Letters to the Editor: Transport plan for Cork must take long view
Public transit infrastructure improvements will enhance accessibility, says Harry Murphy. Picture: Denis Minihane
It is crucial to emphasise that the primary obstacle to achieving reliable, safe, and efficient public transport lies in the objections raised by a segment of ill-informed residents and a handful of businesses who remain entrenched in the belief that their survival hinges solely on motor vehicles.
Extensive studies consistently demonstrate that the benefits of enhancing public and active travel far outweigh maintaining the status quo and prioritising cars. The need for change is pressing, especially in areas like Douglas, which are on the brink of breaking point. Continuing with the current situation, particularly in the face of planned developments that will bring hundreds of new homes to the area, will only exacerbate existing issues.
Businesses that voice concerns about the proposed changes must recognise that multiple reliable routes passing through Douglas will ultimately benefit both residents and commerce and the needs of the many far outweigh the concerns of the few.
Rather than clinging to outdated modes of transportation, embracing improvements to public transit infrastructure will enhance accessibility and connectivity, thereby fostering economic growth and sustainability.
It’s time for all stakeholders to acknowledge the urgency of the situation and prioritise the long-term wellbeing of the community over short-sighted objections. By working together to overcome resistance and implement necessary changes, we can pave the way for a more vibrant, resilient, and environmentally friendly transportation system in Cork.
I am appalled that a group of ‘reproductive rights’ academics managed a 725-word defence of women’s reproductive rights in Palestine without once referencing the same rights of Israeli women.
On October 7, Israeli women and girls were systematically targeted, tortured, sexually assaulted, and shot and burned by Hamas terrorists. Women and girls were kidnapped and taken hostage to Gaza, where 19 women and children are still held. Witness testimony from some of those released in November indicate that the hostages were subject to sexual assault, starvation, and slave conditions.
These Israeli women were and continue to be at risk of sexually-transmitted infection, forced pregnancy, spontaneous abortion due to the stress, non-availability of period products, and lack of basic hygiene, but do not seem to matter to our reproductive rights experts.
It is quite frankly ridiculous, if not slanderous, to claim that Israel has a policy of controlling the supposed “demographic threat” of population growth in the Palestinian Territories, given that Gaza and the West Bank have the third-highest fertility rate and one of the highest overall population growth rates in the Middle East.
Turf cutting “a religion in rural Ireland”? (Cutting turf is not just a right but a religion in rural Ireland , April 8). I think not.
My first, gut, reaction was: “Huh, more of a relic of days gone by, clung on to by antiquated fossils unable to look at the larger responsibilities we have to one another, the planet, and the future.”
I understand the economic necessity that some feel forces them to cut turf, and THAT is a failing that could be laid at the feet of successive governments and our society at large.
However, and I speak from a position of acknowledged privilege, there is no good reason, or at least there should be no good reason, for cutting turf these days.
Peatlands are a unique ecosystem that support a large range of unique flora and fauna and serve as carbon sinks. Turf releases huge amounts of stored carbon dioxide when it is harvested, which adds to greenhouse gas levels.
I am aware that it’s ‘tradition’; however, time, social mores, and environmental understanding move on apace, and ideas and concepts that were all the rage 100 years ago have passed into history, with a grateful sigh from many. Turf cutting is another of these things.
I feel that describing this as a “birthright” is an unbelievably self-entitled, indignant, and dogmatic attitude. They’re basically saying, “I don’t give a damn about anyone else, the planet, the flora and fauna that lives on the bogs, or future generations that have to live here".
With any ‘right’ comes a concomitant duty. Those who claim a right of usage over the land also have the duty of custodianship and care for the land, not just for today’s use, but for generations of Irish men and women to come.
To sacrifice the future of the planet on the fires of some imagined traditional domestic bliss is an unfortunate fallacy.
It would be better perhaps to step back and focus on why it is, in this day and age, that people are unable to heat their homes, put food on the plate, and clothes on their back. How do we resolve those issues? How do we support these people as a society?
Tradition is all very well, but if it makes us slaves to a past that is unsustainable going forwards, then it should be discarded. Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
Oh, joy this day in our house. The first swallow has arrived back to us in Mayo.
On his arrival we recite our annual little poem, “In April we’re waiting every day, for swallows here to find their way. What joy we have when they come, building nests and making fun.”
Sean O’Brien thinks it unfair students in Catholic schools are not allowed (apparently) to speak up or disagree on points of Catholic religion being taught in class, comparing it to a situation where “other theories on the creation of mankind” are encouraged in science class (Students Could Learn Something From All Religions letters, April 5).
Firstly, I find it hard to believe no discussion whatsoever is permitted in religion class; if it is not much encouraged, it may have more to do with tired teachers trying to get through the syllabus before end of term.
Secondly, any student presenting creationism in a physics or biology class would be briefly indulged before being told to sit down; any science teacher teaching it would likely have to appear before the school board. Mr O’Brien’s faith in comparative religious studies is rooted in a concept of Christianity as one religion with “something to say” among many, one of many common misconceptions about Jesus being that he was simply an enlightened teacher.
But Christianity is different by an order of magnitude. Throughout the Old Testament, God — calling himself “the One True God” (eg Isaiah 45:5) — continually warns the Jews not to dabble in the pagan religions of neighbouring nations; anytime they did they eventually brought about their own destruction as a result, the Babylonian Exile being the prime example. Fast forward to Jesus claiming to be God, and announcing, “I am the way, truth and life” (John 14:6) and promising eternal life to all who believe in him.
Not ‘a truth’, not one truth among many, but The Truth with a capital T and the key to our eternal destiny. Had Siddhartha, Mohammed, Confucius, or St Augustine never been born, history may have taken another course but it would have made no overall difference to mankind’s eternal destiny.
Everything changed with Jesus. Without the birth — and death — of Jesus, not a single one of us would enter heaven, no matter how hard we tried or what we did. This is what sets Christianity apart and why Christians, including Catholics like myself, invest our energies here.
What we learn in school religious studies is only the bare beginning. One could spend a whole lifetime studying Christianity and not fathom all its mysteries. Even Thomas Aquinas, having received some graced spiritual insights towards the end of his life exclaimed ‘everything I have written is so much straw’. He was not saying his works were rubbish but that extensive and deep as they were, they were only scratching the surface of the mysteries our faith holds.
But if one still wishes to learn about other religions there are synagogues and mosques all over Ireland nowadays. You will even find friendly Muslim evangelists on the streets of bigger Irish towns happy to talk and offer a free Quran.
