Letters to the Editor: Rate hikes will hollow out communities
'Businesses, already struggling to stay afloat amidst the rise of online commerce, are now burdened with unsustainable financial obligations', one person writes.
I write to you about a trend that is becoming all too common — the haunting development of empty towns. As a resident and business owner in Kenmare, Kerry, I am witnessing first-hand the alarming rate at which our vibrant community is deteriorating, and may further do so, due to economic pressures and neglect.
Small towns like Kenmare have long been the lifeblood of Ireland, each one possessing its own unique charm and character. However, in recent years, many of these towns are facing an existential threat as businesses shutter their doors, streets become deserted, and once-thriving communities dwindle.
The recent staggering increases in our commercial rates in Kenmare will exacerbate this downward spiral.
Businesses, already struggling to stay afloat amidst the rise of online commerce and changing consumer habits, are now being burdened with unsustainable financial obligations.
The result will be a cascade of closures, job losses, and a palpable sense of despair. The recent rate hikes, ranging from an unbelievable 13% to an astonishing 600% — averaging between 75% to 100%— are simply untenable.
One business’ rates have gone from €15,000 to €63,000 — another from €4,000 to €17,000 — most businesses in Kenmare have experienced a doubling of their rates. The assumption that the resilience of Kenmare’s retail and hospitality sector will weather these unprecedented hikes is dangerously misguided.
The consequences of this trend extend far beyond the economic realm. Kenmare is not just a collection of buildings and businesses; these are homes to generations of families, repositories of culture and heritage, and vital centres of community life. The loss of our towns represents a betrayal of our shared history and identity as a nation.
It is imperative that we take immediate and decisive action to reverse this trend. County councils and our politicians must prioritise the revitalisation of small towns — claiming to champion this very cause while their legislative actions and advocacy contradict their purported intentions — investing in infrastructure, promoting tourism, and providing support to local businesses. This includes reevaluating commercial rates to ensure they are fair and sustainable, as well as implementing targeted incentives to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.
Furthermore, we must recognise the invaluable role that communities themselves play in the preservation and revitalisation of their towns. By fostering a sense of pride, ownership, and solidarity, we can empower local residents to take an active role in shaping the future of their towns.
We need to act now, before it is too late. We cannot afford to stand idly by as our small towns wither away. Let us come together, as a nation, to breathe new life into these cherished communities and ensure that they continue to thrive for generations to come.
John Goode
Kenmare, Kerry
Mali heat record points to disaster
Analysis by World Weather Attribution has revealed that the deadly protracted heatwave in the Sahel region of Africa this month would have been impossible without anthropogenic climate change.
Mali registered the hottest day in its history on April 3, with a temperature of 48.5C. The analysis also revealed that maximum daytime and night-time temperatures in Burkina Faso and Mali have been made 1.5C and 2C hotter, respectively, by climate change.
The burgeoning area of extreme event attribution (also known as attribution science), which measures how climate change causes or exacerbates extreme weather events, is and will be crucially important to showing causative links (where they exist) between climate change and extreme weather events and countering the dangerous disinformation and misinformation emitted by greenhouse gas (GHG) intensive industries and their agents.
According to Carbon Majors Database, which is compiled by world-renowned researchers, just 57 oil, gas, coal, and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global CO² emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement.
Agriculture, fossil fuel production, and the management of waste are the primary sources of methane emissions.
Agriculture is the primary source of nitrous oxide emissions. If we are to prevent catastrophic climate change, we need to wean ourselves off our toxic addiction to GHGs.
It behoves governments around the globe to accept the evidence and take the necessary actions to steer us away from our path towards catastrophe.
The long-term fate and wellbeing of future generations of humans and our fellow species should not be sacrificed on the filthy altar of short-term industry profits.
Rob Sadlier
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16
Act smart when it comes to phones
I really don’t understand the conundrum over smartphones. We can all choose whether or not to be on our phones. They are a distraction only if we allow them to be.
The truth is that people are often on smartphones doing research, reading a book, or playing a game. They are helpful tools that allow us to document a perfect flower or building with our phones. We can take pictures with our friends that we can share later.
However, they are also something we can leave in our pocket so that we can look out the window of the train and watch the countryside roll by. The mother who was distracted by her smartphone in an earlier time would have been distracted reading a book.
Smartphones are simply a tool and we get to decide how distracting they are in our lives.
I work in technology, but I’m in no means beholden to my phone. It allows me to work while I’m travelling, distracts me with media on a flight, let’s me keep in contact with loved ones.
Most of the time you won’t see it in my hands, because I’m busy living life. I get to decide. We all do.
Suzanne Freyjadis
Oregon, USA
Intimidation must be policed better
In response to yet another unacceptable protest outside the home of a politician, this time Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman ( ‘Gardaí called to Roderic O’Gorman’s home after masked men stage ‘chilling’ protest’ — April 19), I have to ask when are the gardaí going to step in and start policing these aggressive anti-migrant agitators and conspiracy theorists?
This is one of several unacceptable protests which have taken place outside the homes of politicians in recent years, in which nothing seems to be done to prevent further protests.
Between anti-migrant fuelled arson attacks, aggressive on-street verbal harassment, to viable threats of violence or explicit death threats, the gardaí seem to be allowing this type of targeted harassment continue unhindered.
The lack of a policing response to date is only more likely to encourage these agitators to push the boundaries of what they will try to get away with.
Already we have seen Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny’s car burnt out in front of his home, prompting his family to move, and Independent councillor in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Hugh Lewis getting a brick thrown through his window.
These only relate to the anti-migration segment and do not include any reference to further abuse suffered by politicians, such as the insidious stalking and sexual harassment faced by various female politicians.
I am deeply worried of the chilling effect these actions have on our democracy, and fear that if gardaí do not take action to police these increasingly emboldened agitators and conspiracy theorists sooner rather than later, we may next see a politician being physically assaulted, or even murdered.
Ben Ryan
Dungarvan, Waterford
Pot-holed thinking
Rural independent TDs arguing with science is like negotiating with God.
They are highly intelligent people, but this cavilling and prevaricating on the scientific reality and consequences of global warming is asinine. Flooded fields. New pests and parasites. All sorts of problems. Farmers need political representatives who are in continuous contact with reality.
King Canute tried to turn back the sea. He did that, not to demonstrate his omnipotence or rhetorical power, but to demonstrate to his subjects that his powers were limited. The sea will always come in.
Every time I hear a rural Independent denying climate crisis science, I think of a viking wearing his helmet with the horns on the inside. You are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Most of you know it. Your constituents certainly know it.
Rural Independents are important people. They are taken seriously by every political observer or commentator with a brain in his/her head. You guys need to start taking yourselves seriously. You’re churning out a lot of pot-holed nonsense at the moment. And there is only “a time in that” as we say in West Cork.
Michael Deasy,
Bandon, Cork
Alf was a class act
I worked with Alf McCarthy on stage in the old Everyman Theatre down in Fr Mathew Street, and later in the Everyman Palace up in MacCurtain St.
I was saddened when I heard that he was terminally ill. Purely by chance, I happened to be listening to RTÉ radio when I heard the very end of a statement he made in which he finished by saying: “I leave you with a smile."
I thought: “Bless you Alf , you were always a class act. Bless you."
Brendan Casserly
Bishopstown, Cork city
