Readers' Blog: Zappone has again done the right thing
It was surprising to hear Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone say she was doing what she was doing with regard to the Tuam babies scandal because it was right.
This seems almost unprecedented for a politician in Ireland. Ms Zappone did likewise with regard to problems with Scouting Ireland, she did what was clearly right. We owe her a sincere thanks for doing the right thing, in such matters, rather than opting for a “pragmatic” or typical “cute hoor” type of option, that many of our Irish politicians opt for.
In our recent budget it was clear that climate change needed to be seriously addressed, yet the Cabinet opted for doing virtually nothing significant due to lobbying by vested interests.
The greatest environmental scandal in Ireland over the past century has been the peat industry, burning the land from beneath our feet and releasing huge amounts of damaging CO2 and destroying valuable carbon storage capacity and our precious environmental wealth. Even now, this will be allowed continue up until 2030.
Bridget McCole was treated appallingly by the state for “pragmatic” reasons and she was just one of many such persons treated with such contempt.
Since 2001 our foreign policy ministers and officials have been behaving “pragmatically” with regard to Irish neutrality and complicity in war crimes in the Middle East. If we had the likes of Ms Zappone as Minister for Foreign Affairs then our foreign policy might also be directed to doing what is right because it is right.
Thank you, Katherine Zappone, for doing what is right.
