Rosslare Port traffic reaches dizzying heights

Direct freight traffic between Rosslare Port and continental Europe increased by 371 per cent last year.

In recent years there have been strong rumours that Irish Rail has been considering closing the Wexford Rosslare Port line. It would mean the Dublin Rosslare rail line would terminate at Wexford. 

Hopefully, that rumour has been killed stone dead with the gigantic increase in traffic to and from Rosslare Port.

Fiddle player Martin Hayes talking great sense

Wise and interesting words from musician Martin Hayes. The fiddle player is a member of the Irish-American group, The Glooming.

Since those years of discovery in Chicago, I have tried to live my life as an act of faith - a belief that, if I’m on the correct path, I can face all uncertainty without much worry or fear. I do not walk this path consistently; I wander off repeatedly - every day, in fact.

I can get hooked on materialism, selfishness or moral judgement of some sort, I’m continuously falling and failing, but I relentlessly correct my ways as I go. 

Respect works wonders

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane 

Anyone who is following what is going on in eastern Europe has to be greatly worried at what might or could happen. Every day on our televisions we see Russian troops and their weapons of war heading towards Ukraine. At the same time the United States and the UK are delivering weapons to Ukraine so that they will be better able to defend themselves in the event of a Russian attack.

The Russians are constantly assuring the Americans and the world that they have no plans for invading Ukraine, which was once part of the Soviet Union. As I write this, all sides are talking and diplomacy is still working. The world’s hope and prayer must be that diplomacy will work and the right words will be used to defuse the situation. Is the shedding of one ounce of human blood ever a justifiable act?

It is interesting that last Friday week on a visit to India the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach made a number of what one might consider undiplomatic comments, one of them being that he believed that Russia’s  president Vladimir Putin deserved respect. His comments went viral and within 24 hours he had resigned.

 

That word respect caught my attention. Of course it’s part of the human condition when we lock horns with one another we can say and do the most awful things. That’s why third party mediation can be so helpful in disputes, as Senator George Mitchell showed us. Modern psychology is constantly pointing out the importance of open and honest dialogue. It’s essential that we understand who we are and why we behave as we do.

Shortly after the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu RTÉ radio played an interview he gave some years ago in which he said – with that unique laugh of his – that one of his weakest characteristics was that he loved to be loved. Whatever about his weakness or strength, there is great truth in his words because we all want to be loved, we all want to be respected and cherished. How many disasters have befallen the world as a result of people being felt hard done by something or someone?

 

Aren’t our spirits lifted when we feel we are acknowledged or appreciated for who and what we are?

Isn’t it the wise person who discovers talent in someone? And so often that talent is found in the most unexpected of circumstances and places.

In tomorrow’s Gospel Luke (4: 21 - 30) tells the reader how Jesus, when he began to speak in the synagogue, “won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.”

Obviously,  they were taken aback. After all: “This is Joseph’s son, surely?” How could they expect such gracious words of wisdom from this untutored young man?  And then later when Jesus is critical of the authorities they are enraged: “They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town….” Even with the most gracious of words there are times when individuals and authorities do not want to hear the truth.

I believe that Jesus in this Gospel is reminding us about the importance of respecting the individual, making sure to speak graciously and listen carefully to everyone with whom we engage. And that in turn will permeate our community and help build a better society.

It is so easy to reach for stereotypes, to hang labels around people’s necks. But when you take a moment to engage seriously with another person, no matter who or what they are, some level of understanding  will emerge.

Everyone has a story to tell and it’s always worth listening, and according them respect. The recently resigned Vice Admiral Schönbach might well have been undiplomatic in saying what he said in India. 

But if the Western powers had been more gracious to Russia and shown the people of the just fractured and unlamented USSR when it was breaking up some respect and understanding for the difficulties they faced, our relations with our Eastern neighbours might tell a different story today? A little empathy and less gloating from the West would have gone a long way. Indeed, if Vladimir Putin is the autocrat he is said to be, would a Russia that felt loved and respected have ever allowed him to be their president? Who knows?

But what  we do know is that respecting and cherishing people, acting with grace towards others is a life-long project.  We all need to be steadfast in our resolve to be gracious in our words and deeds towards our sisters and brothers. That applies in the corridors of power as much as it does in our daily lives. 

Wordle is great fun and well worth a try

What’s in and cool right now is Wordle.

It’s great fun. Try it.

https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/ 

Colm Tóibín on the challenge of reading Ulysses

Colm Tóibín has an interesting and informative article in the weekend edition of the Financial Times on James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Ulysses was first published in 1922 just over two weeks after the British handed over the keys of Dublin Castle to Michael Collins and the new Irish government. That same year TS Eliot’s The Waste Land was published. Both works deal with the rawness of urban life

Joyce began Ulysses in Trieste in 1914 and finished it in Paris in 1921.

It is considered to be the greatest nov el of the 20th century.

