Letters to the Editor: Israel kept killing Palestinians as Taoiseach praised Trump as a peacemaker
Taoiseach Micheál Martin presenting US president Donald Trump with the shamrock bowl at the White House ahead of St Patrick's Day. Picture: Tasos Katopodis/Government of Ireland
I may at times sound like a lone voice crying in the wilderness. When serious injustices are being perpetrated involving the killing tens of thousands of women and children in Palestine, our silence makes us complicit.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin is understandably being widely praised for his diplomatic performance in defending Irish economic interests in his meeting with US president Donald Trump.
News outlets reported that he had praised Mr Trump for his peacekeeping efforts in Gaza and Ukraine. While all efforts to promote peace in Ukraine are very welcome, only time will tell how effective or genuine the US government’s Ukraine peace efforts will be.
The killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank continued on March 13 as Micheál Martin was praising Mr Trump for his peacekeeping efforts. The Israeli government and its military forces are being actively supported by the US government and being supplied with the weapons and munitions that are killing Palestinians.
We may never know how many Palestinian children have died from starvation, diseases, hypothermia, bombs, and bullets, but it is likely that many died while Micheál Martin was in the US for his diplomatic visit.
Irish economic interests should not take precedence over the lives of our Palestinian neighbours. Jesus Christ reminded us that our neighbours are all humankind.
Mick Clifford’s latest article on the housing crisis makes for sombre if not entirely predictable reading — ‘Government going backwards in terms of housing delivery’ (Irish Examiner, March 11).
“We will be lucky to hit 27,000 (housing completions) this year,” says architect and housing analyst Mel Reynolds in your correspondent’s article.
But didn’t we know this before the general election? The priority of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is the moneyed class. The boomer generation if you will — and who Ivan Yates described in The Irish Times recently as having “screwed over an entire next generation of adults. And they have no understanding of it, no remorse, except for maybe ‘why are 30-40% of 30-year-olds still living with their parents?’ That’s as far as it impacts on them.”
For all his faults and misfortune Bertie Ahern built three times as many houses at the height of the ‘Celtic Tiger’.
The Fianna Fáil/ Fine Gael duopoly will continue to hunker down and seek to prioritise the asset values of the boomer generation instead of providing homes for the next generation with urgent new policies and initiatives.
I found Jennifer Horgan’s column this week to be very interesting — ‘Political right has a people power and unity missing from the left’ (Irish Examiner, March 14).
As a practicing Catholic, it’s good to find a person on the left who recognises that many of us like the Pope and how the Presentation Sisters put human rights first.
One of the biggest criticisms of the modern left in first world countries is that they have forgotten about most people’s economic problems leaving the right to have free passage with their brutal policies — and these are all too visible in the United States.
I suggest on her journey that she recognises that ordinary people’s struggles with bread and butter issues must be put on an equal footing with other struggles and that excluding people of religious beliefs because they may differ on a minority of issues are counterproductive.
St Patrick Day parades are long celebrated in the US. Canada too has an equally strong tradition. Its 2016 census recorded 4.6m Canadians with Irish ancestry — more than 13% of the population. March is Irish Heritage month in Canada as it is in the US.
The support of Canada for St Patrick’s Day is reflected in Canada’s government minister for diversity and inclusion who, in March 2023, encouraged “all Canadians to participate in events taking place across the country and to learn more about the rich heritage and culture of the Irish community here in Canada”.
The first Irish emigrant from Ireland to Canada (then known as New France) was recorded in 1661. Tadhg O’Brennan from a well-known military family, aged 29, fled the oppressive colonial regime in Ireland via France and married Jeanne Chartier in 1670 in Quebec. They had seven children.
Irish soldiers in a Montreal garrison celebrated the day in 1759 and Montreal held its first St Patrick’s Day parade in 1824. The oldest and biggest in Canada, the United Irish Societies or Association has been organising the Montreal parade since 1929.
Toronto had a difficult history of St Patrick’s Day parades. They were banned in 1878 because of recurring violence between then mainly Catholic participants and some Protestant protesters who were against the parades. Toronto’s St Patrick Day parade returned in 1988 with occasional protests but it seems to have settled down since.
Vancouver city has Irish and Celtic festivities for St Patrick’s Day as do Newfoundland and Labrador provinces too.
A Canadian commentator described St Patrick’s Day parades as a cultural phenomenon and welcoming to people from all backgrounds. It is a day of looking forward, in the northern hemisphere, to the spring equinox which falls on March 20 this year.
Ireland had its first official, national St Patrick’s Day parade in 1903. Cork city had its first official, very successful St Patrick’s Day parade in 1901.
Donal Lenihan is a respected rugby pundit and a games analyst, but on RTÉ’s Against the Head programme on Monday (March 10) he failed to castigate, the Australian referee Angus Gardener, who failed to adhere to the World Rugby Board’s ruling on tackling a player without the ball.
At a critical stage of the game, the French second row player, Thibaud Flament, tackled Peter O’Mahony, who was away from the play and without the ball. The foul tactic by Flament opened a hole in the Irish defence leading to a French converted try.
A minute or two earlier, there was a clash of heads involving Calvin Nash, resulting in the Irish winger being yellow carded. The Ulster pundit, Stephen Ferris, declared that it was a rugby incident without any foul intent. However, Gardener ruled by rugby law and sidelined Nash for 10 minutes Gardener then failed to rule by rugby law and awarded a try to France, which had a very significant effect on the outcome of the game.
The ruling was a travesty to Ireland. With a player down, and a very unfair try awarded to France, it led to a major momentum swing. With an extra player, France capitalised on Ireland’s weakness, and scored another try which clinched victory for the French.
With the outcome of the game at a forgone conclusion, Gardener failed again to rule by rugby law when he agreed that the French flanker, Paul Boudehent, deliberately knocked-on with Ireland attacking inside the French 22.
The rugby law clearly states that such a deliberate interference of play is a cynical foul and deserves a yellow card. Again Gardener ruled otherwise. Modern rugby is won or lost by very small margins.
There is a very strong argument that Ireland was denied another grand slam by referee Angus Gardener not applying rugby union law at crucial situations.
It’s fair to say that those who don’t support the current government will disagree with those who do on the policies needed to address the many challenges the country faces. That being said, I would hope that we can all agree that the Government should at least be expected to enact its own policies and to be held accountable for how well it delivers on those promises.
To name but a few very recent failures: This new Government approved increased childcare fees for 1,100 childcare providers despite promising to reduce the cost of childcare to €200 per child; the minister for housing has rowed back on the Government’s commitment to end homelessness by 2030; and last week the Taoiseach tried to downplay the costs associated with the Government missing its own climate targets.
It is to be expected that the opposition will demand more of the Government, regardless of how well it performs.
My question to those who support this Government is simple: By what metric are they to be held accountable if not their own election promises? When you voted for Fine Fáil or Fine Gael, did you do so with the expectation that they would honour their commitments?
