Ryanair’s pilots are treated like bold infants
‘WE have goodies to discuss with pilots, but if they misbehave that’s the end of discussion.’
One would be forgiven for thinking that ‘goodies’ and ‘misbehave’ are the words of some kindergarten teacher talking about their under four year olds.
But these are in fact the words of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, talking about pilots – his essential employees. With O’Leary’s condescending attitude towards them, zero-hour contracts, paying for their uniforms and training, etc, is it any wonder some are leaving at their first opportunity?
If this is his attitude towards his pilots, one can hardly imagine what he thinks about his passengers.
DENIS DENNEHY, Dublin.
We need answers
THERE must be an inquiry into how ministers and senior civil servants, from 2002, used their powers to decide what to include in the list of homes for the 2002 Redress Act 4.1 and the Caranua fund.
Why was the Bethany Home, which is shown on record to have been one of Ireland’s worst-run children’s homes, excluded from the list that included Ireland’s best and most loved home?
How did the largest mother and baby home, St Patrick’s, manage to be included in 2005, even though for over five years the State and the Catholic Church had been unable to make a case for it to get redress? Why is it that so few survivors from St Patrick’s have made claims? The fact that St Patrick’s was included is on its own enough to include all similar homes.
This would have placed the Bethany Home on the list, but it did not. Why?
The Bethany Home is shown, in documents I have gained using the Freedom of Information Act, to have been a mother and baby home, a maternity hospital, a children’s home, an orphanage, a detention centre and a prison whose inmates included mothers sentenced for infanticide.
Records show that the home had twice as many children as it had mothers – and this is not including the children that were being nursed out at the time. Records, gained under the FOI Act, show that this nursing out system was far from ideal. The prisoners were required to earn their keep with duties that included the care of young children.
The Government has spent more than 18 years using excuses for the exclusion of the Bethany Home from the lists. When their reasons are shown to be incorrect, by the production of documents gained using the FOI Act, they simply carry on as though ignoring the facts will cause them to go away. Why?
The Bethany Home survivors have a stronger case for redress than any other group. They have spent many years researching their case and have a lot of evidence and proof to back up their claims. Why are these claims being ignored? DEREK LINSTER, Rugby, Warwickshire.
Let’s have a real debate
ON THURSDAY night last, I was one of the many who came to hear of some very unhappy stories.
We heard from three brave young women. One did not herself suffer rape but her mother did, and she, the speaker, was thus conceived. She was still a human being, the same as anybody else. The two other persons who spoke did suffer rape, and became pregnant as a result.
In all three cases, a child was born, and was treasured, as any child should be. The children were not treated as if they had something to do with the rape.
All three speakers felt strongly, however, that it was totally unjust that the mother should be pressured into the further trauma of abortion, which could have longlasting effects, and that the child, an innocent victim, should be punished for the sins of the father.
They were brave because they had to re-live, in public, what was an unhappy experience for them, and which few of the public wanted to hear.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, some pro-abortion people did not want the story to be told, or, more likely, to be heard. They apparently brought pressure to bear on two well-known threeand four-star Dublin hotels to cancel bookings already made. The three ladies had then to speak at an open-air square.
This was their ‘reward’ for daring to speak. DONAL O’DRISCOLL, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. THERE is a very disturbing narrative ongoing in the country at the moment. We are being led to believe by certain vocal politicians that a referendum on the 8th Amendment is not just imminent, but certain to pass.
While comments like this make a farce of the Oireachtas Committee, there is a much deeper problem. More and more, we are encouraged to ignore all of the positive things the 8th has done for Ireland. Families who say their children are alive thanks to the 8th are being sidelined in the debate.
This is no way to carry on a debate on such a vital issue. There must be time to discuss all of the issues fairly and in a balanced and respectful way. Otherwise, we cannot consider ourselves as the mature society that is so often vaunted by social commentators. KATHRYN FRENEY,
Balla, Co. Mayo.