In the piece Tóibín mentions that Joyce knew Patrick Pearse.

Tóibín writes that for the ordinary reader, it has the same cachet as running a marathon has for the ordinary athlete. It is a challenge and then, for those who have read the book, a matter of pride.

Anniversary of arrival of first US troops in Northern Ireland

On this date, January 26, 1942 the first United States troops to fight in Europe in World War II landed in Northern Ireland.

It’s a great tonic to meet a wise and kind person

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

The RTÉ 1 television programme ‘Donie O’Sullivan: Capitol Man’ received much acclaim. It was about the young Cahersiveen man who works for CNN.

I’m too old to fantasise about following in his footsteps, nevertheless watching the programme I kept saying to myself, wouldn’t I like his job.

He has a way about him that easily endears him to people, even those who might have extremely strong feelings against CNN and its political views. Donie has that ability in getting people to talk. But it was something else altogether that intrigued me about the programme. He openly spoke about the panic attacks he experienced while studying in Northern Ireland. I’d like to have heard more about that subject. What exactly is a panic attack and how far away is it from a form of depression?

These days it seems people find it far easier to talk about their own personal mental health than in the past and that surely has to be healthy and good.

 

I can’t imagine there is anyone who is completely free of dark moments, periods of depression, experiencing a sense of worthlessness. Some people are better at hiding it than others.

 

I’ll put my hands up and admit that I can easily get into a down or dark moment. I half-jokingly tell people my own personal superficiality is a great fixer in that I have that ability of jumping out of those dark moments.

In recent weeks I’ve found myself in such a place.

We all have our own ways and means of protecting ourselves, ‘getting a hold of ourselves’, fixing what’s wrong. Certainly therapists can and do offer great help to people.

But on occasion the smallest of experiences or happenings can do us the world of good.

In early December I promised someone I would call to her elderly mother. It happened that I never got around to doing it and I was annoyed with myself about saying I’d do something and then didn’t do it. 

After Christmas I made it my business to call on the lady. It turned out to be a magic moment. On entering her house the first thing she said to me was that she reads my newspaper column every week. Of course she meant it in the kindness and most gracious of ways. But no doubt she had no idea how she was massaging my ego. We all need a bit of that from time to time. 

On a far deeper level, within minutes of being in the woman’s company I realised I was talking to a very special person. Her wisdom, her kindness and her fun, filled the room. Unfortunately it was a short visit but nevertheless the woman inspired me. Driving back home on my motorbike all I could think of was her graciousness and kindness.

 

She asked me to stay till her son came home and he would make me a cup of tea. I declined. But I did tell her I’d be back and I shall.

 

She was delighted to see me, thanked me for calling. 

But if only she knew the effect she had on me. She made me forget about my worries and troubles, indeed, every time I think of our encounter I smile. I also quietly say, thank you.

 

The super rich get richer while the poor get poorer

While the incomes of 99 per cent of the world’s population fell because of Covid-19, the wealth of the world’s 10 richest men doubled in the same period.

Covid-19 for 160 million people meant they were pushed into poverty.

Europe stands on the brink of a great conflagration

Surely with over 100,000 Russian troops close to Ukraine the world has to be on edge.

Yesterday Germany's navy chief stepped down after drawing criticism for saying Russian President Vladimir Putin deserved respect and that Kyiv would never win back annexed Crimea from Moscow.

"I have asked Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve me from my duties with immediate effect," Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach said in a statement. "The minister has accepted my request."

The towns and cities being mentioned in the media these days have seen enough of war and brutality.

And then too, these very days 79 years ago the Red Army was in the process of defeating the German invader away to the east of cities such as Kharkiv.

On this day, January 23, 1943 the airport at Stalingradskaya was about to become unserviceable to the Germans, who were fast running out of ammunition and were also desperately short of food.

On January 22 the Soviets offered Germany’s Paulus a chance to surrender. Paulus requested that he be granted permission to accept the terms. He told Hitler that he was no longer able to command his men, who were without ammunition or food. 

Hitler rejected it on a point of honour. He telegraphed the Sixth Army claiming that it had made a historic contribution to the greatest struggle in German history and that it should stand fast "to the last soldier and the last bullet." Hitler told Goebbels that the plight of the Sixth Army was a "heroic drama of German history.” 

On  January 24, Paulus reported to Hitler that there were 18,000 wounded without the slightest aid of bandages and medicines.”

On January 30, 1943, the 10th anniversary of Hitler's coming to power, Goebbels said on radio: "The heroic struggle of our soldiers on the Volga should be a warning for everybody to do the utmost for the struggle for Germany's freedom and the future of our people, and thus in a wider sense for the maintenance of our entire continent.” 

Paulus notified Hitler that his men would likely collapse before the day was out. In response, Hitler issued a number promotions to the Sixth Army's officers. Most notably, he promoted Paulus to the rank of field marshal. In deciding to promote Paulus, Hitler noted that there was no record of a German or Prussian field marshal having ever surrendered. 

