National Broadband Plan
Sir, – The seven-year, €2.7bn National Broadband Plan will complete next year, months earlier than planned and costing millions less than expected, so long as the current pace of laying fibre is maintained. To keep that pace, the project will need to draw down €80m of next year’s budget during this year. This is not an additional cost as you reported (“National broadband plan to require additional €80m”, Business, February 28th); it is a rescheduling of budgeted payments because the project is moving faster than planned. While it is crucial to publicly scrutinise cost overruns on sheds, walls, and scanners, we could also learn from successful projects. Why is the largest infrastructure project in the state completing early, below budget and with higher-than-expected benefits to the public? Let’s have a public inquiry. I would be happy to testify. – Yours, etc,
OSSIAN SMYTH,
Former minister for communications,
Green Party,
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Suffolk Street,
Dublin 2.
Sir, - You published a letter from me back in 2019 about the National Broadband Plan and satellite broadband which predicted that “unless there is a change of political heart, it is likely that Ireland will be digging up roads and stringing fibre across fields at great cost to taxpayers while satellite constellations are orbiting overhead and offering high-speed broadband services to rural households at competitive rates and at zero cost to the exchequer”.
As indicated in “National Broadband Plan to require additional €80m” (Business, February 28th) the Exchequer has to date expended about a billion euro on the plan. This has resulting in about 115,000 connections at a capital cost averaging about €12,000 per customer. While this cost will fall as more passed premises are signed up, Starlink has by comparison already made over 13,000 connections mainly in rural areas and digital blackspots at no cost to the Exchequer.
While NBP costs will escalate as it moves into ever more rural or remote areas, Starlink will be launching a much more powerful next-generation network and will be joined later in this decade by at least two significant competitors. Surely it is time to execute a plan B for the NBP by embracing the use of satellites to deliver broadband to the most remote corners of its Intervention Area. – Yours etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
Sir, – Across the globe we are seeing a rise in the popularity of far-right political parties and ideology. The most recent election results in the United States and Germany reflect this trend. This rise is facilitated by the targeted use of social media platforms by players with little or no respect for human rights and rule of law. Their ultimate aims are the dismantling of liberal democracy and free speech for personal gain (mostly monetary).
The relentless targeting of minority groups (particularly migrants and members of the LGBTQIA+ communities) is a well-documented strategy. The spreading of lies and disinformation about these groups “others” them within the general population and provokes fear and resentment. The recent flurry of executive orders from the new US administration disproportionately targeted transgender people (one of the most vulnerable minority groups).
“Minority stress” describes the stress and anxiety that minority groups experience mainly due to stigma and discrimination and is the cause of significant physical and mental health and socio-economic disparities. Proactive legislation (e.g. same-sex marriage and gender recognition laws) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes reduce this stress to the benefit of all. It’s no accident that the efforts to dismantle these gains are being spearheaded mainly by privileged, white, cisgender, heterosexual men.
In these times it’s critical that we push back against disinformation and take affirmative action to protect the rights of vulnerable groups and understand the impact that minority stress has on individuals and vulnerable communities. – Yours, etc,
Prof DES CROWLEY,
Dublin 6.
Trump’s America
Sir, – Like many recent commentators, Alanna O’Malley questions our existing military neutrality (“What does the US siding with Russia mean for Irish neutrality?” Opinion, 27th Feb). She also rightly highlights how the United States under the Trump presidency is reshaping the world order. Unfortunately she concludes that, given this new reality, Ireland “must abandon the fallacy that neutrality will isolate us from impending conflict”.
With the arrival of Donald Trump as president, the US is now the biggest threat to our economic interests. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we, along with our EU friends, may face military and other challenges from the Trump administration in the near future.
Given this changing reality, I would prefer to rely on a form of soft (shamrock) diplomacy when it comes to dealing with the growing menace. It might have little chance of success but trying to counter the new world order being created by the world’s most powerful country by dropping our neutrality is naive. It was foolish to think that dropping it could help secure Europe from Russia - it now looks like an increasingly ridiculous and already out of date proposition. Yours, etc,
SEAN KEAVENEY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15
Sir, - When will the pathetic political poodling to Donald Trump by European leaders stop? Obsequious begging for recognition and advantage from an absolute charlatan is the ultimate in self-disgrace. Is there any sense of decency and decorum left in global politics?
An invite from a British king as a bribe to curry favour tells it all. What next? Honorary Irish citizenship for the Don, to ensure the shamrock still blooms in the Oval office? Where has authenticity and ethical morality gone?
An archetypal narcissist who continually insults and berates – is relentlessly bombastic, crude and crass, to say nothing of his fallacious about-turns and core chicanery – is somehow bewilderingly afforded disgraceful dollops of sycophantism, all to squirm some profile advantage. Sick and sad or what?
What grim fate awaits us all, as we witness the tragic sinking of honourable diplomacy in a world of ever mounting greed-borne threats across the spectrum of societal corruption, global inequity, ecological piracy and economic machination?
A world where duplicity thrives and decency dies, it seems. - Yours, etc,
JIM COSGROVE,
Lismore,
Co Waterford.
Sir, - Would there be anyone in the White House with the temerity to confront Donald Trump with this quotation from Six Authors in Search of an Author, by Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello?:
“If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing”. - Yours, etc,
ROGER GREENE,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin
Liquefied natural gas
Sir, - I read your report (“Policy on importing liquefied gas should not be relaxed, warn climate experts”, Home News, February 27th) on a letter from a group of Irish academics who are opposed to the use of liquefied natural fas (“LNG”) on the grounds that “LNG is a severely polluting energy source ... especially when derived from fracked shale gas, due to leaked methane – a potent greenhouse gas – and the energy-intensive nature of its extraction and transportation”.
