EDITOR - Long before the Gaza genocide, the Palestinian Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement called for a boycott of Israeli sporting institutions.

Apartheid Israel’s illegal and unjust restrictions on the participation of Palestinians in international and internal sporting events should be enough to disqualify them alone. Palestinian football fans are routinely attacked by Israeli football hooligans given impunity by the genocidal Israeli state, while their clubs and sport infrastructure are targeted for demolition by the Israeli Defence Forces. In 2016 the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign created a timeline of state-sanctioned attacks since 2005. In 2019 the FIFA Palestine Cup was cancelled.

Participation of Palestinians in international sporting events is often blocked. Ireland showed its complicity in this denial of basic Palestinian sporting rights by denying visa applications from GAA Palestine to travel here last summer. Attacks on events and athletes have intensified since 2023. It is estimated that over 800 athletes have been killed in Gaza including Suleiman al-Obeid, the ‘Palestinian Pelé,’ murdered alongside others waiting for humanitarian aid.

Israel’s participation in international sporting events also legitimises the so-called ‘ceasefire’. Since Oct 10th, Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 1,620 times. Gaza has faced nearly daily attacks resulting in the death of nearly 600 Palestinians. On February 4th an Israeli attack killed 24 in Gaza including three children, while new measures for incursions and settlement building in the illegally occupied West Bank are seen as ‘de facto annexation.’ Aid delivery by the UN continues to face restrictions and denials.

Russia was rightly banned from both the FIFA World Cup and Olympics following their unjust invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Apartheid South Africa faced numerous sporting restrictions over policies similar to those instituted by Israel today. Israel, now under investigation for genocide by the ICJ, should also be banned.

Ireland alongside Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands, has already legitimised the use of boycotting with its decision to withdraw from this year’s Eurovision due to Israel’s inclusion. It is a moral obligation to adopt the same position with regard to sport.

Signed,

Jews for Palestine Ireland.

Exceptional care at Bantry hospital

EDITOR -  I am currently on a week long holiday visiting family and friends in and around Bantry. Yesterday, I had the misfortune to fall down the stairs at a friend’s house and I was taken to Bantry hospital injury unit for examination and treatment.

I would like to say a big thank you to the staff at the unit for their care and attention they gave me in a very quick pleasant and efficient manner. I was in and treated and allowed to go home in less than an hour. Exceptional.

Many thanks, Alan Rawstron,

Grimsby, Lincolnshire, UK.

Older renters need to be protected in reforms

EDITOR - ALONE, the national organisation supporting older people to age at home, has welcomed key protections in the Residential Tenancies Bill 2026, while warning that some measures may unintentionally harm older renters, one of the fastest growing and most at risk groups in the private rental sector.

ALONE has welcomed the Bill’s strengthened security of tenure, with six-year minimum leases offering vital stability for older people who need to remain close to community, support services, and family. The organisation also supports restrictions on ‘no fault evictions’ and the introduction of a Rent Price Register, which will bring greater transparency for tenants. However, ALONE has raised significant concerns about allowing rents to reset to market levels for new tenancies from March 1st 2026. This change could disproportionately affect older renters on fixed pensions and those relying on HAP, especially given the ongoing shortage of rental properties within HAP limits and increasing competition in the market.

ALONE also warns that reforms could accelerate landlord exits, shrinking supply and driving rents higher, without any Government analysis of the Bill’s potential impact on rent inflation. We welcome stronger protections and transparency for tenants, but older renters remain at real risk of being priced out of their communities. Without safeguards, rising rents will push those on fixed incomes into deeper housing insecurity. The Government must ensure that these reforms protect those most at risk.

We would urge that Government publish analysis on the potential impact of the reforms. Older people cannot absorb sudden rent increases, and unless we address supply and affordability together, this crisis will worsen.

ALONE continues to highlight the growing challenge facing older renters, including an 83% increase in older renters since 2022, declining homeownership, and rising homelessness among people aged 55+ across the country. ALONE’s research with Threshold also shows that 42% of older renters experience significant stress due to instability of tenures.

We must not overlook people over 60 when considering the rental market, particularly the uniquely vulnerable position many retired renters face. Affording current market rents after retirement is nearly impossible as it is and research shows this create a reluctance in the private sector to rent to over 60’s.

We look forward to the HAP review due in June and an increase focus on social housing and housing choices for older people. Older people who need support can contact ALONE’s National Support and Referral Line on 0818 222 024, available from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week.

Seán Moynihan,

CEO of ALONE.

Bypassing democracy

EDITOR - The government’s plan to remove the Triple Lock is being sold to the public as a move toward ‘sovereignty’ and an end to the so-called Russian veto. However, this argument ignores a much more uncomfortable reality: you cannot expand deployment powers without also expanding the pool of people to deploy. The simultaneous move to fast-track Irish citizenship for non-national recruits is not just a pragmatic fix for a staffing crisis. It is the supply side of a new military strategy. By offering citizenship as a contractual incentive, the State is effectively building a professional force specifically designed to sustain the higher operational tempo required by EU Battlegroups and ‘coalitions of the willing.’ The Triple Lock was the democratic guarantee that convinced a sceptical public to support the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. It ensured that Irish troops would only be sent abroad under the impartial banner of the UN. Removing this safeguard via simple legislation, while simultaneously incentivising foreign nationals to fill the ranks, fundamentally alters the nature of the Irish Defence Forces. We are moving away from the ‘citizen-soldier’ model toward a more interventionist posture. If the government intends to shift Ireland from its status as a neutral state under the Hague Convention to a more aligned military participant, it should have the courage to put that shift to the people in a referendum. To do so through piecemeal administrative changes is a bypass of our democratic process.

Noel Doyle,
Dublin 4.