The way things are going with Brexit and its political uncertainty, will ensure a hard border is a certainty – despite the dogma that there will be “no borders of the past”. If the EU cannot agree a special arrangement with the UK on Northern Ireland, then it is irrational to believe there will not be a border. You cannot be in and out of a customs union and that is where the real problem lies. However, it is possible to trade with the EU economy as the EFTA has done. Looking at things the way they are at the moment, chaos is likely to be the result of Brexit on March 29 2019. If nothing is agreed by that time, then panic will set into the markets and has the potential to do enormous damage. Markets so far have reacted negatively to Brexit, only to subside because of a delay in implementing Brexit. The problem is the markets want assurances and when the 11th hour literally strikes on March 29 with uncertainty, the result will be anything but positive. The consequences for trade on this island will bring about a significant reconfiguration. There will undoubtedly be businesses which will not survive Brexit. The agri-food sector will be hit hardest when Brexit kicks in fully. Massive losses are predicted for the Republic’s market and Northern Ireland. It is already being felt according to a growing number of border retailers. Those on thin margins will be wiped out over night and the Bank of England will be scurrying to prop up Sterling as a freefall situation may occur in the initial weeks of Brexit before markets calm down hopefully. Dare it be said: it might be a good idea to have another go at the Ireland Civic Forum — with the clear understanding that any talk of a united Ireland is off the agenda and strictly excluded from talks? The DUP were concerned there would be a republican agenda at the forum, so it needs to be solidly agreed that there is only one agenda and that is the prosperity of both jurisdictions and to hedge as much as possible for unfavourable fallout. It will also be necessary for the UK and Ireland to stress the need for bilateral talks, notwithstanding the EU’s authority to negotiate on EU matters for Ireland in Brexit. Northern Ireland and the Republic have a lot to lose when Brexit really kicks in. Differential regulations and attenuated logistics will mean that perishable items in the argi-food sector may struggle desperately. It is absolutely impossible to believe that the entire island of the Ireland will not be affected by Brexit.
The British state is expecting big changes, so it will not be business as usual and far from it.
Massive EU regional investment in Northern Ireland will also peter out and end. Let us have another go at the forum for the sake of both economies on the island which are interdependent and supportive of each other.
MAURICE FITZGERALD
Shanbally, Co Cork
Disabled people feel betrayed by half measures
For 11 years disabled people, sick people, wheelchair users regularly sat and stood outside Leinster House in Dublin in cold, freezing weather protesting the government’s unwillingness to ratify the UNCRPD (UN convention on rights for disabled people).
Earlier this month some of us went back to sit in the Dáil gallery to hear Minister of State for Disability Issues Finian McGrath tell us this government would finally ratify the UNCRPD.
But as he did so no mention was noted concerning the ‘Optional Protocol’ (OP).
No agreement to sign up to that even though three years ago the Department of Justice assured us all both would be ratified together.
The OP fell off the table. There was really no intention to give us mechanisms to assert our rights. This government knows our rights are consistently violated – they don’t want the UN to know of it.
The OP is the mechanism by which we can complain to the UN if our human rights are violated under the UNCRPD.
It is our only route out of Ireland to get oversight of disability human rights violations here.
It is hugely important mechanism to safeguard our rights. But this government takes us for fools. Lets us celebrate ratification even though you won’t have a way to complain about your Human Rights violations!
We feel betrayed – shunted into the box of silence.
We won’t have any voice to complain. We are expected to be grateful the UNCRPD will be ratified; expected to pat minister McGrath et all on the back. “oh well done - we are sooooo grateful”.
Dr MARGARET KENNEDY
Wheelchair Rights Ireland,
Greystones, Co Wicklow
Shocking assertions
Anne McCloskey’s letter – ‘Political class using most vulnerable as scapegoats for own failures’ (March 19) – was disingenuous to say the least. She will be well aware that People Before Profit always puts forward a class analysis of why abortion ought to be free, safe and legal.
She should recall us using, in her presence, the phrase “one law for the rich, one law for the poor” in relation to the costs of travel for women from here who want to end an intolerable pregnancy.
As for her allegation that the left “refuse to consider the real lack of choice which many working-class women have”, again, she knows that this is simply not true. People Before Profit has worked with and supported women’s groups and trade unions in organising protests against the two-child policy and other welfare cuts which further constrain the choice for many working-class women when facing an unintended pregnancy.
Interestingly, there was no representation from any of the anti-abortion groups at the protests.
Similarly, Anne McCloskey knows that the campaign for adequate affordable housing – vital for anyone considering bringing another child into this world – has been led by the left.
Perhaps most shocking is her assertion that there are higher rates of “depression, anxiety etc” among women who have had abortions. This is not the case and readers need only google Royal College of Psychiatrists and abortion to read the truth.
People Before Profit believes in equality for all – in housing, childcare, economic issues. And we recognise that women cannot be truly equal until we have the same control over our own bodies as men.
Self-determination – is that not what republicans advocate?
FIONA FERGUSON
People Before Profit
North Belfast
Holding high office is not the only way of measuring human dignity
Former president of Ireland Mary McAleese lambasted the Catholic Church for being an ‘empire of misogyny’ which preaches ‘theology as codology’.
In particular she criticised the way few women were in leadership roles in the Church. She seems to overlook the fact that the Catholic Church herself is female, a mother and a teacher, mater et magistra, both of which are deeply feminine roles.
Throughout history and to this day, there have been towering female role models who have wrought huge changes and reform in the Church, from our own St Bridget to St Teresa of Avila, St Therese of Lisieux, Edith Stein (one of the patron saints of Europe), Mother Theresa of Calcutta and many, many others.
The Catholic Church, with its global mission to empower ordinary people to recognise themselves as God’s children and as such to become aware of their innate dignity, has done more for women [and men] than any other organisation in the world.
Mrs McAleese, who rose to be a head of state herself, ought to admit that the holding of high office is not the chief or only way of measuring human dignity.
Dr OWEN GALLAGHER
Glenavy, Co Antrim
