Articles in the Comment Category

The excellent, informative presentation and subsequent constructive debate that took place at Monday’s meeting of Co Monaghan Joint Policing Committee on fuel crime highlighted a number of important dimensions of how the problem is being tackled in our circulation area and in the country as a whole – some encouraging, some worrying. It is clear that the Revenue Enforcement staff and the Gardai are experiencing some significant success in disrupting the operation of this illicit enterprise, and in making amenable to the courts a good number of those – ...

Like Shakespeare’s recalcitrant student “creeping like snail unwillingly to school”, the Irish people will go to the polls for the Fiscal Stability Treaty Referendum on Thursday, May 31 next more with a sense of reluctant duty than with animated enthusiasm. That is, if they go at all. The depressed state of the country’s economy has fed a pronounced disaffection with matters political to the extent that the large number of “Don’t Knows” that the opinion polls have thrown up may be constituted to a significant extent of “Don’t ...

The sharp political exchanges at Tuesday night’s meeting of Monaghan Town Council over the latest threat of a significant removal of services from Monaghan General Hospital (see story, page one) shows that this long-running issue is still one that can raise the passions of our local politicians. Partisans of Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, the main participants in this occasion in the verbal volleys generated by the topic, may derive satisfaction from what they perceive as the successes of their representatives in delivering telling blows in the course of ...

The devotion by Monaghan Co Council of the greater portion of its monthly public meeting on Tuesday to discussions relevant to job creation is undoubtedly a sign of the times. Elected local public representatives and the administration of local government may have a limited function in the actual delivery of employment, but the need for the development of new opportunities in this sphere touches on all aspects of their work. And, while providing jobs themselves is not the remit of our local authorities, it can be argued forcefully ...

The antennae of journalists locally have long had the tendency to twitch with the tremor of suspicion when the subject of developing the links between Co Monaghan and its connections with various outposts of population in other parts of the world has arisen. This instinctive response derives from the receptive scepticism that is the rightful manifestation of the media’s duty as guardian of the public interest. Cultivating relationships with communities abroad is a good idea, but it often entails the expenditure by public authorities of public money – ...

Much media mileage is currently being mined from the expenditure by Government Ministers and their Departments on the services of consultants and advisers to assist them in the discharge of their onerous duties. The figures that have emerged from journalistic enquiry and parliamentary question in recent weeks are disconcertingly lavish at a time when the country is being force-fed the meagre collation of austerity – hard to swallow at the best of times, but particularly unpalatable when its governing gospel appears not to be practised by the Ministers who ...

There can be few more embattled sectors of modern society than that occupied by parents. The pressure on them comes from all sides – the myriad financial demands attendant to feeding, clothing, educating and recreating their offspring are added to by an all-pervading cultural environment which insists on multiplying the emotional and psychological requirements perceived as necessary for growth into healthy adulthood and frequently lays their deficit at the door of those with parental responsibilities. The old canard, “It’s the parents who’re to blame”, still thrives in many guises. ...

Although no longer the focus of high visibility intensity of campaigning or high volume public concern, the issue of Monaghan General Hospital is still one of great importance to our county. As can be interpreted from our coverage of local authority proceedings, the hospital issue still figures regularly for discussion in the chambers of Monaghan Co and Town Councils. The failure for significant service improvements there to manifest despite an expectation cultivated in some quarters that this would be so following a change of government is still a ...

At a time when our economy is displaying only fitful signs of stimulation, the first release of detailed findings from last year’s Census shows that in a great many other aspects of life Ireland is a country in the grip of quite effulgent growth. Of course, the contrast between the rise in numbers and diversity of our population and the vista of ongoing economic austerity stretching before us paints a picture for the future that is at the very least uncertain and, viewed in its most negative light, considerably ...

The official opening by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan of the new Monaghan Fire Station Headquarters on Friday last (see story page one) was a significant occasion. In part, as all such formal ceremonies are, it was an acknowledgement of substantial State investment in the development and improvement of an important aspect of local infrastructure: in this instance, the modernisation of the facilities available to our fire and rescue services to carry out their vital safeguarding function and to impart the training and upskilling required by existing personnel ...