Letters to the Editor: Ireland needs a national campaign to tackle racism
'Racism is in a noxious little category of its own. We should be giving it the red card before the match even starts.' Picture: iStock
There’s a crying need for a nationwide anti-racism awareness campaign to counteract the tidal wave of hate unleashed by those who target people because of their colour, ethnicity, or country of origin.
Much of it is aimed at refugees and asylum seekers, on social media, in street graffiti, and in direct verbal, and sometimes physical, attacks on people.
But anyone who doesn’t look or sound the way the abusive person wants them to can be a target … election candidates, workers across the entire public and private sectors … even tourists just visiting our supposedly welcoming nation.
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Antisemitism is one of the worst forms of racism, though it gets detached in the minds of some people, due to an inability to separate the actions of the Israeli state from the human rights of Jews worldwide to live in pace, without being subjected to racially motivated abuse or violence.
I have listened to people speak of Jews in a tone that, chillingly, recalls the antisemitism of the 1930s and ’40s. Even if the speakers might not resort to actual physical violence, their words can lead to people getting hurt when those who hear them are inflamed or provoked.
Islamophobia is no less abhorrent, and is often justified or excused because a particular state that happens to be predominantly Muslim is engaged in war or internal repression.
Life is short enough without people having to cope with this age-old scourge of humanity that continues to rear its vitriolic head.
The Government could spend a little of its rainy day fund on launching an all-out attack on racism, using every creative device and mode of communication to get the message across that this toxic and indefensible assault on human dignity will no longer be tolerated.
The message could be amplified from well-placed billboards, wall murals, TV, online and print media ads, and of course via an emphasis on the subject in all primary and second-level schools.
True, in the rough and tumble of life we can all expect barbs and putdowns along the way, but racism is in a noxious little category of its own. We should be giving it the red card before the match even starts.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has called for a ban on early-morning preflight airport drinking. A noble call you might say, but is it really? Why not go a step further and just stop selling alcohol at airports and on planes?
The problem is not just the early drinking, it is the accessibility of alcohol at airports and on planes.
Passengers can buy alcohol in duty free and consume it on board if they so wish.
Is it really that important that passengers should have access to copious amounts of alcohol when the airline staff have first-hand experience of the danger associated with passengers who are highly intoxicated?
It’s not as if you can open the door at 20,000 feet and ask them to leave.
So half measures are not the answer to this problem.
I read an article in a newspaper recently with the headline: ‘Nurses demand financial support to help fuel costs’. This was where the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has demanded, and quite rightly so, that they be given cost-of-living supports to ease financial pressure from the fuel crisis.
Apparently midwives and public health nurses must use their own car to deliver essential care.
This is beyond stupid. This is like asking public service bus drivers to provide their own buses and pay for the fuel.
The INMO should insist on getting paid the same mileage allowance as civil servants which can vary from 20.56 cent to 90.63 cent per kilometre depending on the size of the car and the distance travelled.
The ICTU and other nursing bodies should support the members of the INMO in their quest, it is only fair after all, why should they be out of pocket for doing their job.
When the Government can spend many thousands of euro on bike sheds, the one at Kerry Hospital cost €127,000 for a 40-bike shed for example, the least they can do is look after the INMO members whose work is vital to the community.
I was disappointed to see the spend on the bike parking facility at University Hospital Kerry (UHK) criticised by Sinn Féin in the Dáil and reported across the media as a scandal. The underlying issue here is what we value as a society and why.
Ordinary workers at the hospital completed a survey to tell their employer what they need and got what they asked for. This was funded by multiple State bodies and there is no indication that funds were diverted from patient care.
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It is modern fit-for-purpose accessible infrastructure that has been built to last, not some corrugated iron shack which is what has been implied in media coverage.
Cycling is a low impact physical activity. Physical activity is highly important to prevent illness. People have such busy lives that dedicating time to exercise can be challenging.
This facility will allow staff to integrate exercise into their day and reduce their likelihood of ending up back in the same hospital as a patient later in their life. Investing in active travel is investing in the health of people living in Ireland.
It is time to value our health now and in the future to reduce the pressure on the health system, and appreciate an organisation that listened to their staff in this instance.
What a great bit of foresight by the HSE’s National Green Team and the National Transport Authority to fund the badly needed and aesthetically pleasing bicycle shelter in the grounds of University Hospital Kerry (UHK). The hospital is out on its own when it comes to improving staff, patient, and visitor comfort and accessibility — as well as doing its bit for active living.
Not only is the shelter giving hospital staff and visitors more sustainable travel choices but it reduces the demand on limited hospital parking. The ever increasing cycling fraternity in Kerry is delighted with secure parking while working in or visiting UHK.
Donegal TD Pearse Doherty lost the run of himself in the Dáil the other day when he realised that UHK had cycled away with the big prize, which was constructed with ring-fenced funding. Mr Doherty ranted at the cost of the bicycle shelter but he certainly has no idea about its long-term value. Far from being a waste of money, it provides cyclists with a much needed parking facility. It’s a very positive statement by UHK that cyclists count as much as motorists.
The penny may have belatedly dropped for Mr Doherty that a bicycle shelter would be useful at Letterkenny University Hospital. Unfortunately, he took his eye off the ball and was totally outsmarted by KUH’s progressive management.
I don’t know if Mr Doherty has any interest in sport and exercise. If, perchance, he is travelling to Killarney for the big GAA game on May 23, he would do well to drop into UHK to see for himself a bicycle shelter to encourage the most entrenched motorist to abandon the car and hop on the bike.
Nigel Farage is now the most likely person to become prime minister of Britain after the next general election.
He has the same tanning bed Teflon-coated complexion as US president Trump, the same hard neck, and the same tough rhinoceros hide. He claims he accepted a personal gift of £5m from a billionaire cryptocurrency plutocrat for purely private non-political purposes.
At the very same time, his party is more supportive of cryptocurrency than any other. As with many things to do with Reform UK this explanation strains credibility.
The perpetrators of Brexit are the only Britons to profit from it politically and Reform UK are the first arsonists in history to re-invent themselves as the fire brigade. Mr Farage will quaff champagne until morning comes with gold in its mouth and the UK local elections of 2026 will live in infamy because this is historic for all the wrong reasons.
It is bad news for Britain and bad news for Ireland. For all its pretensions to broad church ecumenism Reform UK is an unreconstructed circus tent for gammon-faced English nationalists that would have been familiar to Enoch Powell or Major Gowen in Fawlty Towers.