The implication was clear: if Paulus surrendered, he would shame himself and would become the highest-ranking German officer ever to be captured. Hitler believed that Paulus would either fight to the last man or commit suicide.

It was days from the final surrender on February 2.

It’s a date Russia has never forgotten, nor will ever forget. Nor will they ever forget the barbarity and cruelty that they suffered under the hands of the Germans.

Vladimir Putin knows that. And Germany too is ever conscious too of the wrong it did to the people of the Soviet Union and that includes Ukraine.

The ghost of history is all over these days.

In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the Soviet Union felt humiliated. Today the Russian president knows all the right buttons to press. And it is significant that what is happening in these days marks the anniversary of the beginning of the end for the German aggressor.

Pope criticised over alleged cover-up in Munich abuse case

From The Irish Times of yesterday.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI claims not to have been aware of abuse cases in his archdiocese. PHOTOGRAPH: TIZIANA FABI/AFP VIA GETTY

Report says very likely Benedict was aware of abuse in former archdiocese

Derek Scally

German investigators say it is “overwhelmingly likely” that Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI was aware of at least four abusing and paedophile priests during his time as archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

His former deputy in the diocese has claimed that, when the case of one abusing priest became public in 2010, he was “pressured” to take sole responsibility for the church’s failure to act, in order “to protect the pope”.

Lawyers commissioned by the Catholic archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine files from 1945-2019 identified 497 cases of clerical sexual abuse and 235 perpetrators – but said the true number is likely to be higher.

The report flagged four cases dating from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s time in Munich, from 1977-1982 and dismissed the 94-year-old’s claims not to be aware of the cases.

“Choosing my words carefully, we consider the information from Pope Benedict to be not credible,” said one of the report’s authors Dr Ulrich Wastl. He the report – running to nearly 2,000 pages with appendices – revealed a “shocking picture” of an institution that ignored victims of clerical sexual abuse, viewing those it did notice “as a danger for the institution”.

‘Shaken and ashamed’

Investigators identified 25 cases involving Joseph Ratzinger’s successor as archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, and two cases in which they say the current archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, breached church rules and failed to report abusers to the Holy See.

Cardinal Marx said the report had left him “shaken and ashamed”. He declined to attend the report’s presentation but will answer questions next Thursday.

Some 40 of the perpetrator priests identified were known to their superiors at the time of their abuse yet allowed to continue their pastoral work, with many moved to new parishes that were unaware of their behaviour.

Co-investigator Marion Westphal described a “terrible phenomenon of cover-up” and said that, after years of investigation, the time of “individual guilt” had come.

Included in the report was an 82-page response by the retired pope to written questions. For clarification, he said he still had a good long-term memory so that, whenever he said he had no memory of something, he was “convinced that I have not met the person or that I did not know the facts or the document”.

The most damaging case involves a priest moved from the diocese of Essen to Munich- Freising in January 1980 for treatment for his paedophile tendencies. More than two dozen men, in both dioceses, are on record as saying they were sexually abused as teenagers by the priest, identified only as Peter H, often after he gave them alcohol and showed them pornography.

In his evidence, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI said there was no mention of sexual abuse in the Essen diocese request to accept the priest in Bavaria for psychotherapy. “I had no knowledge about the history of the priest in his home diocese,” wrote the former pope.

‘Pressured’ to take blame

When this case first came to light a decade ago, Munich and Rome moved quickly to insist Benedict, then still pope, had known nothing of the abuse during his time as archbishop.Back in 2010 his former deputy in Munich, General Vicar Gerhard Gruber, accepted all responsibility for failing to act against the abusing priest.

In evidence for the new report, Fr Gruber says he was “pressured” in 2010 to take all the blame in one particularly grave case, “to protect the [German] pope”.

“I have no doubt, that Cardinal Ratzinger had the necessary information in the case,” he told investigators.

Germany’s leading clerical abuse campaigner, Matthias Katsch, welcomed the report, saying: “We have just witnessed the collapse of the lies built around Pope Benedict.”

Joseph Ratzinger criticised in clerical child sex abuse cases

The link below is from yesterday’s online version of Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

The story of clerical child sex abuse is the main story across the German media today, as it was yesterday.

It deals with a number of clerical child sex abuse cases in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising and how the then Archbishop Jospeh Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict is alleged to have dealt with the situation.

The emeritus pope denies the allegations.

If you copy and paste the link below into Google Translate one can get the gist of what is being said. 

One of the leading lawyers, Martin Pusch said in 'Der Spiegel' article: “The church is still preoccupied with secrecy and protecting the institution.”

Another lawyer, Ulrich Wastl says that he finds it difficult to believe that the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was not present at a meeting that discussed the situation of an offending priest.

