Ulster gets left out of fair deals
Friday, 19 September 2008
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Want one of those great car insurance deals you see on TV, or a well priced home cinema deal you see online or sign up to Weight Watchers?
Well, you can’t, because Northern Ireland is excluded.
Try buying Miele products from their website. You can’t because they don’t deliver to Northern Ireland.
They deliver to the Channel Islands though.
Some domestic white goods manufactures will refer Northern Ireland customers to their Irish offices. Lidl, Ticketmaster and Richer Sounds use ‘.ie’ websites for Northern Ireland.
One of the silliest and irrelevant examples to people living in Northern Ireland is the Childline charity’s TV slots for funding that is shown on UTV and Channel 4.
This funding request is for the Irish Childline, not the UK one. Any money donated by anyone living in Northern Ireland responding to that request will go to the Irish version.
This is totally unacceptable when Childline UK covers all of the UK including (surprise, surprise) Northern Ireland. Any local money should go to the UK version.
The prize in UTV’s ‘Watch to Win’ competition recently was two tickets to see the All Ireland GAA Final in Croke Park, Dublin.
This is only of interest to the nationalist section of the community and therefore makes the competition biased.
Imagine the uproar if the tickets had have been for a Northern Ireland football match.
There are too many examples of these matters for it to be coincidence.
I feel that there are subtle and malignant undercurrents occurring to make us all believe we are Irish.
The latest example is the assistance the UK Government announced in reaction to rising domestic fuel costs.
Northern Ireland was excluded from this. When asked, a spokesperson for Downing Street stated that it was a devolved issue for Stormont.
Putting it down to devolution is absolute nonsense as Northern Ireland has an Assembly exactly like Wales.
Wales got it and, therefore, no difference should have been made.
TANGLED WEB
Ballyclare
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As a employee of Childline I would be astounded if what this person had said is true. Our local fundraisers work extremely hard to try to raise funds and raise Childlines profile in Northern Ireland. Having said that Childline is a fantastic charity both north and south of the border and all chilren deserve someone to turn to regardless of which side they live in.
Posted by anon | 22.09.08, 08:34 GMT
The question is this:
Does Irish Childline provide services in Northern Ireland?
If it does, then all's well.
If it doesn't - then a third of the population of the island of Ireland is being scammed - pure and simple.
However a trawl of their website indicates that it's for people in the Republic of Ireland only - so we're being scammed - Northern Nationalists and Unionists.
Posted by Eamon | 20.09.08, 15:17 GMT
Such disgraceful sectarian and bigoted tripe, get a life you little angry man with nothing better to worry about!
Posted by Sam | 20.09.08, 08:49 GMT
You are Irish - arent you?? I would be happy for my money to go to Childline anywhere.
Posted by Anne | 19.09.08, 22:24 GMT
Oh dear! Another opportumity for us to snap and snarl at one anothers' ankles as we get to plug our particular brand of prejudice. Northern Ireland is just the northern portion of Ireland, or am I missing something? We have to embrace change, often painful as it may be. But the truth is, none of us own one ounce of the soil we live on. Sadly, memories often hurt - me too! And I too long for 'status quo', but that isn't possible. So what can we leave for our children and grandchildren? Is it to be the perpetuation of hatred, or the ability to accept change and make the best of it? I'm non-Catholic, and love my Irish passport!
Posted by Ivan McIntosh | 19.09.08, 18:53 GMT
I have to say who ever wrote this letter should really get a life. Firstly the vast majority of people living on the island of Ireland are Irish so get over it ! So its only logical that people in Northern Ireland are referred to Irish organisations and events because they live in Ireland. Let me remind this indivdual that one third of Ulster is the Republic of Ireland.
Posted by John | 19.09.08, 14:51 GMT
So you see, there are clearly distinct advantages to being Irish!
I have often thought that Lidl, Miele and Childline had a hidden Irish nationalist agenda and this only confirms it. If they had unionist sympathies then clearly this is more important than their shareholders' profit or in Childline's case a sensible organisational structure based on geography.
Posted by Chris | 19.09.08, 14:31 GMT