Ignoring the Nice Treaty

[The following letter was submitted to The Sunday Tribune but was not published, pretty much confirmning the writer's point]

Your columnist Stephen Collins (6 May 2001) states that the real problem with the Treaty of Nice debate ``will be getting the public interested in a rational debate on the issues''. I have always believed, perhaps naively, that to get someone interested in a subject you must first tell them about it. Your newspaper and most others seem to operate on a different premise if their non-coverage of the Dáil and Seanad debate on the Treaty of Nice is anything to go by. Apart from a brief report in the Irish Times the debate on Nice was totally ignored by Irish print journalism.

Thus Stephen Collins quotes Brian Cowen's dismissal of Sinn Féin's attitude to the Treaty without actually carrying a syllable of what Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said. Opinion columnists have their place but when your entire coverage of a debate is confined to highly selective quotes to suit the columnists' opinion the danger of misleading is great.

A reasonable and incisive report of the debate would have discerned, for example, the contradictions within the ranks of the pro-Nice TDs. While Brian Cowen asserted that Nice does not affect Irish neutrality, some on the Fine Gael side, such as Deputy Gay Mitchell frankly admitted that it does and called on the government to come clean and admit that neutrality should be finally abandoned.

It has long been clear that the Irish media is more than ever driven by a primarily commercial mentality which patronises its readers at the behest of marketing Ôexperts' who believe they know what Ôpunters' want. This is paralleled remarkably in the attitudes of the dominant political class who consort with the media elite here in the corridors of Leinster House.

What could be more cynical than the comment reported by Stephen Collins from ``one opposition strategist'' who revealed that they wanted the referendum on judges to go ahead so that the ``negative feeling'' of the ``punters'' could be channelled into a No vote on that question rather than on the precious Treaty of Nice?

The best answer to those who regard citizens as Ôpunters' to be hoodwinked in this way is for citizens to Vote No to Nice.

Micheál MacDonncha

Sinn Féin

Leinster House

Dublin 2.

SDLP abandon voters

A Chairde,

In his article in the Irish News on Monday 7 May, Eugene McMenamin of the SDLP attacked Sinn Féin's policy of abstentionism. He accused Sinn Féin of accepting the ``benefits'' of membership of Westminster, without bestowing on its supporters their most basic entitlement to be represented by those whom they had given their votes. The fact that the voters fully understood and agreed with Sinn Féin's policy of abstentionism seems to have escaped Eugene. He also claims Sinn Féin is willing to accept all the perks of office. An office, a telephone - some perks.

The SDLP does not have a policy of abstentionism. It does, however, have an undeclared policy of non-attendance. Its three senior members, John Hume, Séamus Mallon and Eddie McGrady, hold between them no fewer than seven seats spread over three separate institutions; the European Parliament, Westminster and the Norther Assembly. At any given time, four of these seats are vacant because the sitting members are actually sitting somewhere else.

Sinn Féin members are at least honest enough not to accept payment for non-attendance. The SDLP trio, by contrast, draw seven salaries, seven allowances and can look forward to seven pensions, now those really are perks! All of this is a far cry from 1968/69, when John Hume marched behind the then correct banner ÔOne Man, One Vote'. Now he has three votes.

By rejecting Sinn Féin's proposal for a united front to maximise the nationalist vote and defeat anti-agreement unionists, both UUP and DUP, the SDLP is abandoning thousands of nationalists to years of misrepresentation. It would have been more practical if Eugene had tried to persuade his party to consider Sinn Féin's proposal. Incidentally, despite Alex Attwood's jibe about Sinn Féin running scared, it is a matter of public record that Sinn Féin has made the same appeal before Westminster elections since 1983.

If the SDLP refuses to reconsider Sinn Féin's request, then I urge those nationalists who stayed away at the last election to show the SDLP what they think of it by coming out and voting for Sinn Féin in every area. Unity is strength and strength means victory.

I Wilson,

Belfast


A Chairde,

I am currently putting together a collection of republican stamps and labels from the last number of years.

I am particularly interested in labels issued during the Hunger Strike and over prints of postage stamps circa 1922.

This collection will be displayed during the National Stamp Exhibition. Could anyone with information please contact Dermot on 085 7146533 or at [email protected].


Dermot McGuckian

An Unholy Alliance

A Chairde,

``Now you see her; now you don't'' ran the front page of The Sun newspaper of Tuesday 15th last. The reference related to Dr Desmond Connell's reception into the Cardinal ranks of Church/State power in Ireland. On Monday the government hosted a civic reception in Dublin Castle to mark the elevation of a Dublin man to the title of Cardinal, for the first time since the foundation of the State. A photo-finish of first ladies saw Mary Harney and Celia Larkin step in and out of the hostess role in a debacle reminiscent of the antics at Lanigan's Ball. The Taoiseach's partner out of wedlock was relegated to the background, squarely supplanted by the image of the Tánaiste.

A question of legitimacy is directed at the domestic life of the current Taoiseach, in a culture where highly conservative values are dispensed at the joined hands of Church and State. The controversy at the outset, ought to have focused on the question of the legitimacy of the marriage of Church and the State in this country.

Nevertheless, for all the servility to Church and State, sections of the Irish continue to strive after their legitimate identity, pursuing an ancient and compelling ideological quest. The visionary, however, ploughs a lonely furrow. The protocol of silence, anonymity and organised invisibility in Ireland are eloquently illustrated in Celia Larkin's erasure from the door of the State Department on Monday.

The controlling hands of Church and State take poor view of independence of any kind, chastising the rebellious deed in no small measure as evinced in the denial of military funerals to those involved in militant republicanism in Ireland. Government and Church answer the Proclamation's call to ``Cherish the children of the national equally'' by ostracising those born out of wedlock or who die without baptism. Those who gave their lives for their country were similarly condemned and the IRA were told to excommunicate themselves from their own church. The liaison of Church and State threw quicksand along the path of the emergent generations and threw limestone over the bodies of their own people. Silence and invisibility strike at the deepest levels of Irish history.

Ella O' Dwyer

Dublin 8