Now is hardly the time to have debates on whether we need capital punishment, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
DEAR IRISH baggage handlers,we would appreciate if you could send us back our RDX explosive by return flight. Yours sincerely, the Slovak airport police.
Aside from such details as an innocent man being arrested, nearby apartment dwellers having to be evacuated, and the fact the explosive is normally considered too dangerous to transport by air, wasn’t it great to see someone other than ourselves foul up so spectacularly?
For once we were not the laughing stock of Europe, but another country definitely was. For us Irish, who cannot cope with a little snow, it was a relief to think that at least there are other states where they plant explosives on their citizens. All in the interests of security, of course.
It is somewhat paradoxical that measures aimed at increasing the safety of the public end up endangering them. We are well used to the fact that every passenger is inconvenienced to prevent attacks by the few. However, we also know that while security measures are necessary, they will not always succeed.
In a world where a Nigerian father had attempted to alert the US about the extreme views of his son, but the son still packed his underpants with explosives and boarded a plane, security has become a forlorn dream.
The only way to have detected the explosives on this young Nigerian would have been to subject him to a body search that one security expert described as akin to sexual assault. Instead, body scanners are to be installed.
The reality is that when people are willing to die for a cause, it is practically impossible to prevent terrorism. It is also impossible to prevent human error. It is deeply embarrassing for the Slovak government that a security officer got distracted and forgot to retrieve explosives, thus allowing them to be flown to Dublin.
Such mistakes are always going to happen. That is why people are so scared. Statistically, cars are more dangerous than airplanes, but you would not think it when you see the speed some Irish citizens are driving at in a country pathetically under-equipped to deal with ice and snow.
Similarly, child abduction is very rare, but parents are terrified of it. The long-term dangers of a sedentary, indoor existence are far more real, but not as immediately visible. Hence, parents are willing to tolerate couch potato behaviour from children, because at least they know where they are.
I have been racking my brains to try to figure out what fears the Mid-West Regional Authority in Ennis, Co Clare, was trying to calm by debating restoration of the death penalty, at a time when most citizens were more concerned about being able to get milk at the local shop without breaking their necks.
The country swung from floods to ice, the schools were forced to close, and councillors are debating the reintroduction of the death penalty?
True, their major concern was that criminals seem to operate with impunity, and have no fear of punishment. The councillors seemed to think that a debate on the death penalty would do something about that. Cllr PJ Kelly seemed to think that our prisons were “hotels with a harp” and that until prison became far less luxurious, we could not hope to reduce prisoner numbers.
For the sake of tourism in the mid-west, let us hope that the average hotel stay does not include stabbings, or four prison officers requiring treatment, as happened in Mountjoy just after Christmas. Presumably sanitation is poor in the mid-west hotels, or else he had not read the inspector of prisons Judge Michael Reilly’s report on Mountjoy Prison.
To give just a sample from Judge Reilly’s report: “Because there is no ‘in cell’ sanitation in the cells on the landings in the main prison block, prisoners must ‘slop out’ after unlock. This practice has been described by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) and my predecessor as inhuman and degrading treatment. I agree with their findings.”
Fear makes humans do strange things. Threats are real, but our responses are frequently disproportionate. Presumably, the councillors were motivated by anger at the casual disregard for human life and rights displayed by some criminals. It is somewhat ironic that at least some of them seemed to think that ending the lives of criminals would somehow restore respect for human life.
The councillors are not alone. Philip Boucher-Hayes reported on RTÉ’s Drivetime after an interview with Cllr Kelly that there had been a couple of hundred texts, most of which supported reintroduction of the death penalty. Only four opposed.
The councillors held their debate in the full knowledge that the EU is a staunch opponent of the death penalty. John Bruton, as EU ambassador to the US, was sent last October to reiterate calls to the US to abandon the “cruel and inhumane” practice.
The Swedish government, which held the EU presidency at the time, pointed out that 93 per cent of all known executions took place in just five countries – China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US. Perhaps the mid-west councillors are keen to join that exalted company.
Terrorism is a real threat, but the Slovak government’s bid to try to prevent terrorist attacks put one of its citizens and the Irish public at risk.
Crime and lack of respect for life is a problem, but must we leap to debating the restoration of capital punishment? Getting roads gritted would seem to be more in order.