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/missbrauch-im-erzbistum-muenchen-kanzlei-berichtet-von-hunderten-opfern-und-belastet-papst-benedikt-xvi-a-9f866edd-fc59-46cb-b3c1-480f18a47062?sara_ecid=soci_upd_wbMbjhOSvViISjc8RPU89NcCvtlFcJ

The day the fate of Jews was decided at Wannsee

On this date, January 20, 1942 in the leafy Berlin suburb of Wannsee senior members of the German government discussed how they would carry out the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish question’.

The men seated at the table were among the elite of Germany. More than half of them held doctorates from German universities. They were well informed about the policy towards Jews. Each understood that the cooperation of his agency was vital if such an ambitious, unprecedented policy was to succeed.

Among the agencies represented were the Gestapo, the SS, the Race and Resettlement Office, and the office in charge of distributing Jewish property. 

Also at the meeting was a representative of the  Polish occupation administration, whose territory included more than two million Jews. The head of Reinhard Heydrich’s office for Jewish affairs, Adolf Eichmann, prepared the conference notes and Heydrich introduced the agenda.

Hitler did not attend the meeting.

The men needed little explanation. They understood that “evacuation to the east” was a euphemism  for concentration camps and that the “final solution” was to be the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews.

The final protocol of the Wannsee Conference never explicitly mentioned extermination, but, within a few months after the meeting, the German government installed the first poison-gas chambers in Poland.

Responsibility for the entire project was put in the hands of Heinrich Himmler.

The gas was supplied by IG Fraben, which was founded in 1925 by a merger of six chemical companies, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron and Chemische Fabrik vorm. After the war it was taken over by the Allies and divided back into its constituent companies. 

Seeing losing at gambling from different perspectives

There has been an amount of publicity in recent times about the pain and suffering that gambling can cause.

Former Armagh footballer, Oisín McConville, says there has been a massive increase in problem gambling during the Covid-19 Lockdown.

McConville had a serious gambling addiction until he sought treatment at the age of 30. He is keenly aware of the devastating impact it can have on people and those closest to them.

In 1863 Fyodor Dostoevsky, while on a visit to Wiesbaden in Germany, having lost all his money gambling said: “Losing is gambling’s greatest thrill. It’s like sliding down a snowy hill on a sled.”

He expressed that idea when he was preparing his notes for  ‘Crime and Punishment’.

New Bus Éireann buses are a bad buy

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

I don’t know too much about the United States but I have often heard people say that public transport is not on a par with that in Europe.

I was pleasantly surprised to read in one of our national newspapers after Christmas that buses in the greater Washington DC area have a heavy duty folded rack attached to the front of the vehicle just in front of the driver, which is for carrying bicycles. It allows passengers to take their bicycles on the bus.

Might the National Transport Authority (NTA) take a leaf out of Washington’s book?

Because of work and other commitments I was unable to get to Kerry until the new year. The first days of January were fine and dry. I decided to set sail for West Kerry on Wednesday, January 5.

I’ve worked out an interesting way in getting there. I cycle the six kilometres from my home to Heuston Station, take the train to Tralee. A wait of an hour at Tralee for the Dingle bus to Camp and then cycle the last 10 kms to my destination. 

It’s something I have been doing now for a number of years. In good weather it is most enjoyable, great fun too. And even in the rain it is enjoyable. There is a sense of adventure to it, an opportunity to forget all worldly worries.

On this occasion my head went into a profound spin when I discovered the new buses that the NTA have purchased for Bus Éireann on many of their Kerry routes, including the Tralee Dingle route, do not have capacity to carry bicycles. 

It so happens on the day that I was travelling the 14.00 hours service, the bus that I was taking, was not one of the new buses, which meant that I was in luck.

I can’t believe what the NTA has done. It is preposterous and makes no sense. Many of the routes serviced by Bus Éireann out of Tralee are to some of the most scenic spots in Ireland, places where people want to cycle. 

When I asked staff at Tralee Bus Station if the new buses had capacity to carry fold-up bicycles I was given different answers. But it seems the general consensus is that if the fold-up bicycle folds up small enough and fits in the rack then you are ok.

But one driver said to me that drivers have been explicitly told not to carry fold-up bicycles as they are not covered by insurance.

Honestly, I can’t believe this. I have heard Transport Minister Eamon Ryan talk on television about the great success of the new bus services, where he especially made reference to the Tralee Dingle route. Yes, there is an improved frequency on the route but does the minister know that there is no place for bicycles on these buses?

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not minister bashing. In fact I know Eamon Ryan and have great respect for the man. Indeed, he cycles to and from Dáil Éireann. In another life he ran the bicycle shop at the UCD Belfield campus and then later set up a tourist cycling company. 

Mr Ryan, these newly purchased NTA buses don’t fit the bill of a green environment. Who decided to buy these buses?

