Letters to the Editor: Deportation mission was a misuse of resources

Gardaí move additional luggage secured for one of the families being deported during Operation Trench. Picture: Chani Anderson

Having read about the deportation of 52 Georgian nationals under an operational name of Operation Trench 11, one would have to ask have we lost the run of ourselves as a nation and does the concept of common sense escape us all?

Surely there was no need for 117 gardaí and further support staff to accompany the deported people?

The minister, the Garda Commissioner, and senior Garda management should take the blame for agreeing to a ridiculous use of scarce Garda resources.

Surely five or six gardaí and one or two members of the Defence Forces would have sufficed?

Can anyone tell me how many members of An Garda Síochána were policing the roads of Louth last Saturday night?

What an embarrassing, ridiculous, and downright dangerous situation.

Brendan O’Shea, Killarney, Co Kerry

Enact the Occupied Territories Bill

The Irish people do not directly elect their head of government. That is the duty of our Dáil representatives. It is not a one-off obligation and extends to their monitoring the performance of the incumbent. This might be considered during the current internal inquiries of the government parties. Hopefully, they will not be confined to processes of presidential candidate selection.

A prevailing concern for Ireland is the growing gulf between the Government and the people it serves. An example that can be considered in isolation is the profound empathy of Irish people for the ongoing obliteration and starvation faced by Palestinians. The Irish Government has failed to reflect this in practicality. Their failure has resulted in the independent, peaceful, but potent Occupied Territories Bill 2018 (OTB), becoming Irish people’s standard for a true peace for all in the region.

The OTB’s democratic credentials are unquestionable. It has been passed by the Dáil and Seanad and twice electorally endorsed by the overwhelming election of OTB-mandated candidates. Years later, it remains unenacted.

While the innocents of war are the prime concern, Ireland has also been a loser. Its international reputation as a fearless humanitarian voice has been lost.

Similarly, inertia and insensitivity has impacted on many domestic and social issues. Continuing Government malaise will produce the disillusion of exclusion. The 2024 general election turnout was the lowest in decades. Between elections, changing government direction is a further duty for our Dáil deputies. We have entrusted them with it.

Philip Powell, Dún Laoghaire

Martin talks the talk on climate

“Science cannot be denied.” So said Micheál Martin at Cop30 in Belem. Yet these words have a hollow ring to them as animal agriculture, our single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, does not even get a mention from him.

Back home, it’s business as usual with the agriculture minister Martin Heydon ‘standing with farmers’ at the national nitrates derogation event in Fermoy last week.

Polluted waterways, loss of biodiversity, and adverse effects on human health all secondary to retaining the derogation.

A decade ago, many live export ships left the port of Cork bound for Libya and other destinations. Nowadays, Cork Marina is a thriving hub and live exports have moved to a less visible location in Waterford. Who wants to see terrified young animals while eating a burger or sipping a latte? It’s not good for business. Sadly, live exports have not stopped and this weekend saw a shipment of pregnant heifers set sail from Waterford to Algeria in storm conditions. Sentient animals who will endure a living hell.

So, Micheál Martin, talk the talk — but in all honesty you may as well have stayed at home.

Joan Burgess, Annmount, Cork

How much more damage will Trump do?

Once again Donald Trump berates a reporter in the White House for asking a simple question of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. His defence of the crown prince is in stark contrast to the CIA intelligence that determined the crown prince had approved the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

Meanwhile on the Capitol steps, while Trump laid out the red carpet with all the bells and whistles for the crown prince, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, who Trump was a friend off, spoke of their hardships and struggles to get the Epstein files released, something that Trump and his administration, and many republicans, stalled for several months.

These women, and the brother of Virginia Giuffre who took her own life this year, were dignified when they spoke of being trafficked by Epstein and others, unlike their president who constantly shows his narcissistic tendency of unemotional detachment to the victims of Epstein and Maxwell.

The same president who invites war criminals, or supporters of war criminals, to feast at his table while using the cover of his office to extract wealth from other countries for the benefit of his own fiefdom.

This is the same president who wants to be the chairman of the Board of Peace in Gaza while at the same time supplying Netanyahu and his right-wing extremists with military hardware to kill and starve the Palestinian people in this territory, and does nothing to prevent the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

A president who humiliated another president of a sovereign country that was invaded by a dictator who he has cosied up with. In most countries they would call this type of engagement treasonous, and that person a traitor.

A man that has cut off billions in foreign aid, has bullied and threatened other nations, blowing up “suspected” drug runners, without hard evidence, in fast boats in South American waters, and uses his justice department to go after his perceived enemies while pardoning his criminal friends and supporters.

This is what America has to offer as the world looks on, wondering what other damage will he inflict before the end of his presidency.

Christy Galligan, Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Odd criticism of President Connolly

Regarding Joseph G O’Hanlon’s criticism of President Catherine Connolly, imagine telling the President that she should “acquaint herself with Article 12(1) of Bunreacht na hÉireann”. 

Everyone knows that the President, being a highly intelligent barrister, is probably well aware of every word of the Constitution from start to finish.

And many would both say and believe that when President Connolly said that “a house is a fundamental human right”, that she was correct.

Mr O’Hanlon objected to her on that point because she appeared to be taking the Government parties to task, but she was only highlighting their terrible housing shortcomings over the past decade or so. My big objection to the above criticism by Mr O’Hanlon was that he had very little to be critical of. In fact, he could be said to have been scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I will end by saying that I am fully confident that Catherine Connolly will be remembered in years to come as another great Irish president who looked out for everyone during what I expect will be a very successful seven years.

Liam Burke, Dunmore, Co Kilkenny

Department of Finance’s role in dereliction

Regarding recent articles about dereliction in Cork. Here are some facts that are rarely mentioned:

A limited company pays 12.5% tax on a shop profit or operating Ipas or short-term letting of upper floors. But the tax on rent from living over the shop is 25% + surcharge = 40%. Spot the viability problem?

The Living City Initiative has run for over a decade and cost the State no more than €350,000 in any single year — not even a whole bike shed. It was designed to cost nothing and do even less.

By contrast, the tax reliefs of the pre-2006 era provided tax relief of €350m per annum at their peak.

The real vandals are in the Department of Finance which has had a fixation on “passive income” that has long ceased to be passive given current regulation and bureaucracy. The ending of Section 23-type tax reliefs in 2006 was the starting gun for dereliction.

Hopefully Simon Harris can address the ideology in the department that is causing our streets to crumble, and save us from the fabricated narratives being spun about dereliction by a certain cohort whose real issue is an ideological objection to property ownership.

Alex Wilsdon, Dublin Rd, Kilkenny

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