Madam, - Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin opened a major conference in Dublin this week calling for the banning of cluster bombs.
This is somewhat ironic, given that the Government continues to turn a blind eye to the carriage of munitions, possibly including cluster bombs, by the US military through Shannon Airport.
The hosting of this conference is to be praised, but surely the Minister and his colleagues should put their own house in order first by banning the passage of all munitions through Irish airports and inspecting foreign military aircraft using Irish airports to ensure they do not carry such weapons. - Yours, etc,
JOHN JEFFERIES,
Church Street,
Cobh,
Co Cork.
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Madam, - The Government's mantle of military neutrality and integrity with regard to issues of human rights has become somewhat tattered in recent years. The "wise monkeys" spectacle (see no evil, etc) playing out at Shannon revealed new depths of duplicity and cowardice in our elected leaders.
This week, our ethically challenged government premieres its much-publicised role as hopeful sire of an international treaty banning cluster munitions (insert applause). Given that Irish public monies, through the National Pensions Reserve Fund, were as recently as last March invested in six different companies involved in the manufacture of cluster bombs, Micheál Martin and his colleagues will need to muster postures and platitudes aplenty to convince the hundred or so international delegates to commit to the long-overdue ban.
Had the Government passed last month's legislation (put forward by Fine Gael) proposing an Irish ban on public investment in companies manufacturing cluster munitions, this country might have been able to trade in something other than hypocrisy and opportunism. Plus ça change. . . - Is mise,
MUIREANN NIC ÉINRÍ HEUSSAFF,
Wandesford Quay,
Cork.