Munster Express Online

Dear Editor,

The city of Waterford is (at the time of writing) a wilderness of closed f

Waterford wasn’t always like this. It used to be a thriving place with busy shops and pubs and having a contented and happy population. Dullness and apathy is now the lot of all that live here. Why has this change of fortune taken place?

Membership of the EU (formerly the E.E.C.) is to blame and I now set out to explain why I and many more believe this to be the reason for the nation’s decline. I challenge anyone to refute the details I am about to record.

Before joining the EEC in 1972, we had a Turnover Tax of three and a half per cent on all items purchased. On joining this EEC we were saddled with a new tax, unknown here, of 21% and called V.A.T. or Value Added Tax. This tax applied to all items such as, a haircut and the daily newspaper. Nothing escaped this penal tax, but, farmers and tourists could get back the V.A.T. on certain items; the farmers on fertilizer, animal feed, tractors etc; the tourist on most purchases. For us, the normal citizen of the Republic, this was an immediate increase on living costs of 17%.

Denny’s closed

Here in this city, by an E.E.C. directive, Ireland’s oldest bacon factory, Dennys, was forced to close, resulting in a loss of 300 jobs. This was the start of European redundancies in Ireland. More were to follow.

In the Waterford area, in Portlaw, Dungarvan and Carrick-on-Suir, the tanneries of these towns were forced to close, more jobs gone and Irish made shoes became rare items.

Our cattle were exported ‘on the hoof’ and the bye products of the slaughtered animals, the hides that made the leather, the horns and the hoofs that made glue and the blood that made fertilizer were no longer available, so, more redundancies in factories too numerous to record, but, well known to the victims.

The next piece of insanity was the much discredited, intervention beef scheme. In this scheme, too much beef was produced and so, at enormous costs, the surplus was stored in freezers, and when this method ran out of space, refrigerated ships were anchored out to sea and here the extra beef was stored. Meanwhile millions starved in poor nations, particularly in Africa.

There was a mountain of beef that there was no market for and the question arose, what to do with this growing mountain? The answer was announced, sell it to Russia at one third of the cost of production and write off the loss. To this day, we have never learned the true cost of this very stupid scheme.

To keep our politicians happy and contented, we were allowed to elect a small few to the European Parliament and they had to take with them an army of civil servants to Brussels to assist them. Of course the selected civil servants had to be of the correct political party and to be good Europeans in all things. They were never to rock the boat.

One of the elected MPs was Padraig ‘Pee’ Flynn, who, on the Late, Late Show, revealed how much people like him were paid. The sums stated by him stunned everyone but it was quickly forgotten.

Sugar factories

The following are for consideration for we are now the dump of Europe, as I now outline. Our four beet factories have been closed, the sugar we now use is from French and German beet, they had a surplus, so, dump it on Ireland. The ‘beet’ season lasted thirteen weeks and more than 1,000 people were employed to deal with the crop. Extra staff was taken on at the four factories and the railway employed at least 100 people in addition to the normal staff.

There is a bye product from the sugar beet, and this, called beet pulp, is sold back to the farmer and used as cattle feed. Cattle feed is now imported and farmers complain about the cost of feeding their livestock. To keep the farmer happy and to compensate him for the loss of a guaranteed crop (i.e. beet) he is paid not to till his land. This is sinful for people who go to bed hungry in many parts of the world. ‘Where there is wilful waste, there will be woeful want’

Go to any supermarket, (they have successfully closed most of the local shops and now charge what they like) and try to find Irish vegetables. The potatoes come from Italy or Cyprus, the onions from Spain, the cabbage and lettuce from Holland, the apples from France. Fruit, such as strawberries etc, come from France and Italy.

We no longer produce our own and as time goes on, we will get lazier and less inclined to work for unemployment kills the desire to be independent.

The song says that ‘only our rivers run free’. This E.U., with the approval of the elected M.’, have agreed to destroy the nation’s fishing industry. We had too much sea anyway; so, give some of our fishing territory to the poor Spanish, French, German and any other Europeans that might fancy a piece of Irish fishing territory. How dare we have plenty of fish while others have over-fished their seas.

Unemployed fishermen

In our own area, Dunmore East, Passage and Cheekpoint have, for the first time in centuries, unemployed skilled fishermen who are not allowed to follow their profession. How long more must we put up with this European slavery.

In conclusion, and briefly, may I outline some of the benefits (?) of European membership. We now have road tolls, we are threatened with water taxes, in a country that could export water. We have dishonest bankers who are going to cost us countless billions. Why save these crooks, jail them and nationalise the banks. Drug use has increased since membership of this E.U. No one can deny this. It’s happening.

Money can be found to save the banks but not to assist the guards in their fight against drugs and its related crimes. I ask the politicians to give us back our Republic, get out of Europe and save our people. I am an Irish republican, I am not a European. I am over 80 years old, love my country and its people and before I die, I hope to see once more, a free Ireland where everyone is equal and jobs are available in our own industries.

The men of 1916 and the years that followed did not die to get rid of one tyrant and to have the country sold to European gangsters for a mess of pottage. I hope to see this E.U. gone the way of all the past corrupt empires.

I am, dear Editor,

Yours faithfully,

Jack O’Neill

47 O’Reilly Road, Waterford.