Looking back to those heady early years of this century after the GFA, we seemed to be moving towards societal norms everywhere else. Friends and relatives from Dublin, London and Belfast would talk knowledgeably and smugly about rising house prices, equity, interest-only loans and flipping. Property was where smart money should be and was literally as safe as houses – that went well. The fact that the only real gains from rising house prices are intergenerational when downsizing crinklies cash in, effectively at the expense of their grandchildren at the bottom of the ladder, was ignored. Politics even in the ‘sick counties’ was not immune to this infection. At an earlier Assembly hiatus Peter Hain creatively bypassed the politicians and provoked the detached and comfortable middle class to force a compromise. Hain hit on a magic if bizarre combination – a threat of water charges, linked to property prices, continued 11-plus torture of our young, plus a few peerages. It all worked with Sinn Féin and the DUP signing the St Andrews agreement.
After St Andrews the comfortable classes retreated again to their cosy lives of affected disinterest. Fifteen years later with an older population, chatter now includes comments such as: “I wouldn’t want to be young, my mortgage is cleared, higher interest rates are good for ISA returns, we are retired with final salary pensions and lastly, we have private health insurance.”
The recent announcement about limits to local medical school numbers should have been a canary in the mineshaft for us all (it takes 15-plus years to become a specialist), but I fear nobody seemed too exercised by the government cap. The NHS has been hollowed out here and nobody seems sufficiently motivated to care, yet. We have a Ryanair model of health provision, and it doesn’t work. As anyone who flew pre-Covid knows well, priority boarding was typically taken up by roughly 160 out of 180 passengers so ‘priority’ with the longer queues was meaningless. Staying with a transport metaphor, health insurance is the same as booking an Uber taxi instead of taking a bus. The problem arises when you get a surge in bookings. Worse still, in medicine the bus driver is moonlighting driving the taxi, so we are all chasing the same number of diminishing drivers. At the risk of being called a cynic, government policy from Brexit (getting rid of all those European doctors and nurses), a tax code which effectively forced the most experienced specialist doctors – curiously not judges – to retire around 60, has worked. Unlike in England, these problems can’t be solved by driving 50 or 60 miles down a motorway to another private facility and so shortages are less obvious in the larger system. One doesn’t need an acute sense of irony or a sense of humour to note that the older citizens rely more on medical services or consider by their past voting behaviour they have supported the creation of this dysfunctional political and social system.
FRANK HENNESSEY
Belfast BT9
Republic now a neglected hinterland
Commemorations of 1916 in the Republic, they seem to never end in glorifying a country which has failed at every level. However, despite all the proud history, what needs to be taken into account is what came out of the 1916 uprising and should be judged accordingly. The country after 26-county independence handed itself over to the then tyrannical Catholic Church and devoted the bulk of government economic interest to agriculture. Michael Collins’s rabble rousing efforts gave birth to a sterile and stillborn Irish state which is now full of dereliction, abandonment and emigration, despite the passage of over 100 years. Outside of Cork and Dublin the Republic is a neglected hinterland full of grassland and rotting cottages and ruins. Republican historians like to glorify their heroes, like Michael Collins, but always seem to refuse to engage in what followed their glorious revolution. The Free State was created in 1922 after Fine Gael had to clean up the mess and division made by Collins, de Valera and others, who were all about revolution and not about administration of a country. From then on, the country went deep into poverty and emigration was rife. Emigration is as much a factor today in the Republic as it was 100 years ago when Collins and his gang were trying to split up the union.
There is nothing short of a mass exodus taking place right now in medical personnel leaving the country and there will hardly be a doctor or nurse anywhere soon in Collins’s Republic if the government doesn’t act soon. Irish independence has been a disaster to the present day and we would have been better off if we had stayed within the union. Michael Collins and the so-called heroes of 1916 delivered what turned out to be an Irish third-world backwater full of administrative malpractice and corruption. Enough of the 1916 commemorations and those who wish to glorify instead of taking a much more critical and objective look at a disaster of a revolution which led to the creation of Northern Ireland and its subsequent Troubles.
MAURICE FITZGERALD
Shanbally, Co Cork
Energy crisis
I need help. Can someone kindly explain to me in plain language why the world is suffering the greatest energy crisis in my long lifetime and the accepted explanation by every government in Europe, of ‘supply and demand’?
In Britain, Ofgem has announced an increase in the ‘price cap’ from £1,971 to £3,549 from October 1 and it would appear that this has been accepted on all sides as inevitable. Not one government has queried why there are still ‘sanctions’ being maintained by the US on the country with the world’s greatest reserves of oil and gas. Has Venezuela invaded its neighbours or threatened to disturb international order? Am I missing something? The supply and demand problem could be solved overnight by an announcement that the sanctions were to be removed and yet not one western government has advocated doing so.
There would appear to be only one explanation for the continuing sanctions – the nationalisation by Venezuela of its oil – which is disadvantageous to the big oil and gas corporations.
Are all western regimes on this side of the Atlantic so supine as to play along with this at the expense of their suffering citizens?
EUGENE F PARTE
Belfast BT9
Returning to school can be anxious time
Many children across Northern Ireland have been feeling excited about going back to school. Yet for some, after many months of disrupted education and a long summer holiday, returning to school can also be an anxious time.
Children might be worried about starting a new school, being bullied or keeping up with schoolwork. Some young people will still be coming to terms with their recent exam results and dealing with the consequences. Whatever the reason children are feeling apprehensive about going back to school, it is important that they can talk to someone about how they feel. Our free Childline service is here for every child and young person and our specially trained counsellors are ready 24/7 to listen to any concerns they may have on 0800 1111 or at www.childline.org.uk.
NSPCC Northern Ireland also offers assistance for adults who are concerned about the return to school or any other issues. Our free NSPCC Helpline provides a place they can get advice and supportor get general information about child protection. Contact 0808 800 5000 or by email at: help@nspcc.org.uk
MAIREAD MONDS
Childline, Northern Ireland
