Irish Examiner view: A small price for the greater good

Irish Examiner

23-05-2025

The threat to the post office network seems existential. But shouldn't a nation that's tied so much of its identity with parishes and villages be doing more to save them?
The postmasters have argued that additional services could safeguard the system. They say the 960-strong network needs €15m a year of support over the next five years. That's about €15,600 per post office. That's just over half the annual salary of somebody earning minimum wage and working a 40-hour week.
Grant Thornton's report suggests post offices are worth between €344m and €776m in economic and social good to the country. It seems a small price to pay for social good.
Some post offices are integrated into other businesses such as shops and supermarkets, and the closure of one naturally brings on an existential crisis for the other. There have been plenty of stories about the hollowing out of communities following the closure of a post office, and it does make sense.
If people have to travel to do their post-related business, then they're more likely to do their non-post business nearby. It's just natural. Things fall apart, the village centre cannot hold.
And if the village centre goes, then what's the point in developing housing or other services in the locality? It's a potentially vicious cycle.
Yes, there has been a decline in sending letters, and the cost of postage increases. And yes, there is no shortage of courier services delivering online purchases. But for all the digital advances in the world, there is still an important place for the brick and mortar services best exemplified by the post office. Not everybody is able to access digital services, and not everybody is able to use them anyway. So they need a place to go for claiming pensions or other vital things. It may not seem sexy, and it's not something that can have 'AI' slapped on the branding for upselling, but it's the truth.
People only miss these things when they're gone — and when they're gone, they don't come back.
Innocent citizens not to blame
The murder of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC was a heinous act that must be condemned.
The man arrested at the scene, Elias Rodriguez, chanted 'free Palestine' after being taken into custody, but that does not make it some sort of noble political act. The shooter was on no watchlist, and had no criminal record, although he had previously been associated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which has advocated in favour of Palestinians.
The group, which is non-violent and supports the Worker's Party of North Korea and endorsed the Russian annexation of Crimea, says he has had no ties to them since 2017.
What happened was brutish thuggery, cold-blooded, and callous. For all the faults of Israel as a state, its actions should not be visited on its citizens. No citizen of any country should face violence because of the actions of their rulers, much like the ordinary people of Gaza should not be starving because of something Hamas did.
Indeed, one of the slain couple, Sarah Milgrim, was known for her volunteer work to support dialogue between young Israelis and Palestinians. Advocacy group Tech2Peace said she 'brought people together with empathy and purpose' and that 'her dedication to building a better future was evident in everything she did'.
As part of her master's, she did a special project on how friendships and personal connections could contribute to peace.
Ms Milgrim's boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, a German-Israeli also murdered at the museum, had described himself online as interested in: 'Expanding the circle of peace with our Arab neighbours and pursuing regional co-operation is in the best interest of the state of Israel and the Middle East as a whole. To this end, I advocate for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding."
These are hardly warmongering demagogues. If anything, they seem rather more like the kind of people the world could do with more of.
In the wake of the murders, Israel politicians have tried to put the blame on 'anti-Israel incitement' by European governments, which makes no sense whatsoever given that there is no indication the shooter was in any way influenced by a foreign country.
Antisemitism has been on the rise since the beginning of the Gaza war, sometimes wrapped in the fake garb of responding to the Israeli state's actions. However, as antisemitism has increased so has anti-Palestinian sentiment in the US, which has seen, for instance, a pro-Israeli group assaulting people in New York while chanting 'death to Arabs'.
Prejudice has always tried to hide itself as something other than the pond-scum behaviour that it really is.
Whether we will ever get to the bridging place Ms Milgrim and Mr Lischinsky tried to work toward remains to be seen. But what is certain is that there is no place for violence in politics, and that individuals should not be singled out for grievances against their countries.
Penalty for racist abuse
With racial hate having no place in any world that aspires to be modern or civilised, it is heartening that the Spanish courts have handed down suspended sentences for the abuse of Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior. The player has been the subject of ongoing racist vitriol, including online campaigns, which the Brazilian has fought hard.
There have been several convictions previously related to such abuse in stadiums, but the landmark aspect of this one, which concerns a match in December 2022, is that rather than treating the offences as something related to moral conduct, they are treated as a hate crime.
He is not the first player to face racism on the pitch in Spain, and it would be optimistic in the extreme to say that the problem will be solved imminently.
Still, every victory against hate should be welcomed, as society moves forward, one dribble at a time.
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