Can anybody out there tell me where Love Ulster get the "right " to march in Dublin? People, including Sinn Fein, keep banging on in the newspapers about Love Ulster's "right" to parade their sectarian hatred through our streets. They are not Irish citizens, they do not pay taxes to this state and, in fact, define themselves by their hatred of this country. Would neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan also have the "right" to march in Dublin? What about tax paying Dubliners "right" to access their own city without having to run the gauntlet of a massive Garda security operation and a sectarian parade? There has been no debate on this issue. The Gardai have simply gone ahead and given permission for the march without consulting the people of the city as to our feelings on it. This march would be banned in any nationalist community in the six counties. So why do we have to stage it in the biggest nationalist community on the island? If more rioting takes place as a result of this parade, it will be the Gardai who are to blame. The whole problem could easily be avoided if the Gardai used common sense and revoked their permission for the march to go ahead. However, I believe that the Gardai have another agenda in allowing this parade to be re-staged. When rioting prevented the march going ahead in February 2006, the Guards and some government ministers saw that as a challenge to their authority. They now believe that they must "face down" the dissenters and re-assert their authority. I have no doubt that the Gardai will be far better prepared this time. A ring of steel will no doubt surround the city centre on the day of the march. But who suffers as a result of this aggressive policing? The ordinary tax paying citizens of Dublin-that's who. A modern police force should be above revenge and allowing contentious side shows in order to assert its authority. If the Gardai want to assert their authority and maintain the respect of the people who pay their wages, they could do it by telling Willie Frazier and his odious group-NO!

The Terrible Beauty at Ninety

I have seen them in their limousines, being chauffeured to the Dail

We've endured them on our TV screens lying to us all

I have voted till I realised that my franchise doesn't count

Gathered up and analysed the issues they discount

They have promised with their fingers crossed, things they can't deliver

Totally misjudged the cost while the cost kept getting bigger

They have handled with incompetence criminality and health

Will sell off the preponderance of the nation's wealth

So much money spent on make-up to hide their little flaws

A tab that we will have to take up in their cosmetic cause

It's like a scene from Nero's Rome or eighteenth century France

Aristocrats in all but throne, Dukes of arrogance

You have heard their overtures to peace and the role of the UN

But when war came to the Middle-East, they weren't so certain then

When the coalition forces used the diplomacy of the canon

And the US air force was let abuse the hospitality of Shannon

Is there nothing they can do to stop the rising cost of living?

Or must we trawl through every shop to find where value's given

Bills are getting higher too, the price of power is shocking

A price that's paid by you and me to stop this boat from rocking

Once upon an insurrection a poet dared to praise

Those who needed no election to change our timid ways

Though lawlessly they showed us how to write our history books

That terrible beauty's ninety now and she's lost her looks