Post by pg13 on Feb 16, 2019 13:15:44 GMT
^^aazzaabb and innuendo could correct me if I have the wrong perception but the Church has lost its power in a great extent compared with what it used to have in the past century. The Magdalene laundries were shot down in 1996, the Irish clergy don't have the same power over children for obvious reasons and don't have the same influence to decide over political and social issues in the society. The Church is still a powerful entity in the former colonies Europe used to have.
To be fair, the Republic of Ireland has much bigger problems than the Catholic Church.
It's got an unarmed police force – An Garda Síochána. And they're basically absolutely crap in dealing with heavily armed criminal gangs in the Republic.
"Gang members know that if they are confronted by gardai they will almost certainly have the upper hand when it comes to firearms.
"Irish police have extendable batons and pepper spray - Irish criminals have Glochs and AK47's - there can only be one winner.
"Modern Irish criminals regard An Garda Siochana and their tools as play things - in the meantime, people get eviscerated in the cross fire generated by these gun toting savages."
John O'Keeffe, Head of the School of Psychology & Criminology, City Colleges' Dublin
"Irish police have extendable batons and pepper spray - Irish criminals have Glochs and AK47's - there can only be one winner.
"Modern Irish criminals regard An Garda Siochana and their tools as play things - in the meantime, people get eviscerated in the cross fire generated by these gun toting savages."
John O'Keeffe, Head of the School of Psychology & Criminology, City Colleges' Dublin
In fact, the Republic of Ireland has a HIGHER gun homicide rate than the UK.
"According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), approximately 38% of Ireland’s homicides are gun killings. In the UK, only 7% of homicides are by firearms. Ireland’s gun killings, on a per-capita basis, are around five times higher than most member states within the EU."
Northern Ireland is also less violent than the Irish Republic:
"....contrary to popular belief, the gun homicide rate in the Irish Republic was more than double that of Northern Ireland for the ten years from 2005 to 2015."
Northern Ireland police are far better trained and equipped to deal with that kind of crime which explains our much lower gun homicide rate as we see here in an extract from "Secret Victory: The Intelligence War That Beat The IRA":
"On another day we (RUC Special Branch) had two detective chief superintendents sent up from Dublin. They'd been told about another arms dump and briefed Haughey on it. He instructed them to sit on it this time. But the Gardai lads didn't know how. Haughey then asked how do those boys up North do it? They came up to us and we showed them what to do. To be fair to them they did not have the same training or resources we had.....The Gardai Special Branch lads really appreciated it."
So, I honestly don't really understand the preoccupation with the Catholic Church except for the fact that the Republic of Ireland tries to uphold a specific image of itself for the benefit of tourists.
Especially in contrast to Northern Ireland. Such a PR oriented thing worked once, but the irony of the Northern Ireland peace process is that its highlighted the higher per capita rate of violence in the Republic instead.