Letters to the Editor: Emer O’Neill’s article about Irish racism rings true

One reader writes in to say as a nation, we are good at welcoming the visitor to our shores, but when that visitor is a refugee or asylum-seeker we find it harder to be welcoming and to share

As well as the question posed by Emer O’Neill, 'when is someone Irish enough to belong?’, there is also the question of what kind of Ireland do we all want to belong to? Picture: Marc O'Sullivan

I would like to thank Emer O’Neill for her article "When is someone Irish enough to belon" ( Irish Examiner, May 26). Her experience was shared in a reflective and balanced way and she was generous in her belief that Ireland is changing for the better. Writing as a white Irish person, I’m probably not so generous and I have no real answer.

As a nation, we are good at welcoming the visitor to our shores, but when that visitor is a refugee or asylum-seeker we find it harder to be welcoming and to share.

In my view, racism is a bit like sexism: It is a cultural attitude by those with more power and privilege in their treatment of the "other". It is an unfortunate but true fact that those "others" have to work harder and longer to try and belong and feel equal.

To date, our Dáil has no black representation and the numbers of black people in local government amounts to single numbers. Participation is one of the keys to equality in society where voices of minority groups can be heard.

On a related matter, the figures on gender-based violence in this country are truly staggering, again demonstrating the culture of sexism and misogyny living in our society.

As well as the question posed by Emer O’Neill, "when is someone Irish enough to belong?", there is also the question of what kind of Ireland do we all want to belong to? Maybe starting questions could be what might an equal society look like, and how will we get there?

Mary Shanahan

Tralee, Kerry

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Fianna Fáil are undaunted

As someone who remembers the halcyon days of the 1970s, and the great Fianna Fáil moments, I realise those magic and memorable times are gone forever.

However, despite the poor performance of Fianna Fáil, it is still the largest political party in the country and, after a century, not many parties in Europe, or elsewhere, can compete with that record.

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin will suffer very little backlash. The reality is he is the party’s greatest asset and is also well respected internationally.

The failure of Sinn Féin to take the seat in the leader’s backyard raises many questions. Maybe the voters no longer know what Sinn Féin stands for.

Just last week on our screens we witnessed unedifying Dáil scenes of the Sinn Féin leader shouting and name calling the Taoiseach. This weekly anger must be tiring for the voters.

This inexcusable behaviour by Ms McDonald, and some of her colleagues, is so far removed from coming forward with solutions to the many existing challenges Ireland faces.

It must be stated that Fine Gael had an excellent candidate in Galway and put in a credible performance. Finally, the Social Democrats’ well-deserved success will bring the short-lived presidential election “love-in” with the left that we saw on the plinth some months ago come to an abrupt end.

Last October, after the presidential election, Ms McDonald was seen by some as the first left-wing taoiseach in waiting. It’s true that a week is a long time in politics.

Sean M Reaney

Castletroy, Limerick

Rethinking Ireland’s energy

I listened to Deirdre O’Shaughnessy’s podcast discussion recently with John Gibbons talking about Ireland’s critical energy security situation.

John is correct about nuclear. It’s a non-runner for a number of reasons, not least due to nimbyism and societal rejection since Carnsore Point and later Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are still very much at prototype stage and will not be commercially available until the mid-2030s. If proven at that stage, there will be huge demand leading to problems with cost and availability.

The biggest issue, if successful, will be both cost and the ability to act as efficient backup to unreliable renewables. Experts say that a standard SMR generating about 0.35GW would cost at today’s value about €50m while a larger unit generating 1GW to 1.5GW would cost €1bn.

Eamon Ryan wrote recently that what Ireland needed was a combination of renewables and nuclear as backup, without outlining the costs involved.

Ireland has planned 37GW of offshore wind by 2050 which, together with solar and onshore, could be up to 50GW.

Following Mr Ryan’s advice, with 50GW installed capacity, Ireland will require over 100 SMRs (0.35GW) costing €5bn or 50 1.5GW SMRs costing € 50bn at today’s prices.

Commentators like John Gibbons advocating for 100% renewables often do not consider the serious unreliability of wind, both onshore and offshore.

Studies of both Eirgrid and Wind Europe daily data over the last five years shows increasingly prolonged fallow periods of very low winds due mainly to high barometric pressure which can last for up to four weeks at a time. The data shows that daily wind generation can vary from as little as 1GW at low wind and to up to 70GW during high winds or storms which means that Ireland requires 100% backup alternative fuels.

