Archive for the ‘Features’ Category
To The Boys Who Carried Out The Ballybrit Mosque Attack
You wish you could waddle
up the Monivea Road like Lord Haw Haw
wearing a scar the length of your jaw
you got fighting communists
but cut yourself shaving once
and didn’t like it.
In the absence of a girl who’ll let
you between her legs
you’d love to invade Russia or Iran
but can’t afford the air fare
so instead smashed some glass.
All you want is a part-time job
in the local concentration camp
but there isn’t one around here
yet, so instead you broke a window
and heroically chucked some books out it.
You once thought of reading a book
to find out why you’re where you are
instead spend the hiatus between
wanks listening to the voices
in the videos on your phone tell you
whose fault your life is.
You needed to be someone
so wrecked a guy’s framed family photographs,
fled sniggering up the hill,
still no one.
KEVIN HIGGINS
Below, a statement dated May 2019 organised by Clare and signed by Irish TDs and Senators calling for respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms in Catalonia.
We the undersigned, as Europeans and Irish parliamentarians, are very concerned at the human rights violations taking place in Catalonia. Two civil society leaders, Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart, have spent the last year in prison detained on “sedition” charges against their right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Their continued detention is a disproportionate restriction on their human rights. As members of the Irish parliament we:
· Call for respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms in Catalonia;
· Condemn the repression suffered by legitimate elected representatives, political representatives of the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia imprisoned or forced into exile due to their opinions while exercising the mandates entrusted to them by the electors;
· Note that this is an attack on established democratic rights and freedoms;
· Call on Ireland and our EU counterparts to do all possible to re-establish conditions for suitable dialogue to find a political solution to a political problem.
Signed:
TDs
Clare Daly TD, Maureen O’Sullivan TD, Mick Wallace TD, Catherine Connolly TD, Joan Collins TD, Thomas Broughan TD, Thomas Pringle TD, Brid Smith TD, Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Gino Kenny TD, Mattie McGrath TD, Michael Fitzmaurice TD, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, Brian Stanley TD, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, David Cullinane TD, Denise Mitchell TD,Dessie Ellis TD, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD, Eoin Ó Broin TD, Gerry Adams TD, Imelda Munster TD, John Brady TD, Jonathan O’Brien TD, Kathleen Funchion TD, Louise O’Reilly TD, Martin Ferris TD, Martin Kenny TD, Mary Lou McDonald TD, Maurice Quinlivan TD, Pat Buckley TD, Pearse Doherty TD, Sean Crowe TD.
Senators
Senator Colette Kelleher, Sen. Grace O’Sullivan, Sen. Fintan Warfield, Sen. Máire Devine, Sen. Niall Ó Donnghaile, Sen. Padraig MacLochlainn, Sen. Paul Gavan, Sen. Rose Conway Walsh. , Sen. David Norris, Sen. Gerard Craughwell.
May 2019
Statement from Clare Daly, TD
It has been brought to my attention that some political opponents have been orchestrating a campaign in an attempt to portray me as anti-vaccine on the basis of Written Questions I’ve tabled to the Minister for Health. For the record and for the avoidance of any doubt, my position on vaccination is as follows:
I have tabled approximately 4,500 quesions since this Dáil convened in 2016, and am one of the top questioners of Ministers in the Dáil on a whole range of topics. For example, I’ve tabled over 40 questions on salmon aquaculture since 2016, 30 or more on seagulls, and 62 questions containing the word ‘prisons’ or ‘prisoners’ (and many more on prison issues in general). In the last two and half months alone, I’ve asked at least 14 questions around foster care and residential services for young people.
I fully support vaccination as an important and hugely valuable public health initiative; myself and my family have received every vaccination going (including the HPV vaccination where applicable). However I also believe that to ensure public confidence in such an important public health initiative that TDs should ensure that the Minister publicly address any concerns people might have in an effort to dispel them. Shutting down debate unfortunately leads to a belief that something is being hidden.
In general, we need better public education with regard to medicine and science, and the best approach possible to public health communication. There must also be a no-fault vaccine damage compensation scheme in place to deal with the tiny minority* of persons who do experience side-effects or harms from vaccines (as happened in the Pandemrix case). Such a scheme is in the current Programme for Government, and was recommended by the Oireachtas Health Committee in 2001. The Vaccine Damage Steering Group re-iterated that recommendation in 2009. The Government has not, to date, acted on this policy, regrettably.
Clare Daly, TD
* Figures from the US no-fault vaccine damage compensation scheme show that for every million vaccine doses eligible for compensation that were distributed between 2006 and 2016, the court compensated one injury victim. Receiving a vaccine is far far less dangerous than staying unvaccinated. The tetanus vaccine, for example, causes a life-threatening allergic reaction in at most 0.0006% of people who get the shot. The U.S. case fatality rate from tetanus, by contrast, is 13.2%.
The forgiveness we received in 1953
bears no comparison to the situation Greece
has put itself in today. Whatever
criticisms might be levelled
at the German governments
of the first half of the last century,
they didn’t waste good money
on crazy schemes to allow
the school caretaker retire at fifty five,
but invested wisely
in long term infrastructure
and engineering projects:
tanks to pacify Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia;
enough gas canisters to almost
carry out their apparently impossible
election promises; V-2 rockets
with ‘England’ written on them.
My predecessor, whatever else
may be said of him, didn’t
squander our nation’s treasure giving
free kebabs and ouzo to officials
of the Ministry of Transport as they woke
from their compulsory afternoon nap,
but shopped around frugally
for enough excellent leather boots
to properly police the streets
of Prague, Cracow, Bucharest, Minsk,
Liege, Amsterdam, Lyon;
after much haggling and complaint
purchased, at ridiculously miniscule prices,
the millions of Stahlhelm helmets
spent in our valiant attempt
to annex the Soviet oilfields in the Caucasus.
Though it didn’t come to exact fruition,
we died trying, and took enough of them with us
to make it almost worth it.
Go cause a nice world war,
my little olive eating friend,
and in its aftermath, we’ll talk.
Play your cards with sufficient insanity,
all across the map, while wearing outfits
of the required eccentricity
and you’ll find our terms
extraordinarily generous.
KEVIN HIGGINS
*term of endearment used to refer to Angela Merkel by her supporters. Means “Mum”.