Galway Advertiser 1997/1997_05_01/GA_01051997_E1_054.pdf 

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C o m m e n t & Letters

Big Brother ( a n d the b a r m a n ) are watching y o u

Stop the concrete madness
Dear Editor, Children are writing poetry about it, people are screaming about it, and yet nobody is big enough and bold enough to say Stop - Stop this concrete madness! As we head into the election, green space should be Galway's No 1 priority before we make Galway into a concrete jungle. As I read holiday literature from different countries, it is filled with references to their beautiful parks and open spaces. Meanwhile, we in Galway shift the garden furni ture in our postage stamp of a park in Eyre Square. It's time for the people of Galway to say, 'This is not enough". Compulsory purchase orders seem readily available when it comes to road building or so called 'development'. It's about time our public representative realised that the one thing that will benefit all the people of Galway is a city park. There is a tract of land on the Headford Road which should be purchased by the Corporation to atone for our beloved Long Walk, the Dominick Street debacle, and the apartment mania that seems to have taken over Galway. Give us a city park now! Merlin Park should also be retained as the city stretches out to Oranmore. We are all to blame for letting Galway degenerate to this level, but it is never too late. Press your local representa tive for a city park now. Ask our city manager what is on offer. Find a tract of land for a park. Become active and a caretaker for our city, or nobody else will. Yours in h o p e , Maggie Walsh 12, S a n d y v a l e L a w n , Headford Road.

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o m e t i m e s a p h r a s e o r a title from a book s u m s up so perfectly a shared m o o d o r anxiety that it b e c o m e s part of the ordinary language on people's lips a n d becomes an i m m e d i a t e l y u n d e r s t o o d catch-phrase in the newspa p e r s they r e a d , even t h o u g h they m a y have no idea where it originally came from. 'Big B r o t h e r is w a t c h i n g y o u ' , from G e o r g e Orwell's novel 1984, is a perfect example of this. For people who may never have opened a page of that book, or, it may be, have never heard of either the novel or its author, i t ' s meaning is clear: those with more power and more access to power than do we are spying on us. And most of us instinctively reject any proposal that our privacy should be so invaded, whether by way of elec tronic technology or through the more personal methods of spying used by that tradi tional figure of contempt in Ireland - the informer. Crime-prevention is one of the areas that increasingly makes use of methods of high tech surveillance that arouse very ambivalent feelings among even the law-abiding public. Most of us feel that there are already too many areas in which our privacy has been invaded and, as some people know to their cost, compromised. That's the high-tech approach, but low-tech surveillance methods are also alive and well, typified by the neighbour, with an address somewhere in the Valley of Squinting Windows, reporting how suspiciously early their neighbour on the dole leaves home in the morning, and how late he arrives home in the evening. The Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), in association with An Garda Siochana, this week launched in Galway a new nation-wide Drug Awareness Campaign aimed at educating both publicans and the general public about the drug problem and, to quote from the press release, "the most effective means of reporting drug dealing activity". VFI president Paul O'Grady correctly pointed out that, especially in the country, the publican shares with the postman, the physician, the policeman and the priest, the dis tinction of being "the eyes and ears of community life", adding that both publicans and customers should be encouraged "to be vigilant and to report anything which looks suspicious or odd to them". A more promising method of dealing with criminal activity, especially in public places, is surveillance camera, which would act. First, as a deterrent and, second, as an effective means of catching and arresting criminals. Surveillance cameras have been used with dramatic effect in the horrific case of Jamie Bolger, whose assailants were dentified by their recorded images, and in the sickening case of the Austrian tourist attacked and raped by a gang of young assailants, also recognised on camera. How about pubs? Provided it is made clear that security cameras are operating, if you have nothing to hide, why should you be concerned you're being videoed? We might have to just accept that, where criminal activity is a serious and significant problem privacy rights might have to be restricted. The Vintners Association of Ireland is taking a responsible attitude to an escalating problem that its members are having to confront more and more. However, the under standable desire to deal with the menace of drugs should not result in hasty and poten tially disastrous responses. It is asking far too much of publicans and customers that they become part-lime undercover agents as well. Yet when pubs have been repeatedly shown to be places where drug deals are done, perhaps the camera eye could be made to do the job, and do it even more effectively because impersonally. The Galway Advertiser applauds the serious and responsible manner in which this problem has been raised by the VFI. But we would ask them to reconsider the directives they have given their members before one suffers as a con sequence.

