Letters to the Editor: I hope I am wrong — but Ireland no longer feels safe for people like me
The 1999 St Patrick's Day parade making its way down Dame St in Dublin. Landa Wo writes that 'Ireland was a safe land for people like me' at that time. Picture: Chris Bacon/PA
Twenty-five years ago, as an Afro French, I chose the Ireland of Eavan Boland, Ciaran O’Driscoll, Beckett, Joyce, Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, Paula Meehan, and Yeats as my adoptive country.
Unable to resign myself to following to the letter the slogan of he whom Malraux called ‘the soul of the Glières’ Tom Morel — “Live free or die” — I chose a middle way, the painful choice of exile, once I understood that my qualifications would at best allow me to settle at the periphery of French society, and never to become a full participant.
Although I received a university scholarship from the French state and was financed by the general council of Île-de-France to go to business school, the doors of business remained hopelessly closed once I finished my studies.
In the France of 1998 what are today coyly called ‘visible minorities’ had the choice between three options: Violence — sometimes in its most abject form, fundamentalism — to accept employment for which they were over-qualified, or exile.
Integration in a new community should not always be one way as it is really a two-way process.
When I immigrated to Ireland with little English skills, I took English courses, but I also joined an intensive course at Drama League of Ireland, I then went for auditions, and I got an eight-minute monologue as the messenger in Medea. I did my part to integrate into Irish society and Ireland also came to meet me halfway by providing opportunities. As a society we need to integrate this two-way process for successful integration of migrants and a peaceful life together.
We all want to deal fairly with ethnic minorities in the society and in the corporate world, we all got on board with the sincere rhetoric about how diversity of employees and citizens is vital for creativity, increases innovation, competitiveness, and capability to grow.
There is clearly a will to build an open and inclusive Irish society, but we do need to give more opportunities for minorities to tell their stories with their own words.
In 1999, Ireland was a safe land for people like me. If it was in 2024, I will not make the same choice as I do not recognise Ireland. Ireland is not safe anymore for people like me.
I hope I am wrong.
I read with interest the article on August 27 by Sean Murray under the headline “Doctors back calls to ban social media use for U16s”.
What grabbed my attention was the line that “speaking on Tuesday, Dr Sadlier said that every indication on mental health and psychological wellbeing among teenagers and young adults has deteriorated since 2012 when social media use began to increase, and said it wasn’t too late to impose a ban.” I would wonder if this is an example of correlation with little or no causation? What else has happened across the developed world “since 2012”? Here’s a couple of examples from Ireland but a similar situation has occurred across all other countries in the western world.
1. In an article under the headline “Vulture funds and non-banks now account for 16% of mortgage market — Central Bank”, it was reported: “As of the end of 2022, some 115,000 mortgages were held by such funds in Ireland. That compares to fewer than 17,000 loans with such institutions at the end of 2009, when the sector accounted for just over 2% of the market.
How many children live in these households? How many children have had to watch their parents being stressed every single day “since 2012”?
2. In another attached opinion piece in the Irish Examiner (May 20, 2022) under the headline “Rory Hearne: The Housing crisis is scarring a generation of children”, it was stated that 281,000 children were living in the private rental sector and “living in a housing situation with their families that is unstable, where they might have to uproot themselves and leave their home”. What’s more likely to be the cause of the deterioration in the “mental health” and psychological wellbeing among teenagers” since 2012? Social media use or spending the past 14 years watching their parents constantly stressed for the crime of attempting to put the basic need of a roof over their children’s heads is one of the least densely populated countries in the EU?
I would believe that blaming social media use as the root cause of the deterioration in the “mental health and psychological wellbeing among teenagers” since 2012 is a bit of a red herring. It may be the case that social media use may have actually helped alleviate the deterioration in the “mental health and psychological wellbeing among teenagers” among many of these adolescents.
As an aside, I also wish to draw your attention to a recent article in The Guardian (April 20, 2024) under the headline “Dutch city pilots radical debt cancellation scheme for poor families,” where it was reported that a “councillor in Arnhem says existing system to resolve issues caused by debt costs billions and isn’t working” and that the costs to society and the taxpayer of not dealing with unstainable debt placed upon families “are literally making people sick.” I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my letter.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has decided to exclude legislation to disregard historic convictions for homosexuality from its recommendations for the next government. As an election looms, this decision is a blatant affront to the suffering endured by countless men who were criminalised and humiliated by the Irish State for simply being gay.
The commission claims its document is “necessarily restrictive,” but this is a poor excuse for neglecting one of the most glaring human rights violations in modern Irish history. Over 60 years, lives were shattered, careers were destroyed, and reputations were smeared, all because of draconian laws criminalising love between men. To leave these convictions unaddressed is to leave a stain on Ireland’s conscience.
The promise to quash these convictions was made in 2018, and yet, six years later, it has been kicked into the long grass once again. How long will IHREC expect these men, many of whom are now elderly, to wait for justice? The delay is not just bureaucratic inertia, but an ongoing insult to those who suffered.
It is time the IHREC starts living up to its mandate to defend equality and justice. The next government must be pushed to enact the disregard legislation. Anything less is a disgraceful failure to right the wrongs of the past and an insult to all who have fought and continue to fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Ireland.
I am the 13-year-old disability rights campaigner that met with Taoiseach Simon Harris on August 26 about the national crisis that has thousands of children waiting on the HSE to carry out assessments of needs.
I would describe the Taoiseach as incredibly sincere, highly energetic, and excellent company. Unfortunately, he was unable to meet my ask to stop the HSE breaking the assessments of needs law, which basically says that autistic children like my two brothers must be assessed within six months.
It presently takes several years in most cases.
He hopes to be able to solve this soon, but hope is not a word that provides comfort to any family presently waiting.
If we cannot stop the HSE breaking this law, then we have very little hope of solving issues like the lack of services or inappropriate or no school places.
I have worked so hard on this issue, sitting both the Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert Maths exams while still in national school to raise awareness, visiting Leinster House over 60 times in the last two years, and protesting weekly outside his department since June.
The question I now have for the Government is this — why does a 13-year old have more drive, urgency, and determination to solve this national crisis than they do?
Irish Water was set up by the Government to coordinate the diverse work of all the councils, chiefly to ensure an increase of water supply and disposal of sewerage for the exponentially increasing population of the country, considering that no major storage or disposal area had been constructed since 1926, with the Shannon and Liffey schemes for the ESB nor since 1970 for sewerage treatment.
Irish Water would seem to have prioritised the ‘distribution’ rather than ‘generation’ role, expending considerable resources, breaking down 12in cast-iron pipes and lining them with 9in plastic fillers, which really ought to have been done by councils.
Irish Water now proposes to take around 500 tonnes per day through a 1.6m pipe over a circuitous route, serving only the Dublin region, and estimated to cost up to €10bn, or about 20m/km, way in excess of any other pipe or cable installation, such as the Norway-Ireland undersea link (1m/km) or the France-Ireland undersea cables.
Such an unsustainable drain from the supply canal could result in its collapse and lowering of Lough Derg by 2%, particularly in periods of drought, causing considerable damage to wetlands. The scheme also appears to call for flooding of some of the best land around Kildare and the building of a ‘viaduct’, such structure as not built since the fall of Rome.
It would seem that only ESB Networks are working to regulate the water taken from the Shannon Liffey, among other rivers, and to sustain their environs and wildlife.Therefore, it might be well for the Government to give over the ‘generation’ of water to ESB Networks, which might well coordinate the manner in which the collected water is allocated between electric and consumption ‘generation’, using ‘best practice’, giving priority to the lifeblood needs of the people.
