Towards an ecology of peace

“Fifty murders each year over the past two years. The problem of violence in Ireland is not to be overlooked”, the Irish Bishops’ Conference press office told SIR Europe. Indeed, this was the theme the seminar held a few days ago in the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin. “The encounter, inspired by the 2008 document ‘Violence in Irish Society: Towards an Ecology of Peace’ issued by the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs, brought together some sixty organizations engaged in combating acts of violence on a daily basis, in order to promote the confrontation of different experiences”. In his opening address, bishop Msgr. Eamonn Walsh explained, “Each one of us ought to address this problem. The government and GARDAI (the Irish Republic’s police force) are unable to uproot violence on their own. Our society ought to replace the culture of violence with a new sense of justice, responsibility and community”. Panel speakers included journalists, and representatives of child research and support centres and associations along with the Dublin Chief Superintendent Pat Leahy. “The value of the meeting was to bring together for the first time some sixty organizations committed in combating daily episodes of violence around the same table”, acknowledged Francis Cousins, spokesperson of Irish bishops. The importance of prevention. Nicola Rooney, research coordinator for the Justice and Social Affairs commission of the bishops’ Conferences, said the seminar succeeded in identifying prevention as the key to counter violence. “The easiest thing to do to combat criminality is to resort to legislative measures and to the police”, Rooney told SIR Europe, “However, the speakers agreed that severe punishment and legislation doesn’t help address the causes of violence”. Thus, education and the family are the crucial areas of intervention. Education and the family. “Police representatives attending the seminar identified education as a key factor in uprooting violence”, declared the coordinator, “while household abuses are a vicious cycle that is hard to break”. Those who are object of repeated abuse tend to reproduce the same pattern in adult life. The police recognized that a new strategy is needed in order to strip the youth from the spiral of criminal behaviours”.A problem that involves us all. Rev Dr. Eoin Cassidy, representative of the Justice and Social Affairs commission indicated the Commission’s objective advanced in 2008: “To reflect on our response to violence, and not see it as something at the margins of our experience”. Panel speakers in the first part of the seminar include Paul Reynolds, “Rte” national television network correspondent for crime news, who underlined that parents’ and teachers’ erroneous behaviors promote acts of violence in the youth. Stephanie Holt, from the “Children’s Research Centre” of Dublin university, responded to the document from a child-centred perspective stating “children are often the forgotten and silenced victims of what is frequently but mistakenly understood to be an adult issue”. John Fitzgerald, chairman of the “Limerick Regeneration Agencies” focused on “social exclusion” as a primary cause of violence, and underlined that countering it is an investment for societies. The point of view of the victims of violence was presented by Ray McAndrew, Chair of the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime. He said that the goal of organizations working with victims “is to empower victims to return to living their lives in constructive ways”. After the seminar. “We shall draw up two documents that will be submitted to the Ministry of Justice and to the Ministry of Education”, Rooney explained, “underlining the importance of prevention in the family environment and at school in order to prevent violence in society. The seminar has provided a multi-disciplinary perspective that is indispensable in order to have a complete picture of this problem”.