Sir, - "It cannot be right that a group of people - any group ofpeople - move into a public space with impunity and turn it into anopen refuse tip," (Editorial, The Irish Times, March 6th).
Hardly a controversial statement - unless we reflect thatdefinitions of what constitute public and private space are culturebound and have different meanings for different populations and times.
Our rigid adherence to the notion of the primacy of private,heritable property with little attention to the constitutionalqualifiers that it be balanced with consideration of "the principles ofsocial justice" (Article 43.2) or "a view to reconciling their exercisewith the exigencies of the common good" (Article 43.2.2) is what hascaused this friction to continue and increase rather than evolve to thepotential satisfaction of all concerned.
This same collision of values is active not just on the Dodder; itis to be found on the Jordan (someone ought to mention to Mr Sharonthat his behaviour is anti-Semitic), the Balkans, Mugabe's Zimbabwe,the ethnic grooming of fortress EU, our housing crisis and the abusesof the property letting landlords.
And yes, ignorant Traveller behaviour will have to be addressed. But we have a lot less excuse for our ignorance.
It might be worth recalling that, before the Norman feudal paradigmsolidified, the practice was to reallocate land and propertyperiodically to take account of demographic change. In these days, whenflexibility is never too far from the tongues of our economiclecturers, sooner or later we are going to have to get back to thatfuture.
Or are we so rich we can afford an unsustainable one? - Yours, etc.,
Church Hill,
Clifden,
Co Galway