Opinion

Green Party is elephant in room in unpredictable chapter in Irish politics

An expected new government in the south, formed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party has opened up an unpredictable chapter in Irish politics as the country faces into the future. A future different to that foreseen at the election in February 2020.

Irish politics in the past has always been a choice between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The paradox of what’s happening now, is that it’s vastly overdue. There is little between them in ideological terms. The concern for the big two and their added partner, the Greens, is that if they fail to deliver they will suffer in any next election.

The elephant in the room is the Green Party, a formally organised political party based on the principles of green politics. They are an all-Ireland party and their representatives in the north of Ireland get to vote on what the party does in Dáil Éireann elections. Some were critical of the negotiations.

They were not yet in government and they were already whinging with each other. Green issues can’t dictate priority in an economy crisis, otherwise we’ll end up living in tents. Do we provide cycle lanes or do we provide hospital beds/homes?

As both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were eager to keep out Sinn Féin. Led by their president, Mary Lou McDonald, they will be the official opposition left-wing party. They will provide an effective and strong left opposition. They will be formidable in opposition and even more credible electoral alternative come the next election. Changing Ireland won’t be easy and their belief that a Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael-led government will delay change. There is an element of impatience with Sinn Féin to make sure that the ship is pointing in the right direction.

As the main opposition party, under Dáil Éireann standing orders, Sinn Féin will have full speaking rights in the government. In past Dáil Éireann sittings they where seen as always sniping at the government benches in an incoherent manner.

When Dáil Éireann next sits it will be for Sinn Féin in a very different place to the one Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin entered in 1997, a lone voice in an often hostile chamber. They have to be mindful the biggest weapon the electorate has in this new era of Irish politics is the mobility of their vote.

JAMES BARRY


Dublin 6

Disabled community has for decades suffered at hands of systemic ableism

We on these islands have become used to the terminology of institutional racism and more recently this has developed into new terminology of systemic racism. In recent weeks this has been supported by mass protests in support of those who suffer at the hands of this identified discrimination. I would like to highlight that we in the disabled community have also suffered for decades in what I shall refer to as systemic ableism, yet we have not seen the same public display of outrage. Many stories of disabled people being abused have also been in the headlines of late and still, the public anger leading to protest is absent. Even when we take to protesting quietly ourselves for something as necessary as basic toilet provision, disabled people are treated akin to second-class citizens by even the most senior of public and private service providers through derisory dismissal. Like other injustices, strides have been made to make improvements, but nothing near enough in getting to the finish line. While not recalling a story of a disabled person losing their life as a result of direct wilful action, I could certainly name instances of death through wilful inaction. Why is it that these issues do not command the same public outrage? I would guess that it is because large numbers of our society are guilty of soft ableism themselves – this being too awful for individuals to contemplate that they may play a part. Whether that be from denying us a space on public transport or access to premises, even opportunities to work for a living.

Too often disability is linked to social welfare as the answer to our needs, which carries its own unique negative stories, when most disabled people would much rather have a better lifestyle, driven through equity to live, work and contribute just as everyone else does. In the effort to end discrimination every section is entitled to benefit from the outcomes and not just a select demographic. It is in that regard that I would sincerely say that all lives matter.

MICHAEL HOLDEN MBE


Downpatrick, Co Down

Competing narratives

How have we ended up with the families whose loved ones were brutally murdered at Loughinisland at odds with the police? They both wanted the same outcome.

As a society we need to take a step back and reflect on how we are dealing with what is now termed as ‘legacy’.

It is so important going forward that we constantly challenge those who use their prejudices to keep us in the trenches of the past. We need to have a better conversation about the competing narratives of our past. The first being of those who feel that violence outside the law was justified and the other of those who oppose that analysis. There’s an increasing sense that victims are being used by some to maintain and widen the trenches rather than to eliminate them.

My proposal of an alternative approach on ‘legacy’ sets out a genuine proposition to try and prevent us passing on the burden of ‘legacy’ to future generations.


If such an alternative cannot be adopted then we will have to deal with ‘legacy’ properly, rather than through the convoluted structures suggested by some and be mature while doing so in working through the consequences. A more honest conversation about the justice which is achievable will hopefully help those who suffered so much find a degree of peace as will a clear commitment by the rest of us to shape relationships in the next century much better than we did in the last.

TREVOR RINGLAND


Holywood, Co Down

Trump looking less and less presidential by the day

Watching President Trump’s return home from Tulsa, Oklahoma on CNN I almost felt sorry for him. His election circus had been an abject humiliation and it showed. Gone was the arrogance, the narcissism and the Mussolini chin-thrust that we have all grown used to. His jacket open and tie undone, he slowly walked across the White House lawn with his head down, alone and dejected.

Never a defeatist he headed off to Arizona with the media in tow, to inspect a section of his ‘beautiful’ wall, for which Mexico has yet to receive an invoice.

Sympathy yes, but then I remembered the pictures of the children in cages, forcefully removed from their immigrant parents on the Mexican border, and Trump’s attempt to deport the undocumented Americans brought to the US as children by their parents fleeing poverty and oppression in their home countries. President Obama had made an Executive Order in 2012 called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), giving some relief to those Americans, which was recently upheld by the US Supreme Court against Trump’s demands for deportation.

President Trump is looking less and less presidential by the day.

EUGENE F PARTE


Belfast BT9