I wish to point out that we have been importing LNG, much of it from the US, via the Ireland UK Moffat interconnector for many years.
The share of UK imports in our gas mix has been above 60 per cent since 2020 and is currently above 80 per cent. The percentage of LNG in the UK domestic gas mix is above 25 per cent for 2022-2023 and is likely to be even higher in 2024-2025 when the statistics are published.
Of that LNG, over 55 per cent comes from the US (Figures from Digest of UK Energy Statistics on UK Government website). So, by my calculation, approximately 20 per cent of our gas consumption in 2023 was from LNG, of which more than half was from US LNG.
We can argue about the merits of importing LNG. I agree that local indigenous natural gas such as that from Corrib has less embedded CO2 emissions and is much preferable to imported LNG. In fact, this is a strong argument in support of encouraging more local gas exploration and development.
But we cannot argue that we should not be importing LNG. We are already relying on it as part of our dependence on gas imports from the UK and have been for many years. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó CATHÁIN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
Eclipse the wonder horse
Sir, – In an interesting piece on the 18th-century racehorse Eclipse (An Irishman’s Diary, February 27th), Frank McNally references the great Irish steeplechaser Arkle as being “bought by British royalty”. Not so.
Arkle was purchased at Goffs Bloodstock Sales at Ballsbridge in August 1960 for 1,150 guineas by racehorse trainer Tom Dreaper on behalf of Anne, Duchess of Westminster, the former Anne Winifred Sullivan, of Glanmire House, Co Cork, popularly known to her Irish friends by the childhood name of Nancy.
Nancy Sullivan was the fourth and last wife of the colourful Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, who died in 1953. She survived him by 50 years, dividing her time between her Scottish and Cheshire estates and her Irish home at Bryanstown, near Maynooth, where Arkle spent his summer holidays during his racing days, often ridden by his owner, an accomplished horsewoman in Co Cork in her youth. – Yours, etc,
ALAN SWEETMAN,
Ovoca Road,
Dublin 8.
Demand for ADHD medication
Sir, - “For neither is there a comprehensive nationwide, rationally controlled and operated coherent system of care-delivery despite recent policy documents in both cases. What does exist is a ramshackle, ad hoc jumble of poorly-oriented inputs without an overall policy objective or planned programme approach. Unfortunately, all this rebounds on the psychiatric service so that, as a general catchall for fringe medical and social problems, psychiatry has taken up the slack.”
This is not a recent assessment of ADHD services noted in your front page article (”Demand for ADHD medication surges by 87%” February, 28th), as having a “tsunami” of demand, overwhelming services.
They are the words of Dr Dermot Walsh on the state of services for the elderly and the intellectually disabled in Ireland in 1991.
Despite history and warnings, we are on the ramshackle, ad hoc route, failing to serve adults with ADHD, and overwhelming already under-resourced services for people with schizophrenia, mood and personality disorders.
A comprehensive service for adults with adult ADHD should be funded and operated separately from general psychiatric services. - Yours, etc,
Dr DECLAN MURRAY
Portmarnock,
Co Dublin.
Neutrality in a changing world
Sir, - Echoing Ursula von der Leyen’s statement that Ukraine deserves “peace through strength”, Micheál Martin also tells us that “peace can only be achieved through strength”. Strength has nothing to do with peace. Given Ms von der Leyen’s reputation and her track record, we must assume that when she uses the term “strength” she actually means “military strength”. As Mr Martin is seemingly being influenced on these matters by foreign leaders, we must assume that he too means “military strength”. Military strength has nothing to do with peace.
Ireland must show true “strength” in its adherence to the spirit of Article 29 of our Constitution, which affirms our “adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration” – peace is achieved through real communication and dialogue. Military interventions have nothing to do with it. - Yours, etc,
ELIZABETH CULLEN,
Kilcullen,
Co Kildare.
Pairing arrangements
Sir, - Why are members of the Government so upset at the Opposition for withdrawing pairing arrangements? Surely the Government could come to a pairing arrangement with Michael Lowry and the other members of Lowry’s “opposition” group. - Yours, etc,
SEAMUS KELLY,
Carrick Road,
Dundalk,
Co Louth.
The Occupied Territories Bill
Sir, - In January 2018, the Occupied Territories Bill was tabled in the Oireachtas by Independent Senator Frances Black, arguing for a ban on the import of any and all goods produced in the Israeli-occupied territories. Just over seven years later, the Bill seems to be going nowhere.
The latest obstacle seems to lie with possible conflicts with EU legislation. Whether one agrees with the Bill or not, a big problem with its lack of progress is the fact that nobody seems to know what the “goods” are that we are asked to boycott. What exactly is produced in these illegal settlements that we must avoid? A list of examples would help. - Yours, etc,
JOE McMINN,
Victoria Gardens,
Belfast,
Co Antrim.
‘The guy who runs a restaurant’
Sir, - In Ciaran Hancock’s piece “New owners of McSorley’s looking to take over restaurant” (Business, February 27th), Noel Anderson, McSorley’s new owner, is quoted as saying: “We’ve just done a deal with the guy who runs a restaurant upstairs,”
The “guy” referenced happens to be Kevin McMahon, the passionate proprietor of the Wild Goose, one of Dublin’s top restaurants with a superb reputation ever since it opened in Ranelagh in 2008. - Yours, etc,
GERRY CROSBIE,
The Sweepstakes,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4.
