Letters to the Editor: We must be careful over funding loan to Ukraine
A residential building was damaged by a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday, October 10. Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
In your opinion section of Fridayâs in relation to the so-called âreparationsâ, you say, âTaoiseach MicheĂĄl Martin said there had to be an economic cost to such flagrant violations of international law, and that the funds would help Ukraine...â
You also quote him as saying: âWe are militarily neutral; weâre not members of Nato; weâre not members of any military alliance, but countries like Ukraine have a right to defend themselves. I donât believe there are implications for Irish neutrality.â
With the greatest of respect, I donât think that MicheĂĄl Martin and the Government have thought this one through. So far, we have donated to Ukraine directly with non-lethal aid that we controlled.
If this loan goes through, we will have no control over what it is spent on.
There is doubt that a large proportion of this will be spent on weapons, and that means that the Irish people will be indirectly responsible for any injury or deaths that occur to military or civilians by those weapons.
If there was a way of guaranteeing that we could direct our part of the loan to non-lethal aid, then that wouldnât be too bad.
Otherwise, I think that the Irish people should have a greater say in this and decide whether they want to supply lethal aid to any country at war.
The other and perhaps more pressing question is how much will the Irish people be on the hook for if this all goes wrong?
The idea of the loan is to use seized Russian funds as collateral and give Ukraine a loan that they only pay back if Russia pays Ukraine reparations. All good on paper and touted by the EU elite who are desperately trying to continue the war without even thinking of engaging in diplomacy to stop the killing.
The problem is that the whole thing of Russia paying reparations is based on Russia actually losing the war, which, to any unbiased observer, is not the case.
If the EU gives this loan to Ukraine, it is almost inevitable that Russia will seize approximately âŹ200bn in EU-owned assets, with âŹ100bn relating to German companies. So will those seized companies have to be compensated by the EU? Russia will no doubt use international law to get their money back, as it is covered under the principle of sovereign immunity.
So we end up giving Ukraine âŹ140bn, which they donât have to pay back, pay out another âŹ200bn to companies whose assets were seized, and Russia could actually have their money returned by international courts.
One way or the other, the EU taxpayer is going to have to pay through the nose for this. I donât have a problem with loaning this money to Ukraine, but this is not the way to do it. The Irish Government needs to sit down and rethink this and find a better way to fund this loan.
My reaction to the Government announcing a new âinclusion model for allâ is the next disaster for children with autism and our families to experience.
We donât want inclusion, we want our childrenâs needs to be catered for.
There is simply nothing more excluding than being a parent in a room full of children and knowing that your child doesnât fit in and canât fit in due to the nature of their disability â that your childâs disability is so profound that no amount of intervention, therapy, or accommodations will ever change that.
Advocacy groups continue to push this narrative on the Government that this is the way forward.
Itâs the way to complete and utter failure. It completely ignores the children who need the most support.
Autism for families like us is:
- Repetitive behaviour;
- Non verbal or limited communication;
- Limited ability to meet social norms;
- Aggression towards self and others;
- Requiring wrap around care support.
No amount of therapeutic intervention, awareness or acceptance will change the outcome of this side of the spectrum.
We need autism specific schools from school age until 18. Families like ours are being drowned by the current government and advocacy groups. We are screaming to be heard and they are choosing to ignore us.
Nobody is linking in with parents of children with profound autism. We are being ignored, failed, and forced into this circus that the current system has created. We have never felt more misrepresented than now.
Much has been said of how a united left front could finally effectively challenge the centre rightâs grip on political power at the next general election which is four years hence.Â
Yet, I hear on the news that the left will not be selecting an agreed candidate for the by election to fill the seat of president-elect Catherine Connolly.
Perhaps the prospect of political power, other than a largely ceremonial post, scares a certain cohort of the left? The purity of permanent opposition being the much more attractive option?
Not only did we subvert expectations with turnout up almost two percentage points since 2018, but Catherine Connolly secured the highest first-preference vote in Irish presidential history, surpassing Ăamon de Valeraâs 56.3% in 1959 by more than seven percentage points.
Yes, the elephant in the room is the almost 13% of spoiled ballots, but that only further highlights the scale of the mandate for our new president-elect. Even if every one of those ballots were added to Heather Humphreysâs and Jim Gavinâs totals, Connolly would still have won comfortably by over 170,000 votes.
Iâd much rather see people turning up and participating â even if that means spoiling their vote â than staying home entirely. As Franklin D Roosevelt once said: âThe greatest threat to democracy is indifference.â
âYouâre an ignorant fucking bastardâ was shouted across a bus stop in Cork from two Irish citizens to a foreign national bus driver. The driverâs crime was saying âI donât knowâ after being asked âwhat time is my bus in?â by one of the two. This is an incident that I see regularly as I use the public bus service daily.
Scenes like this and the shocking behavior in Citywest have given me cause for real concern for my and my husbandâs safety. This week in college I was asked what country I was from, when I stated that I am Irish the other person seemed quite shocked. In the past, I have been mistaken for being Spanish or Romani and I have given it little thought until now. My husband is quintessentially English and together we carry a nervous disposition born from the fear of being subjected to racist attacks.
âLetâs talk about immigration â using actual factsâ Mick Clifford in his column in the , Saturday Oct 25, wrote. I enjoyed the column and hope that some might read it and question their thoughts or actions. But I am not entirely sure that facts, or the lack of them, are the real issue here, are they? No, I fear the issues here are something far darker and always were.