Regrettably, offshore winds are not immune to doldrum-type weather patterns as shown by Met Éireann weather charts indicating high barometric pressure stretching from Nova Scotia to Central Europe. Ireland will therefore experience the same variable wind patterns in 2050 requiring 100% backup fuels.

Following the same logic, John Gibbons and others stating that Ireland will be the Saudi Arabia of wind is ludicrous, as is his suggestion that we need more highly vulnerable interconnectors. Batteries at best will only be effective for short-term needs.

Along with the Irish Academy of Engineering, I have been advocating for years that we should rescind the crazy and irresponsible decision to ban offshore exploration as we are almost 100% dependent on increasingly vulnerable imports. The Irish Examiner and Irish Times have published many of my letters on the subject over the years.

Mr Ryan and the Greens were largely responsible for these decisions and later he inexplicably blocked the renewal of exploratory licences for Barryroe off the Cork coast, and further delayed the license for Corrib South off the Mayo Coast, based on ideological grounds.

John Leahy

Wilton Rd, Cork

Pope’s encyclical

It is heartening to have a religious leader issue a message with such universal relevancy in today’s age "Pope Leo urges world to ‘slow down’ on AI in first manifesto" (Irish Examiner, May 26). 

Such an unique person is Pope Leo whose first encyclical, The grandeur of humanity, confronts the “new forms of dehumanisation” as represented by AI.

He warns of the excessive power of the few who are driving AI not for the good of workers and to enhance human dignity but by the “idolatry of profit”.

Pope Leo has to be consistent in his promotion of universal human dignity ensuring that the Catholic Church, which he represents, practises what it preaches when it comes to enhancing the human dignity of women who are still discriminated within the Church.

In the meantime, this acceptance of gender discrimination should not invalidate the grandeur of Pope Leo’s first encyclical.

Brendan Butler

Drumcondra, D9

Sleepwalking politicians

Former EU agricultural commissioner Phil Hogan, addressing the Nuffield international triennial summit, said that political leaders are “sleepwalking towards a global food security crisis”. Mr Hogan suggests that such a crisis is inevitable considering the “geopolitical instability [and] climate pressures”, and speaks of “supply chain disruption”.

Sleepwalking, sadly, is something we have become used to, particularly on the political front. Our political leaders appear to have been sleepwalking during the myriad issues the country has faced, especially since the financial crash of almost 20 years ago.

Housing, health, immigration, and a host of other issues would seem to have caught the government napping, with no discernable improvement on numbers — not enough housing, too many on health service waiting lists, and the well-documented effects of a sudden upsurge in refugees and asylum seekers.

The climate pressures Mr Hogan mentions include disruption of the seasons, making planting, growing and producing food more tenuous that ever and, coupled with the supply chain disruption, leaves Ireland in an extremely vulnerable position. Our political leaders do, really, need to wake up, and if there is coffee, they’ll know what to do.

Peter Declan O’Halloran

Belturbet, Co Cavan

Cheap redress scheme

Patricia Carey, the special advocate for survivors of institutional abuse is right to be “hugely frustrated” with the Government’s mother and baby institution redress scheme.

Ms Carey detailed paltry payments to an equally paltry few, while others get nothing. For instance Patrick Sugrue was excluded for being boarded out, while Noel Manning was in the ‘wrong’ institution.

Patrick Anderson McQuoid’s Bethany Home experience constitutes another example. Patrick was sent from Bethany shortly after birth to a "nurse mother" where he suffered from rickets of the head, before being exiled over the border to a life of beatings and drudgery. He escaped to England aged 17. Patrick said this about an official explanation of his exclusion: “Words are cheap and so is the minister’s payments scheme.”

Speaking of over the border, it is sometimes asked what Northern Ireland could contribute to a united country. For starters, the redress scheme there. It is open to anyone admitted to an ‘eligible’ institution, even for one night. In the South, 180 nights are required.

As Patrick Anderson McQuoid was in a Protestant institution, it is important not to habitually refer to institutions as run by Roman Catholic “religious orders”. This mistaken terminology plus an accompanying emphasis on pressurising the institutions to contribute to a shoddy scheme suits the Government. It is a deflection.

Pay those who are excluded and pay all properly.

Niall Meehan

Journalism & Media Faculty, Griffith College, Dublin

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