As the MLA for South Belfast, I am very concerned that Queen’s University is looking to raise tuition fees for undergraduate students by up to £6,300.
I am opposed to this. Higher education should be available to all who want it, regardless of their financial circumstances. Raising fees will simply mean that a university education is unaffordable to many people.
While I appreciate there is a funding gap for our universities which needs to be resolved, there are much better ways of closing this than by placing an increased financial burden on our young people. The Green Party was clear in our assembly manifesto that we are opposed to any tuition fee rise.
Having spoken to the NUS-USI, I know that they have several alternative funding streams to propose, which would keep tuition fees at their current level, or potentially even allow them to be reduced or removed. These options include asking businesses who benefit by employing our highly-skilled graduates to contribute more to the costs of training them, and should be considered by both Queen’s University and the Executive as alternatives to tuition fee rises.
To punish students because of a funding gap of £55m is shameful. I, and the Green Party more widely, will continue to fight any proposals that would do this.
CLARE BAILEY MLA
Green Party, South Belfast
Inauguration of May shows feminism has lost its mandate
Margaret Thatcher was the longest serving elected prime minister of recent times and now for the second time in history we have a female prime minister. Surely the inauguration of Theresa May shows that feminism has lost
its mandate.
Feminist activists argue that although the prime minister is female, women are still under represented overall. However, since Theresa’s cabinet reshuffle women now for the first time in history are holding over half of the ‘great offices of state’ (including herself eight out of 23 positions) which is in contrary biased in favour of women as only 22 per cent of the elected 2015 parliament is made up of women.
It is not just in the cabinet where being biased in favour of women has become commonplace. The gender pay gap is ever narrowing – women in their twenties in fact are earning more than men their age and women in their thirties are close to eclipsing men their age also.
The pay gap is not purely due to women being discriminated against due to their sex; the average age for women to have their first child is 29.8 and this is the reason why after their thirties women earn less. It is not because they have children, but because of the time deducted from being a mother. If a woman had two children in their thirties and took a year off each time, they are two years behind their rival male colleagues and thus to pay them equal would be unfair.
Many female athletes such as Serena and Venus Williams claim to be discriminated against due to not receiving equal pay. However, the reason why men earn more in sports than women is that due to biology men are better athletes.
Paradoxically I can use the Williams sisters as an example to illustrate my point. The Williams sisters in 1998 claimed they could beat any man outside the top 200 in the world, Karsten Braasch (ranked 203rd at the time) challenged them in the Australian open that year. Braasch was described by one journalist as ‘a man whose training regime centred around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple of bottles of ice cold lager’. However, he beat both sisters in straight sets.
Theresa May’s inauguration has caused feminism to lose its mandate, with a higher representation of female cabinet members than those elected in parliament, men are the ones who are being discriminated against. The original female prime minister Margaret Thatcher was no feminist but an advocate of meritocracy – and based upon that alone Serena Williams would be paid less than any man inside the top 200.
With women in charge and over taking men on the pay scale, it is evident that feminism has no place in the UK any longer but perhaps masculism does.
ADAM MAGEE
Belfast BT5
Music playing for old game of Follow My Leader
Faults, slip-ups, elections – at long last the machinery of government seemed to be heading for calmer waters. Then came Brexit.
Suddenly we have found we still have fleas so we get restless and we scratch and this leads us to start pacing our kennel again and voices – long stilled – start to appear out of the mists of time. The music is playing for the old game of Follow my Leader.
The ghost of Bill Craig is one of those standing in the mist and he is beckoning us to consider his familiar thoughts on how we are governed. The prospect of a border poll with consideration of union with the south of Ireland may be anathema to the loyalist people but how about a federal republic of Scotland and northern and southern Ireland?
While our dear leader dances round her handbag up at Stormont and claims she represents us all, and our new prime minister changes her tune and claims there will be no border – how many times do these people think that they can cod us?
Of course there’s going to be a border, if only to differentiate between those ‘in’ and those ‘out’.
This federal republic, however, could carry more clout, with the cooperation of the EU, than the remnants of a once great and mighty UK. After all Mrs Sturgeon has already gone a long way to show that the cracks in the stability of the union are beginning to show.
These thoughts by the way are from a person born many years ago into the Protestant/unionist tradition who has observed with a caustic eye the machinations of government from prior to Captain Terence O’Neill to the present day. As some would say ‘it’s probably just the same old, same old’.
HARRINGTON SMYTHE
Kesh, Co Fermanagh
Nonsense of partition
My new Irish passport arrived this week. The pages in the passport now have images reflecting our Irish culture – our music, poetry, Gaelic games and language are all referenced – things which make me proud to be Irish.
On page three, under a map of the island of Ireland, it states: “It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish nation.’’
I was born on the island of Ireland, however, at the moment, I do not have the same rights as my neighbours in the 26 counties. I am denied the right to vote in the Irish presidential elections. I am denied representation in the Dáil.
So, even though my passport is identical to that issued to a neighbour who lives in Monaghan or Meath, I do not have the same birthrights. One example of the very many nonsenses
of partition.
Cllr STEPHEN McCANN
Sinn Fein, Trillick, Co Tyrone
Dark waters indeed
Mr O’Fiach’s commentary (July 15) is anti-Sinn Féin. This party signed up to the Good Friday Agreement. The IRA supported this. The acceptance by the Republican Movement of the critical matter of difference as evidenced in Ireland and today and matching that reality to action appears to rankle Mr O’Fiach’s critique.
He will emphasise the slowness of the republican process. I’m OK about that.
It is not their fault, in my view of the Republican movement.
The attitude that Mr O’Fiach presents is one that sees republicanism as evidenced by protagonists fighting for a label as opposed to republicans attempting to fulfil the republican ideal by envisioning a commonality of trust and diversity.
The last comment in Mr O’Fiach’s letter about ‘a movement towards a united Ireland will come again’ is at best equivocal.
I mean is he advising them the will of the Irish people will be met by another will. Dark waters indeed.
MANUS McDAID
Derry city