 

Boris Johnson has damaged the office of the prime minister

This is an excerpt from the weekend's Guardian. The author is Camilla Cavendish, former director of policy for prime minister David Cameron. She is a member of the House of Lords.

"Tory MPs are no longer in awe of Johnson or his winning credentials. But they are still afraid of him.

Behind the charming exterior there is a malevolence that casts blame whenever it is expedient.

On that fateful day in May, it may be that no one dared to challenge Reynolds, (Johnson’s principal private secretary) or Johnson - some people just stayed at their desks, or slunk home.

Good public servants believe that they are serving the office of the prime minister, not just the individual. The problem is that this prime minister has damaged the office.

As the parties pile up - including the latest confirmation of a boozy 2021 leaving do - they should prove fatal because they crystallise something bigger: the cavalier way in which Johnson has run his premiership, the lack of integrity over everything from the Northern Ireland protocol from his attempt to prorogue parliament, to ignoring the standards committee’s findings against the Conservative MP Owen Paterson.

Documents and reports gathering dust on shelves

It’s custom and practice for most organisations to produce annual reports, indeed, for many it is obligatory to do so.

Religious congregations and dioceses also produce documents after certain meetings, assemblies, chapters.

The documents can be wordy and lengthy.

Is it a matter of many words and no action? How many documents are on shelves gathering dust?

Richard Sinnott RIP

Former Dominican student Richard Sinnott died on Monday, January 3.

On completing his secondary schooling at Newbridge College Richard joined the Irish Dominican province where he spent four years.

He left the province before taking solemn vows. His departure caused  great shock to a number of the community in Tallaght at the time.

There is an obituary on Richard in The Irish Times today.

Sympathy and prayer to his family and friends.

May he rest in peace.

Wikipedia’s 21st birthday

Wikipedia celebrates its 21st birthday today.

The free online encyclopedia went online on January 15, 2001.

Difference between prose and poetry - a la Brendan Behan

Yesterday’s blogpost on Brendan Behan prompted a reader to send this.

The discussion reminded me of a story about Brendan Behan.

The writer was once invited to Oxford to take part in a debate about the difference between prose and poetry. His opponent spoke for almost two hours.

Behan rose to his feet and promised to be brief. He recited an old Dublin rhyme:

There was a young fella named Rollocks

Who worked for Ferrier Pollocks

As he walked on the strand

With a girl by the hand

The water came up to his ankles.

“That”, declared Behan, is prose. But if the tide had been in it would have been poetry."

Wise words from Brendan Behan

On a hoarding opposite Dublin’s Guinness Brewery there is information about Dubliner Brendan Behan. It gives his date of birth, when he died and mentions some of his writings. It is striking how young he was when he died. He was born on February 9, 1923 and died March 20, 1964.

Behan’s autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy became a worldwide best seller.

One of his celebrated quotes:

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.

The rulers and the ruled, privilege and power, spoof too

Yesterday British prime minister Boris Johnson apologised in parliament for his bad behaviour.

Also yesterday Prince Andrew, the son of the Queen of England was back in the news in relation to his links with the late Jeffrey Epstein and convicted criminal Ghislaine Maxwell.

All people of privilege, power and wealth.

Journalist and former broadcaster Vincent Browne once famously said that when we give titles to people we give them power over us. Wise words.

The ruled and the rulers.

All the lies, spoof, and clever fancy ideas. And all their rules and regulations, stuff and nonsense, bluff too.

Watching British MP Jacob Rees-Mogg on BBC Two’s Newsnight last evening talking about the humility and sincerity of Boris Johnson one is reminded of the tyranny of the ruling classes, and their lies too.

His nickname 'The Honourable Member for the early 20th century' is befitting. In the interview Rees-Mogg referred to the leader of the Scottish Conservative party as a ‘lightweight figure' 

No one benefits from working conditions at Amazon

This is an excellent piece on why we should think twice about buy from Amazon. And it so happens that today is Jeff Bezos’ birthday. He was born on January 12, 1964.

The article appeared in Saturday’s edition of The Irish Times

Blánaid ni Bhraonáin

Amazon loves consumers, and consumers love Amazon. The company reported sales of more than $386 billion (€341 billion) in 2020 – a staggering 38 per cent more than the previous year.

It began as an online bookshop in the early days of the internet, but its founder Jeff Bezos – now the world’s richest man – didn’t stop after fundamentally altering the publishing industry, creating a best-selling e-reader and buying up competitors such as Book Depository and AbeBooks. Now Amazon is “the everything store”, offering a near-infinite array of products delivered directly to our homes.

It can afford to undercut competitors – it has arranged its affairs so that despite €44 billion in sales in Europe in 2020, its Luxembourg-based unit recorded a €1.2 billion loss, meaning its tax bill is zero. And it knows far, far more about its customers than any analogue business could – not just their online shopping patterns, but also through the information gathered through Prime Video streaming accounts, smart speakers and doorbells, and a vast array of other products.

