31 July 2008 Edition

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Mála Poist

PSNI and loyalist weapons

I find the comments of PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan shocking and believe it is complete lunacy for a policing service to suggest that it has no desire to seize weapons used by loyalist drugs gangs not only to murder innocent Catholics and Republicans but to maim and murder PSNI officers as was the case in Carrickfergus last year.
Fairplay to Alex Maskey MLA for raising the issue, as God knows there’s still a bullet fired by a weapon from one of these loyalist arms dumps stuck inside him. If the PSNI had implied that they had no interest in seizing IRA arms used to defend Catholic communities, Unionist’s would not only reject the PSNI but would probably want to secede from the United Kingdom for it supporting the “taigs”!
BRIAN Ó hAOLAIN
Portlaoise,
Laois

 

Defence spending

IT annoys me that at a time of great economic uncertainty and a contraction in most people’s living standards, where it leaves a lot of young people on the verge of being homeless due to escalating mortgage repayments etc, a tightening of the belt was Brian Cowen’s advice on what the way forward.
€1 billion of our money is being spent annually on defence spending in a neutral country, and not an enemy in sight. Lucky enough. There is no doubt that this figure would have escalated had the Sarkozy camp succeeded in relation to the recent Lisbon Treaty referendum. We would have been sucked into participating in even more European military manoeuvres.
We have had Irish soldiers receive brainwashing at the Royal Collage of Defence studies in London. The Ranger wing now co-operates with other European special forces, including the SAS.
I do no believe that we want to be part of this money wasting exercise. We do not need expensive missiles and unmanned military surveilence aircraft to save us from the Russians or Chinese or for the Garda to keep tabs on anti-Shell protesters in Mayo.
The Defence Forces has a nice ring to it. The country is being overrun by drug barons, muggers and bank robbers, why not stop the “navel gazing” as Marian Harkin puts it and take the gloves off, put your weaponry to good use and go after these sorts, saving the taxpayer billions in the process. It might be controversial but it would work.
Forget about big boys and their big toys. We’re a small country. Just remind Wild Willie O’Dea the next time he goes to the same armoury sales as the Americans and the Russians.
J WOODS,
Gort a’ Choirce
Dún nGall

 

Government cuts no solution

A Government that got re-elected on the back of claims about its role in the success of the economy must be held accountable when it starts to fall apart.
According to the CSO there was a jump of 17,000 in the numbers of people signing on and the increase of 60,000 over the last 12 months is the biggest on record.
The Government’s solution is to cut expenditure on the public services that their economic policies are forcing more and more people to be increasingly reliant on. It doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t think it will make sense to the electorate next year.
TOM ROGERS 
Roscommon


An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland