Opinion

Flags still flying

Flags are still flying
Flags are still flying Flags are still flying

Schools are back after the long summer holidays and union flags which went up on all electricity and telephone poles before they closed in June are still flying defiantly in Fermanagh.

Alongside these British flags, there are Israeli flags, UDA flags and the Orange Order Flegs. Those villages in Fermanagh which have a majority Orange population are well flagged this summer and autumn  – and who knows maybe into the winter and spring. Why bother taking them down  – ‘sure, isn’t this our own wee country’?

Then we have Lord Kilclooney (formerly John Taylor) who claims that nationalists can never be regarded as equals.

It’s only right that all have equality of opportunity – but never full equality. That just would not be fair because unionists are still in the majority. When unionists start talking like this, all logic and rationality goes out the window.

Fr JOE McVEIGH


Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh

Glad to be leaving the democratic deficit known as the EU

I write, in response, to the letter contained in your letters page, by my former colleague Martin Mansergh – ‘Calls for Republic to tie itself to British coat-tails gaining no traction’ (July 25).

For myself, I have no doubt of Martin’s republican credentials. However, as an Irish man like generations of my family before me, resident in Ulster and, since 1922, that still occupied portion, I voted  in the referendum on membership of the European Union to leave.

The reason for such was that I am a republican. I am also a republican whose third-level education provided me with a good understanding of the shortfalls of the European Union and the disbenefit of membership to ordinary working people and their families, to obviate this disbenefit I voted ‘leave’.

If we believe in equality of persons and promotion of human requirements, presently the greatest barrier to such is that federalesque arrangement based in Brussels. The recent economic crash for which taxpayers are still paying is clear evidence of such. The EU, through directives, forced upon their member states deregulation of financial services which resulted in the greed of bankers and others within these industries to force acceptance of unnecessary lending onto the people. Frankly governments did nothing to warn against this, constrained by Brussels. Subsequent to the crash of an equally deregulated financial market in the US, the EU and their states suffered dreadfully and the bill was passed, unwanted, to the people paying direct and indirect taxes.

In his final line Martin errs in that short of phenomenal change in the thinking of unionists this occupied part of Ireland will leave the EU.


I welcome this and look forward to the economic benefits which shall accrue to the people here. I can only hope the benefits shall be sufficient to persuade the rest of our country to reunite with us and leave the democratic deficit which is the EU.

MARACAS MacAEDHA, LLB (Hons) LLM


Belfast BT6

Journey towards equality has some way to go

In May of this year I applied for one of six posts advertised as part-time human rights commissioners to advise the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. In the prospectus for the posts, the essential required criteria were stated as: first, the ability to build productive and respectful relationships with fellow commissioners and with other stakeholders; secondly, knowledge of human rights law; thirdly, the ability to analyse information and exercise judgment across a wide range of policy and human rights issues and, fourthly, a reputation for personal and professional integrity.

In my application I cited my almost 47 years of experience practising as a solicitor. I also set out my academic qualifications; a Master of Laws degree with Distinction in human rights law. I was also conferred by the Human Rights Commission with a special award for the best dissertation of the year; a Doctorate of Law in human rights law from Queen’s University. In my application I disclosed my membership of Sinn Féin, my involvement in the GAA and in various community groupings.

I did not get past the first stage of the application. When I queried this with the Northern Ireland office which was in charge of assessing applications they furnished me with the comment on my application by three assessors. One said ‘ legal background but no other supporting information’. Another said ‘PhD in Human Rights law – but no other supporting information’. The third said ‘did not address the essential criteria’.

Some 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement, what, I ask, does my experience tell us about the success or otherwise of our journey towards equality for all in the northern state?

PATRICK FAHY


Omagh, Co Tyrone

Yet another historical irony

History is full of ironies, with many examples of politicians acting contrary to what they proclaim to be their core values and beliefs.

A good example is the European (Withdrawal) Bill, which proposes to allow British ministers post-Brexit to change or remove by regulation any piece of EU legislation, instead of by Act of Parliament which of course has to be debated first. These are the so-called Henry VIII powers. Henry VIII once famously boasted ‘of our absolute power we be above the laws’.

They might just as pertinently be called James II powers, since he was the last monarch to insist that he was ‘above the laws’. One of the principal clauses of the 1689 Declaration of Rights by the English Parliament stated that ‘the pretended power of dispensing with the laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, as it has been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal’.

It is ironic that over three centuries later parliament at Westminster seems prepared to go back on that and partially at least to confer such powers on the government.

It is even more ironic that parties which champion several thousand Orange marches each year in celebration of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ are prepared, without even a sham fight, to support a partial restoration of the powers that provoked it in the first place.

MARTIN MANSERGH


Tipperary, Co Tipperary

Diversity by consent

Chair of the Community Relations Council and former member of the Parades Commission, Peter Osborne, stated at the recent Cultural Celebratory event Belfast Mela that “Haters are not going to divide us, and not going to stop the changes taking place in this region”.

I would like to know who he is referring to when he says ‘haters’ and what are the changes taking place he talks about? I presume the region he means is south Belfast, and when he says changes, does he mean diversity?

If he does mean that then diversity should be brought into a community only with local agreement and consent. If they say thanks but no thanks to modernism then that should be respected.

Enforced multiculturalism and diversity is not democratic and is authoritarian.

Some clarity is needed.

M CAIRNS


Belfast BT15