Like everyone else, I was appalled by the revelations of Prime Time Investigates on Monday 30 May about the impact of the cuts on disabled people and their carers. So appalled that I felt unable to watch the whole programme. I was distressed by the stories of the parents of a Downs’ Syndrome boy going hungry because the mother’s carer’s allowance was cut by €16 a week; of the woman who had to wait more than a year for an MRI scan leading to her back deteriorating beyond the possibility of operation; and of the mother who had to carry her adolescent son upstairs for a bath – the son’s scoliosis beyond operative repair because the waiting list was simply too long. Continue reading “Crisis racism and ‘cultural circumcision’”
Dear Mr Obama, before your visit to Ireland
Dear Mr Obama
I supported you when you ran against Clinton for the Democratic nomination and when you ran against McCain for president, not merely because it was refreshing to have an African American president, but also because you struck me as bright, progressive, and intent on making the US and the world a better place. I was impressed with your promises to close Guantanamo Bay Cuba, end American involvement in Iraq, and with your apparent determination to bring about a solution to the question of Palestine. Continue reading “Dear Mr Obama, before your visit to Ireland”
Qualified welcome
After the whirlwind election campaign in which equality, immigration or integration did not feature, we have a new government, to which I would like to extend a qualified welcome. Appointing Alan Shatter to Justice was a foregone conclusion. Shatter has a good record of speaking about equality issues while in opposition, but coupling his Justice portfolio with Defence sends the wrong message, at least at the level of public discourse. Justice and Defence wreaks of security, crime prevention, the Gardai, the military forces – all important issues, but say little about equality, which, as Vincent Browne argued in The Irish Times, this Fine Gael-Labour coalition has so far failed to embrace. Continue reading “Qualified welcome”
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