Free Speech And Free Scrap Metal

The economy is poor and so are the Irish people who do not have, and cannot find, work.

Social welfare only goes so far, and when a man is looking around for added income, his eye is likely to fall upon large metal objects.

Metal is increasingly being stolen and sold as scrap by thieves who are roaming the island in search of assets they can liquify. Not that the objects belong to them, but when you're about stealing, possession is an issue easily solved by taking.

Roofing material has gone missing, melted down by a dealer who is clearly not overly concerned with the source. How else would the lead sheeting covering the roof of the bandstand at the National Botanic Gardens go missing without a scrap metal dealer wondering where the lead came from? And calling around to see if anyone had lost a roof?

Now RTE is under attack, but the thieves who target RTE's masts and related infrastructure are also attacking free speech.

Without metal for wiring and towers to bounce signals off of, there go the radio signals that carry the words of RTE and anyone using a mobile phone that depends on the masts being operational.

Sadly, the metal used in the telecommunications industry is not the valuable type, unlike the copper and bronze you'd find in cemeteries or old roofs.

Thieves are breaking in and causing damage, thinking they've scored and their local pub owner will be the beneficiary of the added income, but all they've done is knock out a tower and infringed on the rights of the Irish people to chat on their mobile.

Gardai are investigating and the Minister of Justice has heard the complaints of RTE. The rights of the people to talk are under fire here.

A special metals theft unit will be formed to crack down on the illegal scrap metal business. A booming economy with plenty of jobs would do more to solve the problem, but that is not so easily accomplished by a special unit of An Garda Siochana.