Letters to the Editor: Counting the cost of going to GAA games
Fourmilewater's James McGrath and Thomas O'Gorman putting the pressure on Ballygunner's Kevin Mahony during Saturday's Waterford Senior Hurling Championship semi-final at Fraher Field. The Gunners went on to win 1-23 to 1-15. Picture: Patrick Browne
The cost of going to club GAA matches has gone beyond the ordinary working family.
For myself, my wife, and my two teenage children (one of whom is a college student), to attend last Saturday evening’s Waterford county senior hurling semi-final in Dungarvan between Fourmilewater and Ballygunner was €70!
That’s before you pay for fuel or buy an ice cream. A bag of chips on the way home and that’s €100 on a family night out.
The price for two adults is €40 and student/OAP is €15. In no way is this justifiable or affordable.
I contacted all county board officers and only two had the grace to reply. One agrees with my view, the other replied that the running costs of the county teams will be over €1m this year — without little return, I may add.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
The season ticket is good value but not everyone has €200 to spend on such a luxury or the money for fuel, etc to attend matches across the county.
The GAA is a truly wonderful organisation but they are driving people away from attending matches. Added to the whole debacle about GAAGO, it is one area where the GAA needs to have a root and branch restructuring.
Well done to Fourmilewater on a fantastic year.
Not many realise that Irish taxpayers have already spent over €120m in penalties and offsets because of Ireland’s failure to meet climate commitments under the Kyoto Protocol 2013 to 2020 and the Paris Agreement 2015.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has paid €2.9m to Slovenia under the questionable EU effort trading system for 4.1m carbon credits, to offset the Government’s abject failure to achieve 2020 emissions target, despite claiming in the Climate Action Plan 2019 that we would be exemplars and world leaders in all climate matters.
Regrettably, the reality is somewhat different in that we are top of the EU league of climate laggards, and it is generally agreed now that we will fall far short of the Coalition’s international commitment to cut national emissions by 51% by 2030.
Recent scathing reports from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Climate Change Advisory Council confirmed that at the current rate of progress, Ireland will fall far short of national and international 2030 agreements.
While this inevitable failure will result in major reputational embarrassment and damage, it is now agreed by many TDs that the resultant penalties and offsets will cost the hapless taxpayer a staggering €8bn, in context more than a quarter of all income taxes collected annually.
Also, the government of the day will be flooded with High court actions from environmentalists, demanding that we plough ahead, irrespective of the dire consequences for societal stability and the economy.
This appalling vista begs the question as to what action the Coalition should take, in the national interest, bearing in mind that Ireland’s contribution to global warming is miniscule — 0.11%, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — compared to the major polluters in the G7 and G20 Nations.
Irish citizens were not consulted about the top-down life changing and draconian consequences now being demanded to achieve the unachievable and will not be brow-beaten by hysterical doomsday rhetoric into accepting ever more stringent and unnecessary demands, concocted in panic as we approach 2030.
The onus is on the Coalition now to act pragmatically and responsibly to put egos aside, and immediately go cap in hand to the EU and the UN and renegotiate new attainable targets commensurate with our responsibility for global warming, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ploughing ahead and hoping for a miracle will end in tears for all and will have little or no impact on global warming.
Surely the time has come to exert maximum pressure on the Dublin Government to co-ordinate work that presents the detailed case for Irish unity.
There are 2024 local and European and, 2025 (if not earlier) Dáil, elections so now would be the perfect time to petition them. This would put the unity issue at the heart of the political agenda and demand answers from politicians to the electorate and wider nation.
It would be best if a non-party group organised a mass 32-county-wide petition, therefore taking a decisive step at a decisive period in electoral and national politics.
Given the almost total collapse of the Naval Service, despite many calls for the Government to act, the importation of drugs, firearms, or any other prohibited items will pose little difficulty for those with intent. The Government’s failure to address the crisis in the Defence Forces, and the crisis in recruiting and retaining members of An Garda Síochána will have serious consequences for the State.
Many have predicted and warned of the consequences, unfortunately the Government has failed to act.
International media have been counterintuitively critical of the Afghan Taliban government ban on opium poppy production.
Drug addiction is a huge problem within Afghanistan and worldwide. The US Institute for Peace published a report entitled The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World. The reality is that the Afghan people are still being denied adequate, vital survival resources by sanctions and the damage caused by two decades of US-led war and occupation for which no reparations will ever be forthcoming.
The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, stated that the drug trade was one of the factors in his decision to intervene in Afghanistan in 2001. However, Blair should have known that according to the UN drug control programme, the Taliban government had banned the production of opium poppies in July 2000 resulting in a reduction in the production of poppies of over 90% by May 2001.
During the US/Nato occupation of Afghanistan, the production of opium poppies increased from about 20,000 hectares in 2001 to about 300,000 hectares in 2018. The renewed Afghan government ban on the production of opium poppies is fully justified.
The Irish Government actively supported the unjustified US-led Afghan war for 20 years, leaving the Afghan people in chaos and destitute. The overthrow of the Afghan and Iraqi governments were in breach of the UN Charter, yet there has been no accountability for any of these crimes against the Afghan and Iraqi people. The so-called rules-based international order has been causing disorder, international chaos, and war crimes.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
