Letters to the Editor: Animal owners face a heartbreaking choice

EDITOR – Presently many companion animal owners face a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ to keep their  companion animal.

Trying to secure a tenancy sees a landlord, both private and local government, forcing a prospective tenant to decide between accepting a housing offer but without their companion animal, or refusing the offer because of their companion animal.

Faced with landlord intransigence, the break-up of a family unit is a daily unpleasant reality within the housing market.

Heartbreaking as it is, many are deciding to rehome their companion animals in order to accept the tenancy. 

Having a companion animal has many benefits to a person’s emotional and mental health. For a landlord to deny a person’s right to live with a dog or a cat, or any other fur and feather companion, could be straying into a breach of human rights.

Anti-discrimination legislation should be amended to make it an offence to discriminate against a person who has a companion animal/s when an application is made for a tenancy.

For those who share their lives with a companion animal, a house is just a building with walls and floors.

A house but no companion animal, or companion animal and no house, while knowing a decision must be made with no best outcome, is choice-based mental cruelty.

Landlords should drop the ‘fur and feather’ excuse and accept that companion animals also need housing.

John Tierney,

Chairperson,

Waterford Animal Concern,

Waterford.

Soulless landlords are preying on vulnerable 

EDITOR – AS I sat, watching RTÉ television on a recent Monday night, I was shocked to hear of landlords taking advantage of vulnerable people, asking for sex in exchange for rent. 

Sex should also should be an expression of a deeper, loving long-term relationship, not something to be given for financial benefit.

These landlords have no soul, only pound signs on their minds. 

Michael Hallissey, 

Mayfield, 

Bandon.

I won’t walk the streets of Cork city after dark

EDITOR – Recent discussions on the matter of personal safety while walking the streets of our cities have prompted me to think about it.

My work has taken me to many countries through the world.

I have walked the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, Baghdad, Islamabad, Kabul, Yerevan, Port Moresby (at the time considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world), Zagreb, Belgrade and even Vukovar during civil war.

I’ve also walked through New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Geneva, and more.

With the exception of Port Moresby – where I did feel uncomfortable – I had no concerns whatsoever walking the streets of those other cities.

But I must state that I will not walk the city streets of Dublin or Cork after dark, due to concern for my safety.

That is just my view.

Michael A Moriarty,

Rochestown.

Time to get real on climate change

EDITOR – In Jeremiah McCarthy’s recent letter, he asks ‘Who could move or tilt the earth’s axis?’ adding: ‘Certainly not mankind’. Rubbish! Think of how a spot of mud on a golf ball can seriously affect its flight.

As well as climate warming, causing vast amounts of ice – larger than the size of Ireland – to crash into seas and move over earth’s surface affecting our equilibrium, the moon, which has been our protector since the birth of our planet, against the harmful sun’s rays, and asteroids, will have an increased influence on matters.

Also, vast concrete structures, erected all over the world, with the construction and enlargement of cities, together in one area, will accentuate the normal minute changes in earth’s axis. Let’s get real.

As far back as 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius claimed that fossil fuel could result in global warming. 

For over 40 years, I have said that global warming could be accelerated much faster than predicted. Not at an arithmetic or geometric rate, but like a snowball down a mountain. 

I am in my 80s and I can remember, when I was a young lad, the saying was ‘when the sea dies man will die’. Think what is already happening – and what to expect in the future. FAWWEEST – fire, ash, water, wind, eruptions, earthquakes, storms, tsunamis. 

I am doing what I can, which is a miserable effort, regarding the problem! 

George Salter Townshend, 

Castletownshend.