The company announced that it would open its first Irish “fulfilment centre” in 2022 – a 58,530sq m (630,000sq ft) warehouse in Baldonnell Business Park, processing, packing and sending items to customers here and across Europe. A second delivery station serving Dublin and the surrounding areas will add “over 20 permanent jobs, in addition to dozens of driver opportunities for Amazon Logistics’ delivery service partners and Amazon Flex delivery partners”. The chief executive of IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan, commented: “It is great to see Ireland contin- uing to attract investment and playing such an important part in the future plans of this global company. Amazon’s ongoing commitment to Ireland is most welcome.”

Punishing

But how Amazon runs its warehouses in the United States suggests that this development is anything but welcome. It is infamous for demanding a punishing pace and monitoring workers down to the second. Its surveillance systems have doubled as a way to disrupt unionisation, since every interaction between workers can be tracked. Last month, a vote against unionisation at an Alabama warehouse was overturned by the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) because Amazon encouraged workers to post their votes in a mailbox in full view of security cameras. Injured workers report that it is a struggle to get accommodations or medical leave and the company has faced criticism for its treatment of pregnant employees. In response to criticism, the company agreed to let its warehouse employees more easily organise in the workplace as part of a nationwide settlement with the NLRB just before Christmas.

You might hope that better legal protection for workers and unions will prevent Amazon using the same tactics here. But these are not just a symptom of US law’s failure to protect employees. Even in the American context, Amazon is exceptional, and not just in its delivery times. Last year a report by the Strategic Organising Centre, a coalition of four labour unions, revealed that Amazon warehouse injury rates were twice that of the warehousing industry and 80 per cent higher than the industry average for serious injuries in 2020. Another study of six Amazon warehouses in Minnesota found similarly higher rates of injury.

When a former worker at a Baltimore warehouse complained that he was dismissed due to legally protected organising, an attorney for Amazon argued that firings for “productivity issues” were a common practice and that at least 300 full-time workers were dismissed for this reason in a 13-month period – in a facility with about 2,500 full-time workers.

Last year Amazon announced that it now averages “time off task” (the metric used to track employee performance) over a longer period, but monitoring every second of warehouse workers’ performance is still central to its business model.

Tornado

The delivery stage is equally grim. Amazon had to apologise last April for denying reports that delivery drivers were forced to urinate in bottles to meet strict quotas. Last month, a tornado destroyed an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, killing six delivery drivers who took shelter there shortly before the storm hit, raising questions about the company’s safety policy. Amazon defended its safety record and said it was examining what happened. Delivery subcontractors in the United Kingdom have also reported long shifts, onerous targets and accidents caused by the furious pace of work.

The company consistently defends its practices. But knowing the human cost of just this section of Amazon’s supply chain, how can we expect low-paid workers (Amazon boasts that all workers here will be paid “at least €12 an hour”) to do such physically and mentally demanding work just so that we can get our stuff slightly quicker and with minimal effort? The vast majority of products Amazon offers are not necessities. Most of us could buy those products elsewhere or not at all. Even during the pandemic, helping to fill Amazon’s coffers is not the only alternative to shopping in person. Plenty of small- and medium-sized Irish businesses offer online retail, if we are willing to click through a few more screens and wait a little longer for our packages. Let’s opt out of the instant-gratification mindset and make a stand for decent work and business that benefits our communities in 2022.

Blánaid ní Bhraonáin is a recent law graduate.

True wisdom is knowing that you know nothing

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

Last Sunday week, Radio 1’s ‘Bowman: Sunday’ programme was dedicated to poet Thomas Kinsella, who died on December 22. We heard how Kinsella had initially no interest in poetry as a result of how it was taught in school. ‘Teaching of poetry managed to remove any charm or accessibility or success that it might have’, he said. He recalled how they were made commit to memory one or two stanzas so as to satisfy the examiner. ‘No art form could survive that,’ he said.

Imagine inflicting corporal punishment on pupils for not remembering a stanza? The violence of it is beyond words. However, I do remember later in college having a lecturer who had me sitting at the edge of my seat listening to him. 

It’s interesting how words and thoughts can influence us.

Someone gave me a Christmas gift of ‘The Sinner and the Saint/Dostoevsky, a Crime and Its Punishment’ by Kevin Birmingham. It’s about how Fyodor Dostoevsky came to write ‘Crime and Punishment’.

On learning of his father’s death, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother Mikhail: ‘Humanity is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you have wasted time.’

 

I am forever asking what life is about. Is there a God, is there life after death and if there be, what form does it take?

What do the words God, Devil, heaven, hell mean? 

Reading Birmingham’s book about Dostoevsky has ignited a flame of curiosity in me. 

Nothing ever stands still. We are in a state of constant change. 

Of course I can only speak for myself but how can anyone be certain about anything in a universe that contains realities and mysteries light years beyond our understanding? How conditioned are we by our surroundings and environment?

