Galway Advertiser 2002/2002_10_17/GA_17102002_E1_022.pdf 

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Letters

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The Treaty of Nice

Letter tells us who really runs Galway
Dear Editor, With reference to Joe O'Neill's letter to your paper on September 26, I would like to make the following observa tions: Having reflected on the letter for over a week I have come to the conclusion that the director of services has done us all a service in clarifying who exactly runs the city and it is certainly not the elected councillors at least inrelationto waste management. Amongst other matters, Mr O'Neill wrote 'some form of thermal treatment is essential'. Let me just point out that in July 2000, the democratical ly elected members of the city council after considering the matter very carefully and take on board the views of the public unanimously rejected the Connacht Waste Management Plan because if provided for thermal treatment. This very unusual unanimous decision of the councillors came about primarily because of all our concerns about the risks posed to citizens' health by thermal treatment and at that time incineration in particular. I should also point out that although we wished to pass the plan minus the inclusion of thermal treatment, we were repeatedly informed by city officials that we could not so alter the plan. In the circumstances we rejected it but com pletely endorsed a programme to minimise andreducewaste of all sorts going to landfill. Despite this democratic decision, the councillors came under sustained pressure to revisit our decision including a legal opinion saying that we had not passed a plan and a strongly worded critical letter from the Department of the Environment. Thus the subject duly appeared on our agenda six months later in February 2001. During the ensuing discussion every single councillor again expressed his/her concerns over the health risks posed by incineration. Yet notwithstanding that not a single shred of extra evidence/information was given to us to show that the health risks which determined our decision on the previ ous occasion had now been somewhat reduced or lessened, the majority of councillors, ie, Fianna Fail and the PDs voted to pass the plan. Significantly in the public gallery on the night was Minister for the Marine Frank Fahey. Notwithstanding the majority vote to pass the plan, such was the ongoing concern of the councillors at the health risks and the more than probable public outcry about accept ing thermal treatment, that Cllr Hanley who proposed the motion also proposed A number of enhancing modifications. These basically prioritised waste reduction and recycling with A request for research on Zero Waste management -- a concept which Cllr Hanley had belatedly come to terms with. Your readers might think quite reasonably that surely that was the end of the matter and that recycling went full steam ahead. Not so, I'm afraid. Approximately six months later in September 2001, the city manager informed us that our deci sion was invalid because although we passed the waste man agement plan and therefore complied with A L our obliga L tions, we were not entitled to enhance the plan. Put simply we could not opt for maximum recycling etc without some form of thermal treatment. So under the new Waste Management Amendment Act 2001 passed in the meantime, the city manager with a stroke of his pen signed a new plan with thermal treatment with no input from the councillors or the public. Given the above brief history it is quite clear now that saying no to incineration was never an option considered by the consultant engineer who drew up the plan nor was it an option that was ever going to be allowed by the officials or Department of the Environment despite the wishes and indeed votes of the democratically elected councillors. In this regard, Mr O'Neill's letter confirms and clarifies what most of us have long known, ie, regardless of the views of the councillors and/or the public, a plan without incineration was never an option. Your readers can decide where that leaves consultation and democracy. Onreflection,perhaps Mr O'Neill and the other directors of services should write more open letters to your paper. In doing so they could provide a useful service in clarifying who exactly runs the city. May I suggest the next letter deals with planning. Yours, Aid Catherine Connolly

O

n Saturday October 19, the Irish electorate will vote for the second time in 16months on whether or not to ratify the Treaty of Nice. If the results of the previous referendum are repeated, the European Union's most ambitious project to date, its enlargement to include 10 member states from eastern and southern Europe by 2004, will be be sent to the scrap yard. The Nice Treaty has to be ratified by all member states if a new voting system is to come into effect. All member states except Ireland have ratified the Treaty. The first Irish referendum in 2001 failed by 54 to 46 per cent. The prospects for the new vote are in doubt, although support is climbing. The latest poll shows 44 per cent likely to say yes, up from 29 percent in September. The Treaty of Nice is about new and more democratic decision-making procedures for an enlarged EU. It's also about hammering out a constitution to define and set out clearly the purposes, principles, and institutions of the EU on a range of issues of broad European concern. One of these is a common defence and security policy, an issue of major importance to that part of the Irish electorate worried about our neutrality.

