Letters to the Editor: Legislation should benefit our gardaí
AGSI Deputy General Secretary Ronan Clogher with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee before she addressed the conference. Picture: Conor McKeown
Reports about the Garda Conference in Westport mentioned that the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) had asked for mandatory sentencing for assaulting members of An Garda Síochána.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee refused the proposal on the grounds that an extensive review had been carried out and that the response that had come back to her was that it would be overstepping the mark in her role as minister for justice. She is right in that she doesn’t make laws, that is up to the Dáil, but she should have given the conference a bit of encouragement by saying the matter would be referred to the Dáil.
Who took part in this review? Were any members of the public involved? I would expand the motion to include any public servant who is assaulted in the course of their duties.
It is not so long ago that there were riots on the streets of Dublin. I vividly recall a garda being surrounded by thugs and he had to fight for his life. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt but you can imagine the terror he felt.
Gardaí are there to protect us, but equally we have a duty to protect our gardaí.
The sentence for assaulting a garda was recently increased from seven years to 12 years. The problem is that judges suspend all or part of a sentence — something done without any consideration of the feelings of the victims.
An office should be set up in the justice department to review all sentences and which will deliver the final sentence. Staff in this office would be made up of mature adults, not of the legal profession, and who have plenty of experience in life, unlike the current crop of judges.
Another suggestion I would like to make is that a good percentage of any money generated through the work of the Criminal Asset Bureau or the gardaí in drug and finance seizures be used to purchase up-to-date equipment for An Garda Síochána. This money should not be put into a general Government kitty.
I would suggest that all our TDs get to work on this legislation immediately, it will boost the morale of the force immensely, which is very low at the moment. We have to protect and motivate our gardaí and let them know we will protect them.
Very few people enjoy being a witness to cruelty of any kind. When confronted with a situation in which an animal is being abused and is clearly in pain, our instinctive response is one of shock and disgust. Many of us will intervene to try to stop the abuse, while those of us who cannot, for whatever reason, will nonetheless be deeply affected by the experience.
When we see a dog being beaten and kicked, we are horrified. Likewise, if we saw a pig being beaten and kicked (unlikely, as the majority of pigs are farmed indoors), we would be horrified and we would instinctively know it is wrong. In both scenarios, we might call the guards, or the SPCA, or we might report the pig incident to the Department of Agriculture Food and Marine.
Every day, on factory farms across the globe, pigs and chickens suffer at the hands of those whose job it is to care for them. They are routinely shouted at, kicked, beaten, even thrown.
There is a vast amount of undercover video footage available online from pig and chicken farms across the EU and the rest of the world, all containing disturbing visual evidence of extreme cruelty, both by commission and omission. A recent investigation into the lives of pigs on Irish pig farms by the National Animal Rights Association (Nara) and [url=
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41346314.html] nimal Rebellion Ireland (ARI)[/url] produced visual evidence of truly shocking conditions on two randomly selected pig farms. The short film makes for difficult viewing, even for this correspondent, who has viewed many hundreds of hours of distressing footage over the years.
Factory farming is a hidden industry. We may have an inkling that all is not right down on the farm, but because the animals are never seen, we can — and do — turn away. Life is less complicated if we do not know; easier by far to look the other way.
All farmed animals are sentient; that is, they experience a wide range of emotions and can feel pain, just like us. Surely we have a moral duty to insist that they live a life free from exploitation, abuse, suffering and pain. They are, after all, giving up their precious lives to become rashers and sausages, chicken wings and chicken nuggets.
Sean O’Brien is right that comparative religious studies are an interesting way to learn about the main general beliefs of the world’s various religions (‘Religious Teaching’ Letters, Irish Examiner, March 2, 2024).
But his proposal that this be a central plank of religious education in Catholic ethos schools is based on his misunderstanding of the word “Catholic” as meaning “universal”, “Catholic” comes from Greek, katolikos.
As applied in the early Church, it simply meant “what is universally taught as true about Christ in Christian circles” to distinguish Christianity’s core from various fringe and even heretical beliefs. It implied a centrality and uniformity to Christian teaching. It was never understood to mean Christians ought learn about the many pagan religions around them.
Many early Christians were pagan converts who already knew enough about their former beliefs to abandon them for faith in Christ.
Christ himself even made it clear his followers had little or nothing to learn from pagan beliefs: “When you pray, don’t pray as the pagans do (Matt 6:7).” Catholics — adult and child alike — have first and foremost a duty to get a firm grasp on their own faith, let others believe what they wish.
Comparative religious studies are a bit like comparative linguistics: Very interesting, yes, you can learn all about the roots of the world’s various languages, the phonemes they share, their history and migration, yet be unable to hold a conversation in any of them at the end of it.
Religious belief and faith are a bit like language: What God do we wish to communicate with? That is the only thing that should inform our religious fluency, all the rest can come later.
I’m sure that Philip Boucher Hayes meant well when producing , but he contradicts himself by taking flights to distant countries. This programme tells us nothing new.
The increasing taxes on the small, non-business person need to stop, especially as these taxes are doing nothing to help the planet. Also, no one asked ESB to use Colombian coal!
