Showing posts with label Letter to Irish Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Letter to Irish Times. Show all posts
Mike Burke ✍ Here are two Letters to the Editor that I’ve submitted to The Irish Times. 

The first after reading the recent pieces by Mark Hennessy and Newton Emerson, the second after reading the next day an editorial on the same topic. I don’t know if The Irish Times will publish the letters.

7 March

Mark Hennessy’s egregious misinterpretation of the position of Ireland’s Future (Common Ground, March 7th) allows him to draw a completely false comparison in which the SDLP values reconciliation while Ireland’s Future does not. Newton Emerson’s repetition of the error (Opinion, March 7th) compounds the confusion about the position of Ireland’s Future.

Ireland’s Future argues, quite correctly, that imposing reconciliation as a precondition to the holding of a border poll is a violation of the Good Friday Agreement. The SDLP actually agrees with this position, as the party reiterated in its rejection of Seamus Mallon’s attempt to use the narrative of reconciliation to insert a unionist veto over the process of constitutional change.

The SDLP’s New Ireland Commission argues, as Mr Hennessy points out, that “the only path to uniting the people of this island is through the spirit of partnership, co-operation and reconciliation”. Ireland’s Future actually agrees with this position, as anyone even remotely familiar with its numerous documents can attest. Indeed, no one in Ireland’s Future suggests the opposite—that the path to unity is built on the spirit of unilateralism, belligerence and disharmony.

9 March

On three occasions in two days, the Irish Times grossly distorted the position of Ireland’s Future on the issue of reconciliation. Your readers deserve to know what Ireland’s Future actually said about reconciliation so that they may judge the full extent of your distortion.

On page 6 of their latest report (Ireland 2030), Ireland’s Future says:

There must be no preconditions imposed that infringe what has been negotiated and agreed on the right of self-determination. The constitutional compromise of 1998 is fundamental. The content of the Agreement already provides a significant limitation on the exercise of the right of self-determination and neglecting this basic fact is a serious mistake. There is, for example, no requirement to achieve ‘reconciliation’ (however this concept is defined) in advance of a referendum being held and our view is that any such objective will only follow the transition to new constitutional arrangements on our shared island. Reunification is a reconciliation project.

The first point to note is that this statement consists of only five sentences in a report containing some 200 sentences. There are many other reports containing thousands of additional sentences. I don’t see how the Irish Times can conjure Ireland’s Future’s definitive position on reconciliation from such meagre evidence. Then, of course, there is the question of distortion.

Newton Emerson (Opinion, 7 March) contends that Ireland’s Future is belligerent in “its downplaying of reconciliation”. Mark Hennessy (Ireland, 7 March) suggests that the approach of Ireland’s Future is not based on “the spirit of partnership, co-operation and reconciliation”. The Irish Times editorial (Opinion, 8 March) says that Ireland’s Future believes “reconciliation need only come after” Irish unity wins a border poll. None of these assertions is accurate.

The Irish Times somehow misses Ireland’s Future’s principal and entirely correct point—imposing the achievement of reconciliation as a precondition to holding a border poll violates the Good Friday Agreement. This imposition would, by the way, rule out any prospect of a united Ireland, and it is understandable that Ireland’s Future would oppose such a move.

Ireland’s Future is neither belligerently downplaying reconciliation nor rejecting the spirit of partnership and co-operation. It is not delaying reconciliation until after a referendum. Like many advocates of Irish unity, Ireland’s Future believes that a reunification campaign can facilitate reconciliation and that reconciliation can be achieved under Irish sovereignty. The Irish Times may judge that this belief is wishful thinking, but it is fully consistent with the overwhelming historical and contemporaneous evidence that reconciliation has not been achieved under British sovereignty.

If The Irish Times wishes to bolster Micheál Martin’s approach to constitutional change and the SDLP’s New Ireland Commission at the expense of Ireland’s Future, it should at least give a fair and reasonable account of what Ireland’s Future says.

⏮ Mike Burke has lectured in Politics and Public Administration in Canada for over 30 years.

The Irish Times Versus Ireland’s Future

Christy Walsh 🗞 writing to the Irish Times on the Family and care referendum.

Dear Editor,

Re: the letter from 13 Constitutional and Family lawyers (2 March). In brief, they are wrong.

The term 'durable relationship' is inclusive and not exclusive. A YES vote would legalise polygamy. The proposed change of Article 41.1.1 reads: "The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships . . . "

If the proposed change is adopted, and if challenged, the Courts could only consider if polygamous relationships (including marriages) can be 'durable relationships' as would then be permitted under the amended Constitutional Article.

It is wrong and misleading if the legal professionals who signed the letter are asserting that polygamous relationships cannot be durable, including within marriages.

Yours sincerely

John Christopher Walsh

⏩ Christy Walsh was stitched up by the British Ministry of Defence in a no jury trial and spent many years in prison as a result.

They Are Wrong

Mike Burke  🖃  Irish Times, 6-September-2022.

Sir, – Oran Doyle (“Addressing the question of unity”, Books, September 3rd) supports simultaneous reunification referendums in the North and South. He also recommends that the referendums address two questions: the principle of reunification and the model of a united Ireland. On the latter point, he notes that the “terms of unification must be fixed before the referendum in the North” and that “voters at any unification referendum should be presented with a model of a united Ireland, worked out to the maximal extent possible”.

The idea that border polls are votes on the detailed model of a united Ireland was first broached by the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland, of which Prof Doyle was a member. The working group’s interim report (November 2020) and final report (May 2021) identified a variant of the “model approach” as one of its three favoured referendum configurations. According to Prof Doyle, the model of a united Ireland that is on the referendum ballots will address, among other things, “issues of identity, constitutional structure, social and economic policy and public administration.”

The model approach has two glaring problems, which neither Prof Doyle nor the working group satisfactorily address. First, it violates the Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement effectively says, and all its predecessor documents presume, that referendums are on the principle of reunification. There is not a hint anywhere that border polls are about detailed models. Second, the model approach bestows a comprehensive veto on the North – the national symbols of a united Ireland and its constitutional form, political structures and policy directions cannot be set without the agreement of the North. Prof Doyle and the working group conjure the model approach out of thin air. The Irish people, not a collection of academics, should decide whether to grant the North a powerful veto over the form and content of a united Ireland.

There are different ways to ensure that referendum voters are informed of the choice on offer – the Scottish example comes to mind – without violating the Belfast Agreement and usurping the people’s right to set the terms and conditions of their governance. – Yours, etc,

Mike Burke 
Toronto, Canada.

⏮ Mike Burke has lectured in Politics and Public Administration in Canada for over 30 years.

The Question Of Irish Unity ✑ A Basic Proposal Or A Detailed Model?