Articles in the Comment Category

The glow of warm light in winter darkness remains the most potent symbolic association that the approaching days of Christmas possess. In towns and villages throughout our county, a great deal of effort and no little expense is incurred in garlanding the streetscapes with festive lights. The impetus for this is ostensibly commercial, the creation of an atmosphere conducive to lively trade and the maximisation of the enhanced opportunity this time of year offers for the businesses that are crucial to the healthy functioning of our local economies. But the governing impulse is ...

One of the irresolvable conundrums of life in Co Monaghan is that, given our conspicuous level of achievement in Tidy Towns competitions and the widespread evidence of community pride in place, the problem of littering should continue to be such a massive drain on local authority resources and a highly visible blight on many of our highways and byways. Street-cleaning costs – estimated by Sinn Féin Co Councillor Pat Treanor during the recent Budget discussions of the authority as being close to €1,000 per day – eat up a great deal ...

The crucial Christmas trading season for the county’s commercial and retail sectors that is now upon us has been ushered in on a tide of cautious optimism that seems to gauge the temperature of the wider economic climes. But, if the country is creeping stealthily away from austerity, its shadow is still a long one, with the music made by the clash of spare spending coinage in the pockets of the people hardly yet rising to orchestral heights. If shoppers contemplating their Christmas wants and needs have a little more fiscal leverage ...

Measures announced by US President Barack Obama this week that alleviate the problematic situation of undocumented Irish people Stateside will have gladdened the hearts of a good many families in our circulation area. There are many Co Monaghan people among the thousands of Irish in America over whom the shadow of deportation has long hung because of their twilight legal status. That law-abiding immigrants with established family ties making productive contributions to the economy will be able to live and work in the US in the future without looking over their shoulders ...

The Government were expected to unveil clarifying measures yesterday afternoon designed to dilute the widespread public bile over the imposition of water charges. Advance “leaks” of the placatory package indicated that charges for single adult households would be capped at €160 per year, with all other households paying an annual maximum of €260. Some legislative reassurance was also to be provided to assuage fears over any future privatisation of the new Irish Water utility. Bringing clarity to exactly what water will cost people in the future is welcome – it is just ...

The escalation of farmer protest over the beef price issue visible at factory gates throughout the country again this week was not a welcome sight. Aside from the disruption caused to production and the considerable economic cost to the food processing sector, the image of Irish agriculture abroad will have taken another bruising at a time when our ability to meet the requirements of the export marketplace can least afford a diminishment of reputation. As farmer and industry representatives gather for another round of Beef Forum talks over the coming days, ...

The significant escalation of protest over the current extremely difficult situation pertaining in the beef sector marked by this week’s 24-hour demonstrations by the Irish Farmers’ Association at meat factories in Co Monaghan and throughout the State has certainly heightened awareness of the issue at hand. While the sight of protesting farmers has not been an uncommon one across the country over the years, the action taken this week by the IFA is of a deeper and more serious order than the norm, reflective of the very testing circumstances many of ...

Recent public meetings held in the Teach na nDaoine Family Resource Centre in Monaghan Town have cast a chilling ray of illumination on the extent of drug dealing and drug taking in our midst. Although prompted by one community’s reaction to the tragic death of a young local man, it is clear from the contributions made at the meetings and the wider debate and publicity they have generated that this is not a problem specific to any one area and location in Co Monaghan – drugs are ubiquitous, and ...

The last word on the Town Council era of local government in Co Monaghan has now been spoken. The valedictory functions of the Castleblayney and Monaghan authorities, reported this week, and those of Clones, Carrickmacross and Ballybay that preceded them, are significant events in our history. Taken with the local government election process that will be completed in the county this weekend, they mark a point of momentous transition in the manner in which the business of local administration, a key one in public society, is delivered. ...

If elections are thermometers that take the temperature of the times, the outcome of Friday’s local government and European Parliament polls could be seen to diagnose an Irish population close to boiling point with the incumbent practitioners of politics. The trouble with such clinical findings is that they are often over-elaborately read by the media medicos – what might be a mild cold brought on by the chill of austerity has provoked some baleful prognosis that the symptoms herald a raging fever that is set to ravage the political ...