Articles in the Comment Category

The decline and fall of the furniture manufacturing sector in Co Monaghan forms a sobering case study for those seeking to understand the human impact of the globalising trends that shape modern economies. Over many decades, reaching a halcyon point in the 1980s, the sector was the pride of Co Monaghan enterprise, a vigorous source of employment and an export flagship – until irresistible international market forces reduced it to its modern state where large-scale production has ended and the remaining manufacturers have downsized considerably and are battling to ...

The Irish are an innately altruistic people – our collective consciousness, forged by a history encompassing struggle, oppression, privation, hunger and exodus, makes us peculiarly sensitive to suffering and need in our midst and at more distant removes. Our record of response to international emergencies is exceptional – we contribute conspicuously for our size when appeals are made such as those currently being enacted to provide relief to the victims of the devastating climatic events in the Philippines or the appalling internecine conflict in Syria. In the global ...

It was clear from the presentation made by Senior Engineer Con McCrossan to Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council (see story, page one) that the delivery of a fundamental requirement of society, namely water and sewerage provision, is set to undergo a quite radical transformation in this country. The coming into being of Irish Water on January 1 2014, and the assumption by it of responsibilities in these areas traditionally discharged by the country’s local authorities, will impact on some way or other on every household and business in ...

Medical and social problems stemming from alcohol abuse have scourged this country for decades, and their alleviation has been the subject of much public discussion and a series of varyingly successful initiatives by healthcare agencies and interests. Particular concern has manifested in the last number of years about the prevalence of immoderate drinking habits among young people. We have been shaken out of some of our customary ambivalence about the role drink plays in Irish society by the extent of this particular dimension of the problem, illustrated by ...

Some sense of the practical outworking of the changes in how local government services are to be delivered in this country from the middle of next year emerged at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council. A presentation from Director of Services Paul Clifford explained how local government is likely to work when Town Councils vanish and are replaced by the new Co Council/Municipal District structure – and a lengthy debate on the pros and cons of the new structures was engaged in by the elected members of the authority. ...

Bruising Budgets are nothing new for the people of Ireland to have to bear, and Tuesday’s package of announcements by the Government continued the pattern of burden set by the six predecessors to have been similarly framed in the context of the country’s severely reduced economic fortunes. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin attempted to accentuate the positive to an extent reflective of their parties’ understandable anxiety about the judgment that might be passed upon them by the people in next year’s local ...

Although the majority of voters in Cavan-Monaghan wished it otherwise, the outcome of last Friday’s referendum on the future of Seanad Éireann has given a reprieve to the country’s Upper House, and left the Government, like the child who unwraps a Christmas present only to discover it’s not the gift they wanted, having to grin stoically and make the best of it. That the Seanad vote was to some degree a chastisement of the incumbent coalition rather than a coherent stance founded on a championing of the democratic principle ...

SICK OF AUSTERITY! One of the abiding concerns of parents, teachers and others with responsibility for young people is the problem of childhood obesity. The emergence of sedentary and unhealthy eating habits among the young has been flagged as a lifestyle manifestation requiring urgent address at a number of public forums in Co Monaghan in recent times, with warning signals emerging from the former Vocational Education Committee and at several meetings of Monaghan Co Council. That the problem has become a significant one despite the accentuated awareness in our ...

There is an emerging awareness that, although the immediate crisis posed by the adverse impact which bad weather delivered on fodder supplies for farmers has now passed, the effects of that crisis could, like an earthquake, deliver damaging aftershocks for some time to come. Whether that awareness is being matched by sufficient preparatory and safeguarding action is a question deserving of careful consideration by our farm organisations and State mechanisms as autumn and winter loom on the horizon. Views expressed at the recent meeting of Monaghan Co Council ...

At the height of the period of liberalisation and social change that distinguished the decade of the 1960s, an American magazine carried a memorable double panelled cartoon under the heading, ‘Morality – Then And Now’. ‘Then’ showed a field of white sheep ranged, with as much antagonism as sheep can muster, around a single black member of their species. In the ‘Now’ panel, all the sheep were black save for a lone white one standing looking vulnerable and self-conscious under the collective gaze of the rest of the ...