The People’s Letters Page

Here is this week’s People’s Letters Page…

Dear Editor

I would be grateful if you could permit me the opportunity to let readers of the Dublin People know about a forthcoming virtual conference for people with sight loss and their families.

Most recent statistics show that there are almost 272,000 people living in Ireland with a vision impairment.

It’s been an extremely difficult 18 months for the country, and this has perhaps been even more keenly felt by people with sight loss.

Living with sight loss comes with many challenges.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 has compounded these obstacles, from navigating a socially-distant world, to attending hospital appointments, to accessing public services.

With that in mind, our forthcoming Retina 2021 public engagement day, taking place on Saturday November 6 from 10am to 2pm, will focus on rebuilding resilience and optimism for the future among our community.

There will be presentations on the revolutionary developments taking place to retain and regain sight, as well as motivational talks on developing coping skills to ensure we live our best lives in the face of adversity.

There are indeed many reasons to be hopeful for what the next decade holds and this event aims to shine a spotlight on a very positive and encouraging future.

The conference is being presented virtually and registration is completely free at www.fightingblindness.ie

Your sincerely,

Kevin Whelan
CEO
Fighting Blindness
Dublin 2

Dear Editor.

The late Brendan Kennelly’s poetry explored every conceivable theme, challenging our notions of who or what we are or believe ourselves to be.

Among the subjects he tackled was man’s inhumanity to the creatures of field and forest. This resonated with me because I’m involved in a campaign to protect wildlife.

His poem entitled The Grip evokes the grizzly fate of a badger and dog that cruel men watch ripping each other apart in a meadow.

It lays bare the horrors of badger-baiting and gets to the dark heart of this pastime more incisively than a hundred graphic newspaper reports.

In Killing the Singers he lambasts the gunmen who enjoy blasting songbirds out of the sky.

He fantasies about the slain avians coming back to life and being served a feast made of all the eyes that took aim to shoot them.

He wrote an equally evocative poem about coursing.

It conjures up the festive atmosphere prevailing when a hare runs for its life in front of a cheering crowd.

The fans love the spectacle, failing to identify with the animal’s pitiable plight.

Coursing re-emerges in his epic work The Man Made of Rain, when he contemplates an October sky and “every leaf that flies and falls is a hare’s cry.”

The 18th century Scottish poet Robbie Burns stood up for persecuted wildlife, and in Venus and Adonis Shakespeare empathises with a hunted hare on a hilltop, but I prefer Brendan Kennelly’s lyrical dissecting of what still passes for “sport” in the Irish countryside.

Thanking you,

John Fitzgerald

Dear Editor,

With only two weeks left until the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, emissions reduction has never been higher on the agenda for the maritime industry.

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, recently called the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report “a code red for humanity.”

Shortly after, world leaders received the Call to Action for Shipping Decarbonization, a message from more than 150 industry leaders and organizations urging them to take decisive actions to accelerate the transition to zero emissions shipping.

We stand firmly behind this call to action and urge the whole industry to follow and move rapidly on decarbonization.

The time to act is now.

Our planet is in distress.

International shipping ties the world together.

Our industry carries over 80% of global trade, and trade volume is expected to triple by 2050.

According to the European Environment Agency, shipping is one of the cleanest modes of transport, but as trade grows, shipping emissions continue to increase exceeding one billion tons of CO2 each year.

For every ship we build, every gallon of fuel we burn, and every ton we move – we leave a mark.

To keep the world connected – sustainably – we must reduce our industry’s footprint as fast as possible.

We must change course and steer towards zero emissions. The public demands it, governments demand it, and the future demands it.

Our industry has the skillset to create new solutions and the drive to see them through. Now, we at Yara Marine Technologies reinforce our commitment and stand ready to help the industry achieve the necessary green transition.

If we all work together towards this common goal, we can cut emissions and strengthen the industry at the same time.

Save Our Planet – SOP – is a new distress signal made to highlight our shared urgency, to encourage the maritime industry and all its’ stakeholders to face this challenge without further delay, and to inspire us all to embrace this opportunity for change, collaboration, and innovation.

To state our message, we are reviving the old language of seafaring – the morse code. As sailors once signaled SOS when they found themselves in dire straits, we are now signaling SOP.

We will light the beacon, but we need you to pass it forward. Endorse this movement and help us broadcast SOP by creating your own version of the distress signal, and by using the hashtags #SOP and #SaveOurPlanet.

Together, we can be the change our industry needs, and ensure a healthy planet for future generations.

Sincerely,

Dr. Thomas Koniordos
CEO of Yara Marine Technologies

Dear Editor,

Media reports have said that the woodland site in Taggarstown, Co Kildare being searched for Ireland’s female disappeared is owned by a Kildare based foxhunting club.

Pulling on the location thread links a potential discovery of an act of violence by an evil person with a property that is owned by an organisation that engages in legal animal abuse.

Evil people going about an evil project exist in an ecosystem where an application of violence satisfies an urge to fulfil base needs while listening to a volley of screams and life departing gasps from the victim.

Within this ecosystem we also find animal abusers.

Those people, through legal or illegal avenues, give expression to their desire to inflict pain and death in a prolonged manner on animals.

When social scientists study violent criminals including serial killers a similar pattern emerges.

Before starting the journey to assaulting or killing human beings these criminals victimised animals.

Irish society needs to be alert to the reality that a person who engages in animal cruelty, be it through legal avenues like hunting or shooting or through illegal acts of cruelty, is starting down a path to transferring that desire to hurt onto a human victim.

Not every animal abuser will follow the path from animal abuse to human abuse but the abuse dial is already turned to high.

Hunters are addicted to controlling a situation in which an animal is terrorised and killed.

Compassion infertility renders them incapable of developing respect for life.

The urge to torture and kills animals for fun is no more normal than the desire to inflict physical, mental and sexual abuse on a victim regardless of their gender.

A remote Kildare woodland owned and used by animal hunters may have just added another evil to its silent tree lined glades.

Yours,

John Tierney

Campaigns Director

Association of Hunt Saboteurs

Dublin 1

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to the article in last weeks Northside People, ‘Growing calls for Keegan to resign.’

Since that paper came out we learned that Mr Keegan warned one of his senior officials in DCC that allowing residential development on the Pigeon House site would decrease the value of the land because there would be “pressure” for more social and affordable housing.

If, as it appears, Mr Keegan argued that housing for people should not be built because it would lower the value of land, then it shows the shocking disregard he has for the people who live in this city.

What a sad state of affairs that we have someone leading our local council who has such little compassion and empathy for the less well off citizens of this city.

Your sincerely,

James Carney,

Ashtown,

Dublin 15.