Padraig Pearse w o u l d weep
Dear Editor, I was waiting to write this letter when the rage had subsided follow ing a whole year of early morning trauma trying to get to work in Galway. While I was in sympathy with cars pouring down from the Clybaun Road each morning at the crucial time, 8.30am - 8.45am, I felt that it affected all areas west of Taylor's Hill - Spiddal, Barna and Furbo commuters in particular. One feels that higher executive earn ers in local government and state bodies are given hefty salaries because they have actuarial forecasts to make, projections for 2 0 to 25 years ahead, concerning traffic growth and, generally, do the think ing for the ordinary man in the street. The Bothar Cois Fharraige should be maintained as a Bothar Cois Fharraige for lovers of Connemara, tourists and local residents. Every second, cars and commercial vehicles trundle through the village of Barna at twice the 30mph limit. For myself, I find it difficult to cross the road to walk to Barna Pier, and this is just April. The harassment, the traffic proces sion at early morning, shattering of peace in the area, the accidents and the gradual build up of the prome nade traffic, which seemed a fair alternative e route to work (but no longer is) all have the potential to ruin our peace of mind in 1997 as well. Padraig Pearse would weep! Barna Resident

Preservation of woodland at Murrough to the east of Renmore
Dear Editor, It is well documented that forested and woodland areas forming the south eastern hinterland and shoreline of Renmore are rich in wildlife. In fact it has been abundant ly evident, with many sightings of foxes, cubs and birdlife. Such forested areas form part of a valuable ecosystem which complements suburban life and distinguishes an area, making it an attractive place to live. Currently housing and building plans are at an advanced stage in the area in question. Already an abundant vegeta tion has been ravaged. Many ash trees have been destroyed and mature hazel, beech and hawthorn are cur rently under threat. This association places on record that building and the extension of existing estates is both necessary and inevitable. But it also places on record that preparation for site development in this instance was carried out with almost unholy haste, which might even suggest wanton abandonment, resulting in unnecessary damage to trees and wildlife. A cornerstone of the policy of the Renmore Residents' Association has been the realisation of the environmental value of trees. A tree planting programme has been in operation since the association's inception. Its planting and replacement programme is on-going. Being totally committed to this policy, the association would be failing in its duty if it stood idly by and witnessed the destruction of mature plantations. The Brady, Shipman & Martin Report of 1985 entitled 'The Ecology of Renmore & Mervue' highlighted the value of these plantations. It catalogued the variety and abundance of species and urged that they be incorporated into any future development with the minimum of distur bance. It is our view, and the view of expert opinion which we have received, that this development can take place with out further destruction. An appreciation of trees and their valuable contribution to an ecological balance is more important now than at any time in the past. Economic progress can easily jeopardise their existence. The area forms part of a vast valuable treasure which we must protect, a natural legacy which is our responsibility to pass on to the next generation. Norbert Sheerin Public Relations Officer, Renmore Residents' Association.

W i l l a Labour victory be any good for Ireland?

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nless the pollsters have erred on a scale that makes their forecast of the last L a b o u r 'victory' in 1992 look like a minor and entirely forgiveable blip, Tony Blair will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his party, the delightfully renamed 'New' Labour, will be filling the positions of government occupied for an incredible 18 years by members of the Conservative Party. Is this good or had news for Ireland, north and south? Instinctively, many people, who bristle at the sound of die 'plummy' voice associat ed with the caricature Tory, will probably feel that it will be good news. Margaret Thatcher was a Tory, and she had no understanding of Ireland. Major, they will say, bowed to pressure from the Unionists. Surely Blair, a bright, pragmatic politician will enter the area of Northern Ireland politics with a fresh approach and an open mind? Unfortunately, the record of the Labour Government when it comes to Northern Ireland does not inspire much confidence. The most humiliating capitulation by any British Government to the tactics of intimidation occurred on May 29, 1974, one day after the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, the first genuninely democratic assembly elected in the Six Counties, when extremist Protestants managed to shut down the Northern stale more effectively than any IRA campaign has ever done. It was the Labour Government of Harold Wilson that failed utterly to confront this assault on democracy. By contrast, it was the Tory Margaret Thatcher who signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, one of the most significant intergovernmental initiative of the entire peri od of 'The Troubles', and it was the Tory John Major who showed more flexibility and willingness to enter into dialogue with Sinn Fein and the IRA than any Prime Minister in recent years. Of course criticisms can be made of the conditions laid down, of the delay in the start of the talks. But can anyone seriously doubt that Major, one of the few politicians to whom the words 'decent' and 'honest' can be applied WITHOUT ism, was making a sincere effort to find a way through the morass?

Why Kennedy on theatre poster?
Dear Editor, Maybe I'm just too ignorant to get the connection, but would someone explain to me why a poster, hanging all over town, advertising Blue Raincoat's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Town Hall Theatre, carries a famous photograph of John F Kennedy instead of, say, a fat man wearing an asses' jhead. or a couple of fairies? There must be some deep and profound symbolic meaning that I'm missing, but. in any case. I find it personally rather offensive that the photograph of someone most Irish people and very many Americans think of as a great man is being used to advertise a play, even if it is by Shakespeare. Deeply Puzzled

THIS W E E K . . .