Many years ago, a visiting German colleague asked of me: “What are the speed limits in Ireland?”
My answer was as follows: “The speed limit in Ireland is the speed of the car in front of you, the signs are ignored and, therefore, irrelevant.”
Explicit ads haven’t changed that, and they won’t. The increasing death rate on the roads won’t change the culture either.
Here are three examples over the past seven days:
Union Cross Junction in Limerick — the car in front is owned by a motoring school with overhead signage. One driver, no student.
Three cars move through the green light, but the motoring school car stays while the driver attends to his phone.
If he is an instructor, what culture will he pass on to his students?
Travelling 4km in the opposite direction at a one-way, traffic light-controlled, blind hump-backed bridge — three vehicles race through a red light, the last vehicle being a well-known ice cream van.
The far side of the bridge has a tight narrow left hand ben, with a single pedestrian-width footpath on the left leading to a small village.
Survival chances for a cyclist or a young child stepping off the path are zero.
The heavy van has no chance of stopping, as he accelerated to get through the red light.
This unacceptable behaviour is every 10 minutes. Will explicit ads change this?
Same road, opposite direction at 7.45am — major tailback behind very large tractor jollying along at 25-30km/h.
This continues for 5km while the driver keeps his phone to his left ear and, occasionally, takes both hands off the wheel to operate his phone, slowing down to 25km/h while doing this.
This is recorded on dash-cam as we drive through Clareview housing estate, where people and children are emerging from their homes to go about their day.
The effect of those deaths on the culture is zero, and I am certain that this is replicated on every road in Ireland, every hour of every day, regardless of the death rate and — in many cases — within minutes of a deadly crash being cleared.
A Garda car on every road in the country, every hour of every day, will not change the deadly driving culture of our fellow citizens.
Explicit ads won’t either.
Frank Sheahan, Clare/Limerick border
Wouldn’t give him the time of day
As I meandered through a village market in Spain recently, I was approached by a man pointing excitedly at his wrist.
Assuming he was selling watches, I gestured that I was not remotely interested.
My companion, who understands Spanish, informed me that the man had asked me what time it was.
No doubt, he is now convinced that we Irish “wouldn’t give you the time of day”.
Tom Gilsenan, Dublin 9
Heartbreaking loss shows ineptitude
You would think in this present day and age that our health service should be fit for purpose, but it’s not.
“Systemic failures” and “lack of communication” in overcrowded emergency departments led, once again, to a horrible and grotesque death for 16-year-old Aoife Johnston.
That a place of safety would become a literal death trap for those seeking medical attention is beyond words.
Time and again, the same scenarios play out all over this country.
Patients are left unattended and untreated for hours on end, with staff overworked and exhausted, overseen by ineptitude from a health service short of ideas and implemented by a department of bureaucratic pen pushers and accountants.
No amount of apologies or mea culpas from the HSE or UHL, or indeed any hospital, will bring back the Aoife Johnstons who were left to die in such inhumane conditions.
Another case highlighted this week is that of 11-year-old Milly Tuomey, who sought treatment for her suicidal tendencies.
However, she was put on a waiting list by a mental health service which has proven, time after time, to be totally inadequate.
That her parents sought help eight weeks before her death, yet none was provided until an appointment was scheduled the day after her death, is heartbreaking.
She had not been properly treated or assessed given the urgency needed to prevent her from taking her own life at such a young age.
No amount of apologies by St John of God Hospital or the HSE can ever numb the pain for Milly’s family.
Both these families have been failed by a clinical service so dysfunctional and so overwhelmed, that people’s lives are put at risk unnecessarily.
Why does it take innumerable unnecessary deaths because of inadequate planning, oversight, and governance before something is done?
Is the HSE monolith really fit for purpose, and how many more Aoife and Milly deaths will we hear about before something radical is done and the powers that be admit they’ve got it wrong again?
Christy Galligan, Letterkenny, Donegal
Fair play over Gaza
As one who has been accused of being so far left-of-centre as to be almost off the political spectrum — a golf buddy confused me with an anarchist two weeks ago — I can only echo the comments made by another far-left politician to an ex-taoiseach back in the day: The Tánaiste has raided my ideological wardrobe and stolen my clothes.
However, kudos where kudos is due, I do think that Micheál Martin is playing the equivalent of a blinder (for a politician) on Gaza.
I hope he succeeds in that, at least.
Liam Power, Dundalk, Louth
Lesson in hypocrisy
When teachers are hired to teach the present Catholic curriculum in Catholic primary schools (situated on Church-owned property), then they are obliged — under threat of losing their jobs — to teach this Catholic curriculum whether they are Catholic believers or not.
Isn’t such a binding rule that obliges non-Catholic teachers to teach a Catholic curriculum against their desires a clear promotion of hypocrisy within the Catholic primary school education system?
Such a hypocritical form of Catholic religious teaching, that lacks the necessary backbone of religious faith that should accompany it, is sadly setting a bad example for many young Catholic primary school children to follow for the rest of their lives.
It is, I believe, clear from the gospel that Jesus Christ was in all that he did and said very much against hypocrisy.
Even today, Jesus would surely also be against obliging teachers of religion to teach his spiritual teachings against their own wishes and, thus, force them to set bad examples of what it is to behave honestly and truthfully at work for their young Catholic pupils.
Sean O’Brien, Kilrush, Clare
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