People of faith will say that God is a constant but surely our faith and understanding of God develop?

When I see what happens within organised religions I often find myself saying how can they know so much about God when they get so many simple matters wrong. We always have to be extremely careful attempting to say anything about God and the mystery of the universe.

In the Russia of the mid-19th century it was generally accepted that serfdom was ok. God apparently sanctioned the institution. When a serf ran away, there was a patron saint to whom a serf holder could pray to speed the serf’s capture.

It often strikes me that the sin of idolatry has been airbrushed out of the text books. It’s so easy for us to create our own cosy sanitised idea of God, in other words create our own image of God and fall into the trap of idolatry. It’s important never to lose sight of the sense of mystery and wonder of God.

Dostoevsky said he was studying the mystery of life and death, because he wanted to be a human being. I like that comment from Socrates: ‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’

Newbridge College past pupil Joe Reid on John O'Gorman

This was received on Saturday. As it will appear with an older post it is worth placing it here as a blogpost. The comment is about the late John O’Gorman:

Just seeing this now .. how sad .. at Newbridge College I had him for maths and applied maths (as an extra subject which he volunteered to teach a few of us). He was a teaching supremo... and a huge loss to go so early. Joe Reid ... class of 81.

Sinn Féin TD who grew up in Waterford’s Ballybeg

The Irish Times yesterday carried a profile piece on Sinn Féin TD and its spokesperson on health, David Culliane.

He talks about ‘growing up in the working-class  Ballybeg estate in Waterford, where poverty and inequality lived side by side with a ‘real sense of community’.

“I loved it. Even though we did not have a lot, we had everything, if that makes sense.

“Our parents made sure we had everything. We had good Christmases, good birthdays, we were always able to go on holidays. But I was conscious of the poverty as well.... of the perceptions that people had of the housing estate that I lived in.”

The Dominicans were quick to move to Ballybeg where they had a small community and co-operated in the running of the parish.

Did the Irish Dominicans lose part of their soul when they pulled out of Ballybeg?

Dostoevsky declared his existence by writing

I’ll tell you of myself that I have been a child of the age, a child of disbelief and doubt up until now and will be even (I know this) to the grave. What horrible torments this thirst to believe has cost me and continues to cost me, a thirst that is all the stronger in my soul the more negative arguments there are in me.

-Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky declared his existence by writing.

Report accuses Benedict of abuse cover-up

From The Irish Times yesterday. Another example how dioceses are managed. This story has received wide coverage in the German media.

Former pope denies claims in leaked German church report that he knew about abusing priest

Derek Scally

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has denied claims he was aware of an abusing priest operating on his watch in Munich and that he failed to act against him – twice.

The 94-year-old former pontiff will be named later this month in a long-awaited report into clerical sexual abuse in the Bavarian archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

A key case in the investigation involves an abusing priest who was moved to the southern archdiocese in 1980 when Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict, served there as archbishop.

More than two dozen men are on record as saying they were sexually abused as teenagers by the priest, identified only as Peter H, often after he gave them alcohol and showed them pornography.

Some victims live in the priest’s home diocese of Essen and others in Bavaria, where he was reassigned in January 1980. Even after a suspended sentence for child abuse in 1986, he remained active in pastoral work.

When new details about his abuse emerged in 2010, officials in Munich and Rome moved quickly to insist the German pontiff, during his four years as archbishop of Munich, had known nothing of the abuse.

But a 43-page report into the case by a church court from 2016, commissioned by the archdiocese of Munich and leaked to Die Zeit weekly’s Christ & Welt supplement, paints a different picture.

Obligation to report

“The then archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and his ordinariate council were, knowing the facts, ready to take on priest H,” notes the report, adding that they “consciously waived a sanctioning of criminal act” and “ignored” a 1962 obligation to report the priest to Rome.

In response to written questions, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, private secretary to the retired pope, wrote that it was “incorrect to claim [Ratzinger] had knowledge of the previous history (claims of sexual assault) at the point of the decision to accept the priest H. He had no knowledge of this previous history.”

Archbishop Gänswein declined to provide detailed answers to other questions ahead of the looming report into how the archdiocese of Munich and Freising dealt with abusing priests and their victims.

While the former pope insists he did not violate his archbishop’s obligation to register abuse claims with Rome – because he was not aware of the claims – the leaked Munich report comes to a different conclusion.

Written by Fr Lorenz Wolf, a leading German canon lawyer, it says Ratzinger breached church rules at least twice – by failing to register the abusing priest with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and for failing to act on the case after he moved to Rome to head this key Holy See office.

The priest has admitted abusing young men and now lives in western Germany, where he is forbidden from acting as a priest and is obliged to undergo regular therapy.

