Rights for children with disabilities
A chairde,
The Government will spend £24 million implementing its
Information Technology Policy. Each school will recieve a £2,000
grant plus £5 for each pupil. However special schools will
receive £3,000 and a grant of £20 for each pupil. While I welcome
these proposals once again children with disabilities in
mainstream schools are being discriminated against. The child
with a disability in a special school will get a grant of £20
while the same child attending a mainstream class gets £5.
This is totally unfair and shows how children with disabilities
are being treated. There are over 10,000 children with
disabilities in mainstream schools. They are being completely
ignored. I am now calling on the Minister for Education Mr Martin
to give all children with special needs the same grants. It's
just not on in this day and age for a child with Downs Syndrome
in one school getting a £20 grant while down the road in another
school only getting £5. Parents and teachers are really annoyed
about this complete lack of equailty. Let's hope parents will not
have to mount another legal case to get rights for our children.
Finian Mc Grath
Dublin
Keep Rule 21
A chairde,
Abolishing the GAA's Rule 21 is incomprehensible as long as the
British forces continue to occupy Crossmaglen Rangers GAA Club
grounds in South Armagh.
How can the GAA even consider abolishing Rule 21 as long as the
British forces act so aggressively towards the nationalist
community of Crossmaglen? I am not at all surprised that the 1997
All-Ireland Club Football Champions have been so astonished by
the idea of allowing the illegal occupiers of their land to play
alongside their players, who are the people who have suffered the
most from this occupation.
I am sure it would make the footballers and hurlers sick to their
stomachs at the thought of this occupational enemy playing in
their teams. The Crown Forces have illegally occupied Crossmaglen
GAA's ground for the last 27 years. It is now time for the
British to disengage from this occupied zone. The nationalist
community and the GAA in particular never have and never will
peacefully allow this illegal military occupation to remain. We
as republicans must not allow the crown to use Rule 21 as a
bargaining chip before they even disengage from Crossmaglen GAA
and the rest of the occupied Six Counties.
Gearoid O Congaile
Dublin 15.
Expose FF and SDLP
A chairde,
The concerns of many Republicans in the south on Articles 2 & 3
are, I believe, a proxy for frustration at our failure to pin the
blame for the many deficiencies on the Good Friday Deal where it
belongs: on Fianna Fail and the SDLP.
Chief among these deficiencies is the Unionist blocking veto in
the Assembly and the North/South Bodies. It could be argued that
nationalists also have a veto but such a blocking mechanism
favours those who wish to maintain the status quo and stymies
those who want radical change. The only penalty for blocking any
progressive change is the disbandment of the Assembly and
reversion to direct rule - which is exactly what Trimble wanted
in the first place.
The blame for this clearly lies with FF and the SDLP but we have
not even raised this serious problem, never mind putting the
responsibility on the ``constitutional nationalists'' for bottling
out when the going got tough.
This failure to explain the defects in the Deal and the reasons
for them has had two dangerous results for republicans:
1. A mistaken perception has developed that the Deal is
pro-nationalist and all the pressure for change is in a
pro-unionist direction;
2. Both FF and SDLP have come out smelling of roses rather than
paying the price for their failure to achieve what, otherwise,
could have been a much better deal. This will make Sinn Fein's
job more difficult in the Assembly elections.
The underlying problem is that there is no real nationalist
consensus as shown by the reneging of the Dublin Government on
the Downing St, Heads of Agreement and Good Friday documents. Our
pretending that there is one has blunted our critique of FF in
many areas: financial corruption, increasing the poverty gap and
even the enthusiastic support of Bertie Ahern for the
shoot-to-kill murder of Ronan MacLochlainn in Ashford. We need to
redress this urgently if we are to gain support from FF and SDLP
voters and from working-class Protestants who want to have
nothing to do with the right-wing policies of these parties.
Sean Marlow
Dublin 11
Major 1798 Conference
A Chairde,
A major conference and series of lectures on 1798 takes place in
Belfast and Dublin over the next two weeks.
The Belfast half of the event takes place in the Ulster Museum on
Tuesday and Wednesday 18/19 May. The major themes are:
The intellectual ingredients of the rebellion; The United Irish
challenge in Leinster and Ulster 1794-98; The conservative
response 1796-98; The international crisis; and The Ulster
rising in context.
Top lecturers in their fields will speak on the themes in what
will be the biggest and most ambitious conference on 1798 in this
bicentenary year.
The conference then moves to Dublin Castle from 21-23 May.
For details, contact the Ulster Museum.
This is very much an open conference, and people may register on
any of the days. The rates for one/two days in Belfast are £17.50
(OAPs, unwaged and students £8.75), and for the five days in
Belfast and Dublin £42 (OAPs,unwaged and students £21). These
rates include a special commemorative programme which carries
abstracts of many of the lectures.
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