Letters to the Editor: Students will benefit from third-party assessment in State exams 

I could never assess my own students’ performance in the state exams. Teacher-based assessments of their own students would fundamentally damage the relationship between teacher and student.

On the other hand, curriculum development, subject syllabus revision, and multiple assessment methods are healthy reforms, supported by all stakeholders. The introduction of new subjects to meet the demands of contemporary society is welcome. Allocating 40% of Leaving Cert marks to project work, oral, and practical components is progressive. 

However, I am relieved that teachers will have no immediate role in marking any component of their own students’ exam performance. 

I sincerely hope that impending Dáil legislation will enshrine the status quo of impartial objective third-party assessment in the State exams.

Billy Ryle, Tralee, Co Kerry

Child care policies trump imperial war

The controversy over the standing ovation given to an ex-SS man by the entire Canadian parliament has more or less died away, as if it was merely a farcical accident signifying nothing at all. 

It brought back memories to me of 20 years ago, when much of the Western world first began to show signs of an irrational return to a militarist mindset, blindly following George W Bush into a pointless war against secular Iraq in pretended revenge for 9/11. 

I joined the Labour Party, thinking it was wrong to rant against the rise of fringe warmongers like Bush and Blair, if you were not even minimally engaged in democratic politics in one’s own country. The cause of their rise, I reasoned, was the decline of popular politics in all countries of the Western world.

At the first annual conference I attended, a motion against the Iraq war brought forth fiery speeches, rightly invoking James Connolly and the party’s origins in the anti-war movement, in anti-imperialism, and in the anti-conscription campaign during the First World War. The motion was carried unanimously. Directly afterwards, a fraternal delegate from Blair’s Labour Party was welcomed by the chair, who praised Blair’s second election victory and Blair’s new childcare policy. 

The whole platform and then the whole audience stood in a standing ovation. All the audience except myself, as far as I could see. 

It began to dawn on me that, deep down, the war meant nothing to the men on the platform, when set against their desperate desire to emulate Blair’s electoral success. These were not people who, in government, would ever deny the use of Shannon Airport to the US military. Somehow, good childcare policy outweighed a murderous imperialist war. The standing ovation was stupid, but it was revealing and it had meaning.

The Canadians argued that the parliament had been misled, as if the speaker had not clearly introduced Mr Hunka, the man they were clapping, as someone who had fought against the Russians in the Second World War, and thus could only be a Nazi. 

These members of parliament had supported the war enthusiastically, clearly without ever acquainting themselves with even a Ladybird version of modern Ukrainian history. The robotic standing ovation revealed them to be an entitled elite, pompously repeating talking points and arguments originally disseminated by Ukrainian and US spokespersons, but delivered with a pretence they had actually bothered to gain any real knowledge of the origins of this conflict in this faraway country. 

It is normal in modern politics for self-important fools to lazily parrot bullet points prepared for them by party HQ, but voters surely deserve better when the issue is war or peace.

Here the commentariat, almost to a man and woman, tout for Biden in the impending US election, in spite of there being two viable peace candidates, Donald Trump and RFK Junior. Maybe Biden has a more appealing child care policy.

Tim O’Halloran, Finglas, Dublin 11

Israel’s presence in West Bank is lawful

Fachtna O’Raftery’s attempt to draw parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Palestine issue — ‘FAI should boycott Israel matches too’ (Irish Examiner Letters, September 30) — doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Firstly, Israel’s presence in the West Bank is not against international law. The country was the subject of unprovoked attacks from there in 1967, it won the subsequent war and is entitled to stay there until there is a full peace settlement.

Furthermore, Israel has shown that it is willing to hand back land for peace agreements or even (in the case of Gaza) to hand it back despite there being no peace agreement. With specific regard to the West Bank, it has made several attempts at peace over many decades, all of which have been rebuffed by the Palestinians.

The contrast with Russia’s unprovoked attacked on Ukraine, not to mention its ongoing occupation of Moldovan and Georgian territory, couldn’t be greater.

Ciaran Ó Raghallaigh, Cavan

US military use of Shannon Airport

Since October 2001 well over 3,000,000 armed US soldiers passed through Shannon Airport, most of them on their way to and from conflict zones in the Middle East, and more recently supporting the war in Ukraine also.

Tens of thousands of aircraft associated with the US military have been refuelled at Shannon airport. Ireland has no military capabilities that would make any significant difference in such wars, and the US military have no need to refuel at Shannon airport because they have dozens of suitable refuelling stations at Nato airports in Western Europe.

Successive Irish governments have been actively supporting wars that have resulted in the deaths of millions of people, especially children. The cost to Irish taxpayers for US military use of Shannon airport is an estimated €100m due to additional security costs and air traffic control fees, money that should be spent on taking care of our most vulnerable citizens.

Therefore, it seems to me that the only obvious explanation for US military use of Shannon airport is to end Irish neutrality against the wishes of the majority of Irish citizens. Under Article 29 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, and as a self-declared neutral state, Ireland should be promoting international peace and not supporting wars.

These wars are causing huge damage to the global environment as well as greatly increasing the risk of catastrophic nuclear war.

If justified reparations are ever imposed on the countries that waged or supported these unjustified wars, then Ireland should be levied with a proportion of such punitive reparations. Why is it that no one is questioning the morality of the slaughter of these millions of innocents?

Edward Horgan, Castletroy, Limerick