sir... Readers' Views (06/12/16)
Fine Gael should not have sold the Lottery
What has happened to funding from the National Lottery?
It seems to have vanished in recent years, or at least it’s not getting the profile that it once had when we had politicians tripping over each other in claiming credit for securing lottery funding for local groups and organisations, which in any case was the peoples’ own money.
This seems to be no longer the case since the Government sold it off for a pittance in 2014. Of course this unwarranted sale of the National Lottery licence to a foreign entity was another example of the short-sightedness of our Government in disposing of a valuable national asset which was a guaranteed cash cow.
The argument been put forward by the Government at the time was that it needed the expected €500 million proceeds from the sale in order to construct the long-awaited National Children’s Hospital, while only €405m was eventually received from its sale. It did not need to sell the Lottery licence to achieve this. Unfortunately, due to Government foot dragging on the issue, the projected cost of this badly needed facility has now skyrocketed to a whopping €1 billion, which excludes any fit-out costs, IT equipment, etc.
It begs the question — what will it eventually cost? Of course to make matters worse, the proposed site is in an unsuitable location due to traffic congestion and lack of available parking, but it appears that the Government are determined to go ahead with their chosen site despite its lack of suitability for users outside of Dublin.
Over the previous 25 years, since its inception, the National Lottery had generated more than €4bn for different causes within communities. As 30% of its turnover was going to good causes on ticket sales at the time, the now €1bn required for the National Children’s Hospital could have been easily realised in five or six years if all the proceeds from ticket sales were directed towards this project. If it was not sold, half of the money would now be collected and we would still own the National Lottery, which is making huge profits for its new owners.
Like so many other aspects of misuse of public funds in this country, half of the proceeds realised from its sale have since been diverted to other projects, thus leaving a large funding hole to be filled once again by the taxpayer to provide this hospital.
Since the Lottery has proved to be one of the greatest success stories as a result of the generosity of the Irish people, why was it sold to a foreign entity instead of capitalising on that success ourselves?
It was not in the interests of the Irish people to do that, as the profits would continue to roll in and would have remained in the hands of the Irish people who made all the contributions towards that success. It was a gift of the people to the state and it was not within the remit of the Government to sell it off, as it belonged to the people.
With its sale, we do not have a national lottery of our own or the proceeds from its sale and we certainly have not got the children’s hospital as promised.
Its sale was one of the greatest mistakes ever made by any of our past governments. Of course its sale is the continued hallmark of a Fine Gael-led government who are intent in selling off our national assets and thus transferring national wealth out of the country to benefit foreign investors.
Nestlé not so sweet in their practices
Nestlé’s water practices are of greater concern than Irish Water.
While the efforts of Nestlé to develop a method to cut the amount of sugar in their chocolate bars (Irish Examiner, December 2) is a positive step in terms of the content of their produce, the nature of the announcement raises questions — both as an announcement for food which would not be available to purchase until 2018, and as a marketing ploy to raise the company’s profile in view of increasing sales at Christmas.
Secondly, their stated intention to patent their development, suggests it is hardly out of a philanthropic nature that they are working on this development.
The greater questions, however, still remain the liberties the company takes elsewhere in terms of its overall business practices, much of which has not been discussed in papers such as the Irish Examiner.
As recently as November 30, an Amnesty International report relating to the practices of the Singapore-based Wilmar company showed that, in extracting palm oil for companies such as Nestlé, they have been using child labour to compete work in “hazardous conditions”.
Similar instances of violations of labour rights have been noted in Brazilian coffee plantations and cocoa farming operations in Ivory Coast that have been supplying Nestlé as reported by DanWatch and the Fair Labor Association.
A more frequent occurrence of Nestlé’s business practices has been to extract water for their “Pure Life” water brand in states such as British Columbia, Arizona, and California at times when they were experiencing droughts. In one such case it had been reported in The Guardian that the company had been extracting water in California on an expired permit.
These are two of the many areas in which Nestlé’s business practices (including their previous record in relation to aggressive marketing of infant formula) raise significant concerns about the overarching business ethic of the company, and I think now is a time for Irish citizens to boycott the products of Nestlé.
If for no other reason, it seems only just that in a country which has seen such mass mobilisation in relation to the right to water, and the need to retain public ownership of water, that we should stand in solidarity with communities who are advocating a boycott of Nestlé products as their water supply is under threat of privatisation and exploitation.
Bring back Bertie
It’s time to bring back Bertie Ahern. Politics needs him. So what if he made a little mistake with a few hundred billion quid? Sure it wasn’t real money. It was only fake auld monopoly money. Just to splash around, and have some pretend fun.
Look at the mighty craic he gave us all. Now come on. You couldn’t imagine Enda Kenny having a bag of chips, and an auld pint, with Vladimir Putin. But with Bertie it would be perfectly natural.
Bertie has the X–Factor, we need more fun in politics. It’s become as dull as dishwater. The bookies miss him. He was a genius at winning at the sport of kings. The legal profession needs an auld dig out, with some tribunals to get things moving. And don’t we all miss the auld bank top-ups, for the auld ATM drink-link?
Bertie is a gambler. In politics you got to take the auld risk now and then. You have to speculate to accumulate. And, let’s face it, Bertie is your only man to get the auld property boom up and running, as quick as you can say Galway Tent. No more homeless, houses in every spare field. So let’s get it on.
Kenny is a waffler. Ahern is the real deal. Forgive and forget. Come back Bertie. Your country needs you. Time for the auld craic. Once again.
Bring back Nollaig
Has anyone else noticed that this year’s Irish Christmas stamps do not include the word “Nollaig”?
As a result, the stamps look anonymous and not that different to many from other countries that will drop through letterboxes this festive season.
‘Nollaig’ marked out our generally lovely stamps,especially abroad, as individual, Irish and thoughtful, much as ‘Noel’ does in French areas of interest.
This is a sad reflection on the priorities of An Post. What is next year’s plan — a corporate logo?
I expect this idiotic omission to be rectified next year.
Weed indeed on Cork-Boston link
Although Clodagh Finn discusses the pros and cons of the legalisation of marijuana, there is one aspect she totally misses. Now it may have been the shock of the election of Donald Trump that made European media, including the Irish Examiner, ignore other votes in the US last month.
In particular, several states legalised the sale and possession of marijuana. That includes California but, even more relevant for Cork, Massachusetts. The problem now is to prevent jokes about how the recently approved Cork-Boston flight route will be used by locals over here to stock up on their supplies of marijuana (medicinal or otherwise).
Such possession will be legal in Boston in a couple of weeks and shops selling the weed will open in 2018.
Water to dissolve this Government
Water is known as the “universal solvent”. After the recent and constant haggling over paying and not paying by immature/incapable politicians this couldn’t be more true.
Water is capable of dissolving this Government.
The Government should wash their hands of this mess (while they can) and move on.
As Tony Soprano would say, “Fuhgeddaboudit”.
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