Without our brave gardaí we have no society at all
LAST Thursday was a very sad day for the family of Detective Garda Colm Horkan, his wide circle of friends, the communities where he served and indeed for all of us even if we didn’t know him. It was especially tragic for the people of north Roscommon, coming almost exactly 40 years since Detective Garda John Morley and Garda Henry Byrne were murdered in the course of their work in that very same area.
An Garda Síochána are the people tasked with the job of protecting us so we can get on with our lives without fear. Generally, we don’t notice their presence as they carry out their duties because they are such an integral part of our society. In fact, it is sometimes their perceived lack of presence that we might pick up on. They are the people we turn to if we feel in danger.
As someone who knew Garda Colm Horkan said on TV during the week, we would have no society without An Garda Síochána.
TOMMY RODDY, Co. Galway.
Stop this interference
CLARE Bailey, Green Party MLA in Northern Ireland, has pleaded for her domestic party voters to go against the Republic’s proposed Programme for Government.
Southern Irish citizens living abroad do not even have a postal vote in Dáil elections, yet Ms Bailey, as part of a British administration, sees herself as being in a prime position to put a stop to our gallop down here?
We are an island of two nations, with differing systems of national government pertaining exclusively to each government, separately. The Northern Greens wishing to have a say in how their comrades who vote south for the Republic’s government are delusional in their naivety. We are separate in both parts of the political divide, starting and ending with our ballot box contributions. ROBERT SULLIVAN, Bantry, Co. Cork.
Follow NZ example
IRELAND is a very similar country to New Zealand with an almost identical population and similar climate. Can anyone explain why this almost identical country has eliminated the coronavirus and returned to normal living, whereas we keep discussing the easing of lockdown and the maintenance of social distancing?
We have no idea as to how our children can go back to school/college or practice vital social norms such as play or routine social interactions. A Mail letter writer put it very well last Friday when he stated that you can have a normal society/economy or you can have social distancing, but you cannot have both.
This is a fundamental issue that does not get discussed on RTÉ or any other mainstream media station. The virus came to Ireland and New Zealand on a plane/boat. This is not a hypothesis but a statement of fact. To keep the virus out we must refuse entry to this country to everyone but for essential travel purposes such as health, temporary key skilled staff, studying abroad, etc.
Strict controls must be in place to monitor those entering the country. Only key people and Irish citizens should be allowed in but with strict monitoring and quarantine rules following entry. In short, follow what New Zealand has done and eliminate the virus from these shores. This is our only hope for returning to normal living until a treatment is found.
The solution is already available, we just need to follow the example of New Zealand. What does anyone expect to happen when we open up the economy again with thousands of people leaving and then coming into Ireland each day? This Government lacks basic common sense. You do not need to be an epidemiologist to understand how the virus got into this country. We need to prevent this happening again and the dreaded ‘second wave’.
JOHN FOLAN, Galway.
Let’s push for peace
EDWARD Horgan is right to see Ireland’s election to the UN Security Council as both an achievement and a challenge (Mail Letters, June 19). Our previous tenure was surely a lost opportunity.
The council’s resolutions following the September 11 atrocity – preparing war in Afghanistan and presaging that in Iraq – spoke ceaselessly of a ‘terrorism’ which, however, was neither defined nor analysed. Did our representatives offer any perspectives from our own peace process? Did they even hint that grasping where atrocities come from, along with intelligent police action and a patient readiness to talk, in no way endorses and might more effectively confront them?
Even today such insights are only dimly grasped vis-à-vis Afghanistan and Iraq, whose wars former President Mary Robinson has called ‘really very damaging’. Will our representatives on the Security Council point out how the ‘War on Terror’ has aggravated conflict and resentment, taken a dreadful toll of lives and vital resources, and further damaged our fragile ecology?
This would reflect the valuable work being done by Irish Aid, NGOs and others on many aspects of peace and development. It would also retrieve our constitutional commitments to the pacific settlement of international disputes, and the recognised principles of international law. Will we have the courage to affirm these in the UN and the EU – or are they for home consumption only?
JOHN MAGUIRE, Dublin 4.