Eleven youths

After a 1986 conviction for sexually abusing 11 youths aged between 13 and 16, a note was left in his personnel file: “Use in another position not to be completely ruled out so long as there is no particular publicity.”After several psychological assessments and therapy spells, he was moved around in several parish jobs until his abuse once again became public in 2010 and Munich’s archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, began a final push to remove him.

In 2012 Cardinal Marx asked the CDF – formerly headed by Pope Benedict – for the priest to be “punished consequentially and put out of service”.

In response, the CDF told the cardinal it had “after intensive consultation, decided not to accept your suggestion”. Instead it asked the archdiocese to use administrative means, leading to the Wolf report and the priest’s removal.

Leading German canon lawyers told Christ & Welt that the leaked report exposes a “complete cover-up” of the case in Munich and Rome. By violating rules on reporting child sexual abuse to the Holy See, they say the former pope – and his successors in Munich – allowed Peter H to abuse further youths.

“The actions of the later pope do not show an awareness of responsibility appropriate to the dignity and power of a diocesan bishop’s office,” said Prof Norbert Lüdecke, of the University of Bonn’s Catholic Theology department.

“There’s no good shepherd here.”

The cruelty of life in Russia under the tsars

Convicts exiled to Siberia's outermost limits had to walk more than eight thousand kilometres - it took years. And the day they finally arrived was the day their sentences began.’

From 'The Sinner and The Saint Dostoevsky, a Crime and Its Punishment'.

Dostoevsky was sentenced to a number of years in exile in Siberia for being a member of the Petrashevsky Circle.

While in Siberia, Krivvtsov, a cruel commandant ordered the prisoners to sleep on their right side because he told them that was the aside that  Jesus slept on and ‘everyone should follow the Lord’s example'.

World renowned playwright Samuel Beckett

On this day, January 5, 1953 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was premièred in Paris.

Beckett was born in Dublin’s Foxrock in 1906, grew up as a member of the Church of Ireland, later he admitted he was an agnostic and his agnosticism influenced his writing.

He wrote in French and English.

During the war years he worked with the French Resistance and on one occasion narrowly avoided arrest by the Nazis.

I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one's material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realised that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding.

The Samuel Beckett Bridge over the River Liffey was officially opened on December 10, 2009. 

In 2014 the Irish Navy took delivery of a patrol vessel that was name the LÉ Samuel Beckett. It was the first time a vessel of the Irish Navy was called after an Irish playwright.

Wising up to waste on Nollaig na mBan?

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Thursday is Little Christmas or Nollaig na mBan, or indeed, the feast of the Epiphany, which is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah and Saviour of the world. It’s the feast that celebrates the arrival of the wise men from the East. How wise have we been this Christmas?

When people talk about our carbon footprint I know what they are saying but honestly I don’t understand the actual meaning. 

I know next to nothing about carbon. I do remember from fadó fadó it is one of the elements on the periodic table and is represented by the letter C. Like the rest of the world I’ve been reading and listening about COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was held in Scotland last year. Again, it was all sort of esoteric for me. 

This Christmas just gone by I have observed practices that have made me ask are we really interested in protecting our environment.

It’s an everyday occurrence but in the lead up to Christmas the practice exploded exponentially. I’m talking about the number of transit vans that arrive at people’s doors with a single package. The amount of fuel it takes to deliver that one package and then the cardboard or paper wrapping that is dumped. 

Over the Christmas I saw three such vans arriving at one house on one day. Can that really make sense?

But there is hope. There was an increase in recyclable material in the packaging left by Santa.

Again fadó fadó, Dublin Corporation, now divided into four local authorities, collected all domestic refuse in the county. A bin lorry came once a week and emptied residents’ bins.

 

Where I live today at least three, maybe four gigantic refuse trucks drive down the road, each truck collecting from a number of houses. It would seem they are all competing against each other for the business. 

In the meantime these three or four companies are polluting the atmosphere far more than if it were just one refuse truck that did the job. But on the other hand, fadó fadó all our refuse was most likely dumped in landfill.

I don’t for a moment want to sound like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol or make judgements on people but just before Christmas there were dire warnings that we may not have sufficient electricity capacity this winter. Christmas arrives and the quantity of Christmas lights that appeared on buildings, houses, trees, hedges, everywhere. 

Yes, I know no doubt they are LEDs but they are still being powered by electricity, which is using vast quantities of oil and gas.

Are all the journeys that we make by car really necessary? Do you, do I take a moment out and ask ourselves do we really need to use our cars as often as we do.

And then there’s the vast quantity of food that will have been wasted over Christmas. It’s reckoned Irish people will have thrown away €42 million worth of food during Christmas week.

Yes, it is good that we have moved away from a judgemental society, nevertheless, have we become far too profligate?

Fyodor Dostoevsky on the mystery of life

 ‘Humanity is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you have wasted time. I’m studying that mystery, because I want to be a human being.’  

Fyodor Dostoevsky in a letter he wrote to his brother Mikhail on learning of the death of his father.