YES OR NO? DOES IT MATTER?
As the No campaign was successful last time, let's consider the reasons for voting no. First, for many, is Irish neutrality, which allegedly is under threat from the EU plan to create a European army, or, at the least, a so-called rapid reaction force capable of responding to crises such as the one which led to such carnage in former Yugoslavia. There is also enormous suspicion of NATO, established after World War II with the United States, to counter the destructive state militarism of the old European states after the war left the continent in ruins. Opponents of Nice argue that inevitably Ireland will be drawn into NATO and our neutrality will be gone, never to come back. Secondly, there is concern over the bureaucratic centralisation of the EU, its prolifer ating departments and agencies and directives. Allied to this are anxieties over the lack of accountability of the administrative council and commission, the largely figurehead position of EU president, and the relative powerlessness of the European Parliament.Voting yes to Nice will damage Ireland's faltering economy by surrendering domestic control over trade and economic issues to the EU. Thirdly, there is concern in some quarters over the very fact of EU enlargement, that by incorporating the former Soviet-dominated and economically-blighted countries of Eastern Europe, Ireland will not only be obliged to take a smaller piece of the EU pie, but also will be swamped with Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Latvians, and others. Finally, there has been both anger and outrage over the suspicion that the Government won the election this year by keeping shtum about the need for large cuts in public spending, a mood intensified by the damning interim conclusions of the Flood Report. Are these, or any combination of them, sufficient grounds for voting no on Saturday? Take neutrality first. I believe this is an enormous red herring. There is no danger to our neutrality, which the EU council and commission has gone to great lengths to allow for and guarantee. And in the event that the EU should attempt to railroad or blackmail Ireland on this issue, there would be such a hue and cry, both in this country and abroad, that the EU, an organisation born and bred on compromise, would never dare push the matter any futher. But even that is such an unlikely scenario, it falls rather into the category of scare-mongering. For myself, I think the whole concept of Irish neutrality is a cop-out. In the post 9/11 world of international, state-sponsored or stateless, cross-border terrorism, neutrality makes little or no sense. Should we vote no because of bureaucratic centralisation and lack of accountability? This is the one objection that really carries weight, and there is a large body of evidence showing both incompetence and even financial chicanery on the highest levels. But what possible effect can we have on this situation if we reject a treaty motivated by the laudable aim of making the EU more democratic and held to greater accountability? The third reason for rejecting Nice - that we will lose out because other nations, eco nomically primitive, through no fault of their own, compared to Ireland as it is today is shabby and mean-spirited. There is something very distasteful about a country that could not have survived without the safety valve of emigration, nor the financial aid provided by the EEC (now EU), sniffing disdainfully at the prospect of other nations being given the chances we were given. Finally, to reject Nice because Fianna Fail has been shown to be less than honest is simply daft. A mature, responsible electorate cannot make crude revenge a valid reason for casting its vote against the Nice Treaty, or indeed anything else. If the anger and outrage is genuine, then the next General Election is the opportunity for sending a sharp message to Fianna Fail. As the cheeky Young Fine Gael poster puts it, "It's better 2 b inside." A yes vote is the best choice for Ireland.

Knife-wielding maniac
Dear Editor, Last weekend my wife and I were walking through Ballinfoile to visit my son and daughter in-law. We got the shock of our lives when a sports car pulled up beside us with rebel music blasting out of it. The driver stuck his head out of the window and shouted "Come out ye Black and Tans." He then produced a Rambo-style hunting knife, waved it at me and roared "I'll kill ye all," before speeding off. My wife was terrified. There was a blonde woman sitting in the car next to the driver and she was swigging out of what appeared to be a bottle of cider. She laughed through the whole incident and appeared to be encour aging him. The car did a wheel spin as it took off from us and then rear-ended its left wheel into the kerb when it jack-knifed out of control, as the driver tried a similar stunt while turning onto the Headford Road heading towards town. We were too stunned to get the car reg number but the car nearly collided with a blue Golf which had to blow its horn to avoid it. We are appealing to that driver and anyone else who might have witnessed this to reply to this letter with any rele vant information. This jackass needs to be brought to justice before he kills someone. Yours, Angry resident Name and address with editor

Thugs stole disabled man's crutches and laughed
Dear Editor, Last night at approx 10:20 I was driving my taxi on Fr Griffin Road and stopped to let a young man cross the road. He was on crutches and had lost a leg from the knee down. He had difficulty using his crutches and I guessed that he may not have had them for very long. He fell on the road and my passenger and I got out to help him back on his crutches. We were appalled at the laughing and jeering from a gang of youths in the adjacent park. We offered the young man a lift but he declined and proceeded to make his way through the park. We saw some youths approach him and we thought they were friends. We were horrified when we saw them knock this poor defenceless man to the ground and take his crutch es from him and run away with them. We gave chase and were assisted by a hackney driver who came on the scene. Despite all our best efforts we were unable torecoverhis crutches for him. I felt so empty going back to him but got some small comfort from the fact that two real friends were consoling and assisting him. What is Galway and society coming to when people will do some thing like this for a laugh ? Has the current gener ation lost all sense of moral values? Where are we going? Yours, Disgusted Galwegian (Name and address with editor)

BY JEFF O ' C O N N E L L

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