It seems to take a lot of pushing and shoving to get a wheelchair in this country, but sadly those in need will not be pushing or shoving their badly needed chairs without enormous lobbying and begging on their part.
The current set-up uses a community fund and application to get one, instead of a fund ‘within’ the HSE for such vital apparatus.
There are thousands waiting for very long times, young and old, whose patience is being tried in telling them what level of priority they are for community funding.
Community funds are not specific enough to deal with the very specific needs of would-be wheelchair applicants, which need specific ringfenced funding within the HSE.
There are young people who cannot go to school without a wheelchair, there are those in nursing homes who are left in chairs they cannot push for long hours staring at walls, there are those with chairs that have seen better days and yet cannot get a new one until the other one collapses.
Let’s face it, nearly the entire population have wheelchairs although much faster than conventional wheelchairs — they’re called vehicles, yet those who cannot walk for whatever reason cannot get a wheelchair to push. Wheels everywhere, but not for those who desperately need them and create no carbon emissions whatsoever. They just want a bit of freedom — surely we can give them that?
Maurice Fitzgerald
Shanbally
Co Cork
Private influence in a public service
No more business arrangements. No more semi-detached private contractors in prime time slots. RTÉ is a superb public national statutory broadcaster. Full to the brim with talented people.
Broadcasters who have outgrown RTÉ should just be allowed to spread their wings and enter the private sector marketplace. More power to them. No one ever in this country begrudged Terry Wogan or Eamon Andrews when they spread their wings.
Let market forces be forceful. And let us continue to know that RTÉ is full to the brim with young talent. No macho negotiations. No salty revelations. Money goes where money goes. Let nature take its course.
Otherwise, our jewel in the crown, our best and most valuable public body, which preserves free untrammelled market-uninfluenced speech, becomes hybridised by an inadvertent unsought, and unwittingly unopposed form of sneaking privatisation.
Private contractors and public service broadcasting: Never the two should mix.
Michael Deasy
Bandon
Co Cork
Failure on climate a poisoned legacy
As we approach the end of the Decade of Centenaries (2012-2023), one wonders if today’s political leaders give much thought to what history will have to say about their legacies in years to come.
Politics is disproportionately focused on short-term thinking. Combatting climate change requires thinking in the long term, and acting in the short term.
When it comes to politics, it is all too tempting for politicians to ignore the plight of our fellow global citizens — particularly the poor —and the plight of those who will follow us, in Ireland and across the globe.
Will the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and Sinn Féin in particular be able to look themselves in the mirror in years to come and say that they did everything they could to contribute to halting the climate and biodiversity crises that they were on full notice of?
“If we don’t step up urgently, future generations will not forgive us,” then taoiseach Micheál Martin exhorted at Cop27 last year.
“Across the world, we are witnessing the reality of a changing climate — record temperatures, wildfires, floods, and droughts. What was once exceptional events are now occurring with increased frequency and ferocity,” he expounded.
In 2019, Ireland declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. This declaration was endorsed by the Government and opposition parties without a vote. Yet we had the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the EU in Q2 last year.
Moreover, we had the highest increase in emissions across the EU in the third quarter of last year compared to the same period the year before. And still our emissions continue to climb.
The EPA has predicted that we will not achieve our legally binding target of a 51% reduction in emissions by 2030. Instead, it estimates a 29% reduction.
Do our political leaders not wonder if future generations will look at their photos, as they themselves might look at photos of the leaders from the revolutionary period, and think: “The science was clear. They knew.
They made plans, but they didn’t lead or act with real urgency. They were consumed with chasing the votes of people who are now long gone, who do not have to deal with this catastrophe?” History is watching.
Rob Sadlier
Rathfarnham
Dublin 16
Free contraception to reduce abortion
Leo Varadkar is very quick to claim credit for the success of the 2018 referendum to legalise abortion. Now he says he wants fewer abortions to take place in Ireland.
He seems to think there are ‘good’ abortions, which we should still be allowed to have, and ‘bad’ abortions, which we should not. Reducing our very complex lives and reasons for choosing abortion to black and white, ‘good or bad’, is reductive, condescending, and dangerous.
In fact, every abortion is different, and it is for each abortion service user to decide for themselves what is necessary.
Repeal passed because the electorate recognised the grey areas; nothing is black and white in healthcare. That’s what bodily autonomy means.
The reproductive rights campaigners who actually won the referendum have long told politicians, Mr Varadkar included, that the only way to reduce unplanned pregnancies, and hence abortions, is universal free contraception and taking sex education out of the hands of the Catholic Church.
While Taoiseach, he has done neither, so does Mr Varadkar have some other, secret, way of reducing unplanned pregnancies he just hasn’t told anyone about, or is he planning to take us back to pre-Repeal days?
Lucy Boland
Rebels For Choice co-convener,
Dunmanway
Co Cork
Lasting legacies of far-right leaders
We seem to have gone through an era, yet unfinished sadly, of a far-right conservative upheaval, and dictatorships that have dominated public discourse in recent years.
The former UK prime minister Boris Johnson who was found by a Commons committee to be a serial liar, has thrown a tantrum calling the committee a “Kangaroo court” — that he himself agreed to.
The Daily Mail which now employs him should be aware of the reputational damage it will do to them.
Then we have Donald Trump who has been indicted on several charges in the US regarding retention of classified and secret documents, already found guilty of sexual assault in a civil court, impeached twice, and facing further criminal charges.
Then there’s Putin in Russia, who maintains a vice-like grip on all aspects of Russian society, while waging war on his neighbour Ukraine, getting rid of any dissenters who try to challenge his authority.
Finally, we see Erdogan in Turkey, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, and Xi Jinping in China who all see themselves as indispensable leaders who use fear, imprisonment, torture, and death as a means to hold onto power.
One thing they should all understand is time and public opinion will dictate how long they remain in power, but the damage they inflict will be felt for many years.
Christy Galligan
Letterkenny
Co Donegal
Referendum on military neutrality
The real reason the Government has embarked on the Public Consultation on International Security Policy is to start the process of closer integration with an EU Army and delete the process of national vetoes on EU foreign policy and security issues.
Twice in the last year, Micheál Martin has said he was open to EU Treaty change to delete the vetoes held by the Dáil and other national parliaments in terms of EU foreign policy and security issues. This would be a significant loss of sovereignty and self-determination.
This would delete the right of Ireland to pursue our own independent foreign policy. It would be a material step along the process of EU federalisation.
Micheál Martin is open, in other words, to reducing the democratic say of the Irish people on incredibly important issues.
This would necessitate a referendumand this is why the government has started the process of trying to change public opinion. In May, all three Government parties also decided to dump the triple lock mechanism.
The “triple lock” is the cornerstone of Ireland’s neutrality. This was also coordinated and it would facilitate the ceding of EU foreign and military power to the EU.
Ireland has a proud history of active neutrality. Our record on UN peacekeeping, nuclear non-proliferation, decolonisation, and aid to developing countries is second to none. Ireland has an internationally recognised position of an honest broker. This is about to be shredded.
The government is seeking to tie Ireland to an emerging military block, over whose decisions we will have little or no influence.
We in Aontú are calling the government to facilitate a referendum on military neutrality.
Peadar Tóibin TD
Leader of Aontú
