Letters to the Editor: Enact the Occupied Territories Bill now
People watch on New Year's Eve as an Israeli army bulldozer demolishes homes in the Palestinian refugee centre of Nur Shams near the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Picture: Majdi Mohammed/AP
Irish people marched in our tens of thousands in 2025 to demand peace, justice, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.Â
The Gaza catastrophe has horrified most people and generated significant solidarity, empathy, and anger. Of the roughly 71,000 people killed so far in Gaza, more than 20,000 are children. And the slaughter goes on. Since the so-called Gaza ceasefire was declared on October 10, the pace has slowed, but Israeli forces have still killed with impunity more than 400 Palestinians including children.
In addition, the Israeli security cabinet just last week approved a proposal to build a further 19 illegal settlements in the West Bank, bringing the total approved recently to 69.Â
As Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers have made clear, the explicit intention is to end any chance of a two-state solution and, ultimately, to extend Israeli sovereignty over these Palestinian lands.Â
Fourteen countries, including Ireland, quickly issued a statement condemning the move, but this was promptly rejected as antisemitism by Gideon Saâar, Israelâs foreign minister, who remarked that no one will ârestrict the right of Jews to live in the Land of Israel, and any such call is morally wrong and discriminatory against Jewsâ.Â
Israelâs colonial objectives are unmistakable in both Gaza and the West Bank, but little is being done by the âinternational communityâ to halt the annihilation of the Palestinian people and the extinguishing of their hopes for future statehood.Â
Illegal settlements continue to expand in the West Bank. Settler violence rages on.Â
Where is the âcoalition of the willingâ for Palestinians?
The Irish Government has occasionally articulated its solidarity with the Palestinian people and in that regard has reflected popular sentiment in the country, but meaningful sanctions appear to be off the table.Â
Where is the purposeful action? The Occupied Territories Bill, if enacted, would indicate intent and provide an example for other states. Instead, however, the noises currently emanating from our fearful Government are far from positive and its preference patently is to exclude trade in services, greatly weakening the practical impact of the bill.
Will we see the bill implemented in full in 2026? Or will Fine Gael and Fianna FĂĄil come up with yet more faint-hearted evasions to avoid honouring the promise made by both parties before the general election in 2024?
Regarding Colin Sheridanâs âWhy actorsâ round tables have become awards seasonâs strangest performanceâ, (December 20) â Iâm pleased this has been pointed out.
Iâm an actor and was involved in round table carry-on some years ago. Iâve never been more embarrassed or mortified in front of a camera. I have only myself to blame as I did no homework at all.
It was the lovely Anna Friel and myself â about 10 minutes in I realised what was going on.
The publicity bit around acting has always bothered me.
We, the actors, are delicate sensitive souls employed to act. Then, when the acting is over and the film is finished, the producers, the ones who make the dosh, throw us under the bus into the publicity machine and expect us to become salesmen overnight.
A friend sent me some recent ones and to my horror there they were... a few of our young talented actors making complete fools of themselves drooling over each other unashamedly as they talked about almost everything other than the film.Â
Itâs demoralising to see acting, a job I love, being belittled and betrayed by actors who have either lost the run of themselves or have become so greedy that they canât say no to the publicity department who invite them to make fools of themselves by agreeing to get involved in a round table event which is embarrassing and sufficiently off-putting to make sure that I'll never go anywhere near any of the films they are supposed to be advertising.
As a new year dawns, Iâm sure Tipperary folk will have no problem continuing to reflect on last yearâs All-Ireland hurling final, while Cork households have had the TV remote controls close to hand, in order to quickly change stations, as the outgoing year was reviewed these past weeks.
Despite us (Kilkenny) having nothing to show for over a decade, I still canât resist recalling the second-half score in last yearâs final; Tipperary 3-14; Cork 0-2, assuredly the harshest articulation of âThe Banksâ for generations.
âAll is fair in love and warâ they say, so bring on the 2026 season.
Sean Murray reminds 'Irish Examiner' readers that persuading Cork Cityâs commuters to switch from the car to cycling faces many challenges (December 27).
Various factors are listed such as perceptions that cycling is hazardous and a deep rooted car dependency culture.
The city of Ghent is held up as a good example of a similar sized urban area with a high rate of âactive travelâ. But the fact that the Belgian city is relatively flat is not mentioned!
The southside of the Rebel City is hilly enough in most parts to tax a fit person; as for the northside â forget about âcycling to work'.Â
But the biggest discrepancy between Cork and Ghent is the climate; four times as much average rainfall here compared with most places on the continent.
The fact that a week without rainfall is so unusual is one of the biggest obstacles to promoting commuter cycling in Ireland.
I believe the pension age should be consistent across all European countries.Â
I support the idea of a requirement to have all workers pay into a pension scheme if their employer does not offer one.
I believe that the State pension should be at a minimum level to enable everyone to have a fair baseline standard of living. However, anything more should be from their own pension that they have contributed to over their working life.Â
The full State pension should not be given to people who have not contributed during their working life. The system in Ireland is graduated and requires 40 years of contributions to get the full contributory pension.
Some of the 750,000 people being targeted for auto enrolment may be unable to fund their living expenses while others may be repaying student loans, supporting elderly parents, supporting dependent siblings, or saving for their first home.Â
Forcing them and their employers to contribute to a pension scheme which doesnât guarantee any return, and only benefits the pension industry which has a proven record of not delivering on pensionersâ expectations, is very concerning.Â
There has to be a more efficient, more equitable, and more transparent system for supporting our elderly.
Recently, Lansdowne Oil and Gas secured substantial litigation funding to pursue a $100m (âŹ85m) claim against the Government for refusing a development licence for the Barryroe Oil and Gas field off the Cork Coast in 2023.
This pending claim is just another example of the gross self-inflicted mismanagement of Irelandâs energy supply and security over the past decades, resulting on Irelandâs almost total dependence on highly vulnerable importation of both oil, and gas through subsea pipelines from Britain.
Increasing Russian meddling with malice around our coast and warnings from the British National Energy Operator that North Sea gas is decreasing, substantially increases this vulnerability.
Independent assessments have proven Barryroe is a potential bonanza, with 300m barrels of oil and 6bn cubic metres of high-grade natural gas, within 50m of water close to the defunct Kinsale gas field. Barryroe, if developed, together with Iniskea West near Corrib off the Mayo coast, would provide Ireland with vital backup energy security for decades and substantially reduce energy and retail electricity costs.Â
Furthermore, developing native energy sources would lower Irelandâs CO2 equivalent emissions twelvefold and 45 times lower than the proposed LNG facility.
The bizarre refusal is the legacy of Eamon Ryan, then environment minister, who spurned a golden opportunity, having based his decision on dogma and the perceived lack of financial resources of the company, despite the fact Larry Goodman was prepared to invest âŹ6.35m in the project. It is grossly irresponsible to ignore the multiple advantages of developing Irelandâs indigenous energy resources.
