Letters to the Editor: Compensate survivors before they all pass away
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman's talk about a “modest” redress that would cost in the region of €1bn continues the Government’s strategy of procrastination and delay. Picture: Julien Behal Photography
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman, speaking about a “modest” redress that would cost in the region of €1bn continues the Government’s strategy of procrastination and delay.
He knows that he has no idea of the true cost and he also knows that very few of the survivors would be able to access this redress even if it ever materialised.
He now wants the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland to rightfully contribute to the costs.
However, this is just another of his tactics to delay the process until all the survivors are dead.
We survivors feel the responsibility for funding the potential redress lies with the Government and they need to make the funds available so that they can improve the survivors’ last years.
How much and when they retrieve the cost from the religious institutions is their concern and should not be allowed to slow down the process.
When the Government has given us what we should have received more than 20 years ago, they can then take as long as they like to figure out who pays.
The message is redress now before we die.
Tadhg O’Donovan is correct to say bins on the street are required to tackle litter — Bins are best way to tackle street litter (Irish Examiner, Letters, June 5).
Tipperary Council says it wants to keep Tipperary litter free but some bins are being removed.
Since January 2019 to November 2020, seven bins have been removed in Clonmel and two in Cahir.
The council says some are replaced with larger capacity bins called Big Belly bins but there are fewer of the big ones.
The Big Belly bins are also seemingly in less main thoroughfare areas. It is almost like the council wants to hide the bins away.
People will not wait long to find a bin so more small capacity ones are needed rather than fewer Big Belly larger capacity bins.
The blocking of “Tank Man” photos by Microsoft’s Bing search engine on the anniversary of the Tiananmen event was apparently an “accidental human error”.
I would be more inclined to think it was a computer error rather than a deliberate censorship of one of the worlds most famous photos from an horrific event that will be remembered with or without photos.
There is a worry that other events, or news items could easily be removed from the internet, and since so many get their news online, many stories will be unseen and perhaps missed by the a lot of people.
All news must be available to all people and remain available. Read George Orwell’s if you don’t know why it is so important.
Jim Bolger is a great, world-class horse trainer but he has one fatal flaw in my opinion, and he does it year after year: He over-races his good horses by running them too often.
I thought MacSwiney had every chance in the Derby on Saturday and ran a creditable fourth.
But he had an unbelievably tough race in bog-like conditions just a fortnight ago to win the Irish 2000 Guineas by a short head from his outstanding stable companion Poetic Flare.
Even so, he beat O’Brien’s hot favourite, Bolshoi Ballet, in the Derby, by maybe three lengths, and that horse hadn’t ran for a month.
Another example: After Poetic Flare won the English Guineas, Bolger sent him to France a week later where he lost in the French Guineas and again ran the same horse another week later to be beaten a short head by MacSwiney in the Irish Guineas.
Utter madness that doesn’t give top class horses a chance to recover.
It’s quite obvious that the further decreasing of Irish coastal fishing rights, has nothing to do with Brexit, and everything to do with EU policy of using convenient excuses to see Irish fishing grounds decimated for Ireland’s fishers — with our waters enhanced for the factory ships of the French, Spanish, Dutch, etc; their giant trawlers are free to harvest from our seas as many fish as they want.
There is absolutely no stance that can be taken in the Dáil or by our Irish MEPs which has any power to protect our rights when it comes to EU diktat.
Neither do our government ministers have a say in changing anything.
It is easier and more blameless to put an erroneous responsibility upon the British for the EU theft of our fish. Yet this is crazy and delusional.
Leinster House doesn’t even ask the real questions for fear of annoying Brussels.
I am not taking away from the good work that the top earning broadcaster in RTÉ is doing on his programmes in relation to numerous charitable causes; it is welcome and I applaud the effort and time put in by him.
Having said that this still does not justify Ryan Tubridy getting almost half a million euro annually from RTÉ; for what, doing five hours work weekly on the radio and two hours television work weekly — and all that time off during the year.
Come on RTÉ, stand up and be accountable to the taxpayer, by sending in the “time and motion” experts to call a halt to this immediately before it festers any further.
As a nation we should be proud of the men and women of our navy.
The recent coup by naval intelligence — Irish security forces play key role in €250m drugs haul (Irish Examiner, online, June 4) — in recognising the unusual behaviour of a fishing vessel leading to a €250m drug interdiction by the Spanish Navy off the Canary Islands is an example of service to Ireland and to Europe as a whole.
Such understanding of maritime activity is developed over many years and once lost would be very difficult to recover.
This attitude has been directed towards the Defence Forces as a whole but it is felt most acutely in the Navy.
The commission on the Defence Forces, which is currently sitting, is due to report in December.
Those of us who desire vibrant Defence Forces for this island nation feel that the commission is the last hope for our forces; our politicians having failed abysmally.
It is to be fervently hoped that the Navy will not be beyond saving when the commission submits its report and remedial action is finally taken.
Col Dorcha Lee’s Ireland’s Defence Forces in the last chance saloon (Irish Examiner, online, June 3) makes for chilling reading.
When we have strategic nuclear bombers area penetrating our airspace, a massive cyberattack on our health records, and a deteriorating political situation north of our border, what more does it take to convince us as a country that massive investment is now needed in the full spectrum of our defence capabilities?
As the above events show, keeping our heads down hardly spares us from threats. Rather, it advertises our weakness and invites further predations.
I refer to the censuring of Israel in Dáil Éireann.
This decision was made obviously without any consideration for the neutral position maintained by our troops In Lebanon, Golan and throughout the Middle East.
Everything that the Irish military has striven to achieve over the last 63 years in terms of neutrality and to be seen as honest brokers at enormous cost to life and limb has now been compromised.
Whatever politics are being played in the Dáil, it is now crystal clear that he and all others therein have no concept of or interest in the lives or reputations of our soldiers and the role that Óglaigh na hÉireann perform on behalf of the nation.
No other country would behave in such a manner.
If this betrayal of our military and their families is anything to go by I deeply fear for implementation of any recommendations of the commission on the Defence Forces.
