Letters to the editor: Hurling is being relegated in the fixture list
Reader John Arnold points out that knockout games are scheduled to be played at 1.15pm and 3.15pm on Saturday, June 22. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
I am not an advocate of the split season in the GAA, a system that means no adult club player gets to play club championship hurling or football in the months of May, June or July, the best months of the year with generally fine weather, long evenings, schools on holidays and no one rushing to make games and training before dark.
Long term, I feel the split season will have a detrimental effect, especially on hurling, but it’s ‘in’ for this year at least, with a review at year’s end.
In welcoming the New Hurling Review Committee, can I plead with them to ensure fair play for the scheduling of hurling games? Look at the fixtures for midsummer this year, the weekend of June 22 and 23. The entire All- Ireland Senior Hurling Championship for 2024, including the Munster and Leinster provincial championships, has around 40 games in total.
After the ‘round-robin’ series are over the third-placed teams in Munster and Leinster will play in All-Ireland quarter-finals.
These knockout games are scheduled to be played at 1.15pm and 3.15pm on Saturday, June 22.
I ask ye. What a slur, what a demotion and lack of promotion for our so-called national game of hurling.
Would two senior All-Ireland football quarter-finals be played at such times? Why not play the hurling quarters on Sunday June 23? Why? Because the two Tailteann Cup football semis are on that day!
I am delighted with the introduction of the Tailteann Cup, but giving a more important viewing and attending platform to the semis of this competition says a lot about the promotion of hurling.
When the Tailteann Cup was brought in there was great excitement with the promise of Sunday afternoon semi-finals. No one told us that meant the hurling quarters would be relegated to early of a Saturday afternoon.
The recent opinion piece by Vittorio Bufacchi (‘Is ‘weathervane’ Fine Gael really able to bring the wind of change under Harris?’, March 28) is more an idealogically based view as opposed to a reasoned one.
The statement that the housing crisis in Ireland is caused by a reliance on free market-based solutions is diametrically incorrect. The housing crisis has been caused by incompetent Government policies and over- zealous interventions by public bodies, such that there is no free market and no investment in rental property.
The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) has successfully lobbied successive housing ministers into demonising landlords, resulting in a stampede of sales of rental properties to first-home buyers.
Since 2016, rents have been capped (under temporary restrictions that are really permanent) at 4% then 2% annual increases when costs have increased by 10-15% each year, such that many properties are now not viable rental propositions. These policies by supposedly centrist political parties are in reality extreme leftist policies designed to attract votes from socialist-leaning voters. A misguided and false hope is causing the collapse of the rental property market. Less regulation would have led to more supply and lower rents. Other countries have resoundingly rejected this self- destructive policy direction.
The weathervane effect is a result of a coalition of three diverse parties in which the tail wags the dog. It is not the result of a one or more parties fluttering in the policy wind. It is also the result of poor leadership and the failure to moderate policy deviations.
As Einstein was quoted as saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome”.
That is why the housing crisis came about and why it will get worse, not better, as the Government doubles down on failed policy directions.
Time for a reset and let the market drive down rents through supply and competition and not by a dysfunctional RTB acting like a schoolyard bully instead of a trusted industry watchdog.
Regarding Niamh Griffin’s article (‘Cancer doctor warns of two-tier health system emerging due to insurance’, March 30): This is a disgraceful situation which needs to be rectified immediately. This is down to the usual bureaucracy that happens within our state agencies. Please get this sorted for the sake of all our people and families who otherwise will go through unnecessary suffering and worry at an already terrifying time in their lives. It is not right that life-saving treatment is available to the person in the ward next to me, but I can’t access it because I can’t afford health insurance.
I have never been a fan of some of the readings of the Old Testament. At the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday night, I took exception to the reading from the Book of Exodus, which described the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites followed by the drowning of the Egyptians. “Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. Israel witnessed the great act that the Lord had performed against the Egyptians, and the people venerated the Lord.”
The reading was particularly inappropriate this year considering the slaughter and suffering that the Israelis have inflicted upon the people of Gaza during the past six months. I fail to understand why a more suitable reading could not have been chosen.
I write this letter as someone who has no political connections of any kind.
There has been a lot of talk over the last while about ‘What the Fine Gael party stands for?’ I want to give you my answer to that question.
Many people in our society have been left behind during the last 13 years, while Fine Gael have been in Government. The 174,600 unemployed people who are still on the Live Register, the 689,000 people who are currently on hospital waiting lists and the 13,000+ people who are currently homeless, to name just three sections of our society who are being ignored and have been completely abandoned by the various governments of which Fine Gael has been a part, for the past 13 years.
The various governments who have held power in the last 13 years have also abandoned our country’s defence forces and have abandoned the country’s defence, as a whole.
The other parties and those independents who were in government with Fine Gael since 2011 must share the blame for the disgraceful dereliction of responsibility outlined above, but Fine Gael are the only political entity to have been part of government for all that time.
That’s what the Fine Gael party now stand for in my view, the dereliction of core responsibilities of government and the abandonment of significant sections of Irish society.
As the biodiversity crisis deepens, it’s hard to fathom why the Government continues to allow persecution of creatures that are supposedly protected as treasures of our wildlife heritage.
The magnificent Golden Plover, though red-listed and deemed to be of “highest conservation concern”, can still be shot for several months of the year, thanks to exemptions in the Wildlife Act, inserted by the politicians in response to lobbying by the shooting fraternity. The bird, with its distinctive plumage, is celebrated on a stamp authorised by the same political establishment that lets gunmen blast it out of the sky.
The Irish Hare fares even worse. This “protected” mammal can be shot, coursed, and hunted, despite being in steady decline as a species for the past half century. A number of stamps issued over the years highlight its place in our great Carnival of the Animals, but the State that honours its mythic status and conservationist priority via the postal system also allows people to set dogs on it for fun. And this gentle creature can be turned into a lead-riddled carcass for even more “sporting” days of the year than the Golden Plover has to put up with.
If the government is serious about addressing the ever-increasing threat to all wildlife and eco-systems on this island, it should stop giving its stamp of approval to organised cruelty dressed up as “sport”!
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