Opinion

No amount of GAA campaigning will remedy PSNI’s situation

Former PSNI constable Peadar Heffron, who lost his leg in a dissident republican car bomb attack, pictured with former GAA player and GAA pundit Joe Brolly. Picture by Presseye/Stephen Hamilton
Former PSNI constable Peadar Heffron, who lost his leg in a dissident republican car bomb attack, pictured with former GAA player and GAA pundit Joe Brolly. Picture by Presseye/Stephen Hamilton Former PSNI constable Peadar Heffron, who lost his leg in a dissident republican car bomb attack, pictured with former GAA player and GAA pundit Joe Brolly. Picture by Presseye/Stephen Hamilton

Former PSNI officer Peadar Heffron’s anger about what he perceives to be a lack of support from his local GAA club is understandable. However, his experience and that of other Catholics who since joining the PSNI have suffered varying levels of distancing  from their nationalist neighbours, raises a fundamental question. This question must be addressed openly and honestly if policing here is to develop normally.

Why do a very substantial majority of the nationalist population still not feel at ease with the PSNI in the same way as other societies inherently relate to? There may be examples of poor and at times arguably partisan policing by the PSNI, but that is not the general experience. By and large, members of the PSNI police in a normal fashion.

The problem they face is that they are not policing a normal society, but instead a still deeply divided one. The promise of the Good Friday Agreement that there would be new political structures in which unionist and nationalist traditions in the north would for the first time since partition be equally respected and valued has, sadly, not been delivered.

The British government has been guilty of flagrantly and repeatedly breaching the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and other agreements for equality and parity of esteem between the nationalist and unionist traditions in the north. The Irish government, a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement has stood by and let this happen.

The consequences of all of this are being felt not just in the fall of the power sharing institutions, but across all of society. The PSNI is a notable casualty. The police service is being used by the British government to play the lead role in trying to block legal efforts by victims of state violence and collusion to find the truth. There are many examples of this, from the recent  refusal of police to continue investigation into the Glenanne murders to their continuing refusal to disclose crucial documentation into the murder of Tyrone councillor Patsy Kelly in 1974. This feeds into a deep lack of trust by nationalists in state agencies generally. In particular, it impacts on nationalist perceptions of the PSNI and on its chance of gaining widespread acceptance. Members of the nationalist community who join the PSNI are among the casualties of this distrust.

No amount of public relations campaigning or  encouragement from the GAA hierarchy will remedy the situation in which the PSNI finds itself. For real progress to happen, people must be able to feel that there has been genuine political change. Only then, will the hopes of people like Peadar Heffron that in joining the PSNI they will be able to provide a valuable community service, while retaining the confidence and friendships of their nationalist neighbours, be realised.

PATRICK FAHY


Omagh, Co Tyrone

Adoption – another way of cherishing children

I see Deputy Kate O’Connell asked recently in an Oireachtas committee: “Are we going into a Handmaid’s Tale situation here, where women in crisis pregnancies will be detained, forced to become parents and used as a source of supply of babies to childless people?”

To imply that someone commenting on the fact that very few babies are placed for adoption is calling for women in crisis pregnancies to be detained is a leap of fantasy rather than logic by Deputy O’Connell. The reality is that, even if a pregnancy was not planned or wanted and she is struggling to deal with a difficult situation, a pregnant woman has already become a parent; she has a child. Both mother and pre-born child, as vulnerable human beings facing an uncertain future, need and deserve protection and care.

Adoptive parents (eligible after arduous checks) are not seeking to ‘use’ mothers in crisis pregnancies for a ‘supply’ of babies as O’Connell implies, but to offer children a home and a chance at life when their natural parents are unable to do so. 

Placing a child for adoption is not an easy process and support and counselling are available for birth parents through this process and beyond. On the other hand, to assume that abortion fixes a crisis as if the child had never existed is to discount the long-lasting emotional suffering of many mothers (and also fathers) after choosing abortion.

Meanwhile, though many prospective adoptive parents are available, the Adoption Authority of Ireland’s records show that on average over the last five years, the number of babies adopted within Ireland every year was just six. 

What if our elected representatives could invest their energy and our resources in better ways to support pregnant mothers in crisis, to address their real challenges and needs in the present and future with care and compassion, but without costing the child’s life?

RUTH FOLEY


Clondalkin, Dublin

Keep tiny hearts beating

As a professor of congenital heart surgery and consultant in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Bristol, I see first-hand how devastating it is for thousands of families who have a child living with congenital heart disease. 

Each year around 4,000 children in the UK are diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and it remains the UK’s most common birth defect, but sadly an estimated 400 of those children won’t survive until school age. 

There are many children with congenital heart disease who face a future of repeated surgeries and many whose hearts have become vulnerable to damage due to hours of being on the operating table. This shouldn’t be the case. Through my research, I am trying to improve surgical techniques and find a way to stop the hearts of babies and children becoming damaged during heart surgery. 

Without funding from the BHF my team and I couldn’t continue our vital work. That’s why I am supporting the BHF’s Christmas Appeal, which aims to raise £750,000. 

We urgently we need to find new ways to increase survival rates and improve the quality of life of children with congenital heart disease. I am encouraging everyone to donate whatever they can to the BHF this Christmas. 

For more information, visit christmas.bhf.org.uk  

Prof Massimo Caputo


University of Bristol

Playing word games

Trevor Ringland’s complex letter (November 9)throws up some important issues. To take some preconditions Mr Ringland writes about “different identities”. He follows this up by seeing “the paramount importance of uniting people”. No issue there. This republican and the party he supports is in favour of these sentiments.

His comments about the loss of unionists from the West bank of the Foyle is my view naive and presumptive. An uncomfortable fact is that many in the unionist family would not have a Catholic or nationalist living beside them. So stop this yarn about Protestants pushing their wheelbarrows over Craigavon Bridge to ‘escape’.

Mr Ringland says he would not feel any place in the type of Ireland Sinn Féin promotes. That is not a concern as far as I can see for republicans who embrace the vision of the unity of Protestant Catholic and dissenter.


So why Mr Ringland do you baulk at such a vision end play around with word games such as middle-ground?

MANUS McDAID


Derry City

Deviating from policy

On reading the acres of news print on the SF gathering in the RDS it is hard for any commentator not to say that unity pervades Sinn Féin like no other party in the world or else they have the tightest lid on what goes on behind closed doors – what happens in committee  stays in committee.

However, there is at least one contrary  voice, maybe two, when it comes to the change of policy on the Eight Amendment. Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín is not happy with the change, he stated that “the right to life was a fundamental right” meaning that Sinn Féin where now deviating from this policy principle. I just wonder when did SF adopt this policy principle, certainly not in the last 40 years of the


IRA campaign. 

PETER McEVOY


Newry, Co Down