In response to Philip Boucher-Hayes' documentary

Apt Op Username is apt

jh79

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

1. What do you consider as red meat?
Red meat refers to all mammalian muscle meat, including, beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat.

2. What do you consider as processed meat?
Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood.

Examples of processed meat include hot dogs (frankfurters), ham, sausages, corned beef, and biltong or beef jerky as well as canned meat and meat-based preparations and sauces.

Just to add its the curing process not chemicals used in the food industry. An artisan salami ( made by hand with free range pork etc etc) still falls into this category

banie01

The good Doctor O'Sullivan has posted a further letter on the Vegetarian Society of Ireland's page. This one directed to Darina Allen.
I have issue with someone signing off a letter sent in their capacity as chairman of an Organisation unrelated to N.U.I.G, as being directed from them in their "professional" capacity.
Any communication sent as Chair, should be addressed from the Society's registered address and from her position as chair without reference to her position at N.U.I.G.

The Doctor's professional position has no bearing or merit on any communication she forwards in her capacity as Chair of the Vegetarian Society.
Indeed in conjunction with her misplaced belief that RTE have breached the ECHR, its inclusion is a patently obvious tactic intended to bully the recipient into a retraction or apology.

As such I would very much look forward to N.U.I.G's opinion as to whether the Doctor's choice to address her correspondence as being from N.U.I.G, is in breach of their communications policy? Or if indeed it now constitutes N.U.I.G's stated position on this matter?

School of Law, National Universisty of Ireland, Galway

I do wonder if her position allows her the authority to communicate on behalf of, or to imply such communication originates feom N.U.I.G without clearing it with their communications/PR department/officer?

This is the text of the letter I am sending off to Darina Allen tomorrow. The more I thought about what she said about vegans needing a steak, the more concerned I became about how restaurants would interpret that and maybe have a laugh at our expense. There has been a case of spiking already in the UK a few months ago. Here's my letter:
School of Law,
National University of Ireland,
Galway.

March 12, 2018

RE: Philip Boucher-Hayes Documentary on Veganism

Dear Ms. Allen,

My name is Maureen O’Sullivan and I am a lecturer in law at the National University of Ireland in Galway. I have long admired aspects of your work on food and remember in particular your successful resistance to the planting of genetic modified test sites in Co. Cork nearly 20 years ago. Whilst I am Chairperson of the Vegetarian Society of Ireland, a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and a vegan for 31 years and therefore do not agree with killing animals, I still value very much your empowerment of the food sector in Cork (where I’m from) and East Cork. This has indirectly encouraged vegan businesses to bring their products to market, enhancing the food available for the growing number of non-meat eaters in the country. None of what I am going to say below detracts from what I have said here.

RTE has violated Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and a number of different legal instruments in the broadcast of the above documentary. The Vegetarian Society of Ireland has lodged a formal complaint which we intend to pursue if an apology and some redress is not forthcoming. If you had gone on air and made comments about “cranky” Muslims or Jews needing a piece of pork, I imagine you can appreciate that you would now be facing a not inconsiderable backlash. The protection of freedom of conscience under the aforementioned Article 9 of the European Convention applies equally to those who chose secular ethical lifestyles and there is a maxim that “scienter” or “ignorance of the law” is no excuse to wrongdoing in this regard. Your unfortunate remark about “cranky” vegans needing a steak has caused deep offence across the country and beyond and also is a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. How dare you! The Vegetarian Society of Ireland believe that you should at very least retract that comment publicly and apologise for it, failing which we will consider pursuing the matter. Moreover, under equality legislation you are prohibited from discriminating against minorities on grounds such as religious or ethical belief. You are one of the most, if not the most important figure in food in this country and such position bears concomitant duties.

Let me highlight some of the problems emanating from your comments that various charities, NGOs and civil society groups in the sector will have to deal with in the fallout: vegans will get bullied at work and will risk having their food spiked in restaurants and in private locations by people who take their cue from you. Vegans will be verbally attacked and then “treated” with dietary “cures” recommended by you. I must say, I am quite astounded at your comments which were made with a total disrespect for a growing community and a total disregard for your duty not to use your position to abuse minorities that you do not like.

It has not been lost on us that Cully and Sully have brought out a number of vegan soups and your extended family businesses cannot simultaneously court us and think that it’s appropriate to utter discriminatory remarks in a public broadcast which our taxes fund. Of course, RTE should have edited out the comments in line with its duties under the Broadcasting Acts and also the aforementioned Convention but that does not take away from the fact that you made those comments and were very wrong to have done so. To whom did you think you were talking – to an audience that would slavishly agree with you and then engage in low-grade bullying of their workmates because you had given them the say-so? Perhaps the next time you have an urge to make snide remarks, you should endeavour to take the higher rather than the lower road. People look up to you and admire you so kindly, in the future, we request that you measure your words. If some vegans are cranky, it may because they encounter people like you who have no reason to utter such comments but do so anyhow just because you can. Many other vegans endeavour to treat other beings with loving kindness and we would hope that you, at some point in the not too distant future, would take a leaf out of our book.

I look forward to hearing your response to the Society.

Yours sincerely,

____________________________
Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan,
Lecturer (Above the Bar) in Law,
School of Law,
National University of Ireland,
Galway,
Ireland.

E-mail: maureen.osullivan@nuigalway.ie
Tel: +353 91 495627

Fellow, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, http://www.oxfordanimalethics.com/; Consultant Editor, Journal of Animal Ethics;
Chair, Vegetarian Society of Ireland: www.vegetarian.ie

UsedToWait

Dr O'Sullivan (now Professor Doctor, I understand) needs to be seriously questioned as to what clearly appears to be an abuse of her position as a law lecturer.
Again she repeats her vague and almost certainly insubstantial legal threats.

Your unfortunate remark about “cranky” vegans needing a steak has caused deep offence across the country and beyond and also is a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. How dare you!

From a quick look at their Facebook, she seems to speak for the Society without any consultation.

If I was a member, I'd be looking for her to be able to substantiate her assertions.

Otherwise, on the face of it, it's a hysterical zealot abusing her position.

gozunda

banie01 wrote: »

The good Doctor O'Sullivan has posted a further letter on the Vegetarian Society of Ireland's page. This one directed to Darina Allen.
I have issue with someone signing off a letter sent in their capacity as chairman of an Organisation unrelated to N.U.I.G, as being directed from them in their "professional" capacity.
Any communication sent as Chair, should be addressed from the Society's registered address and from her position as chair without reference to her position at N.U.I.G.

The Doctor's professional position has no bearing or merit on any communication she forwards in her capacity as Chair of the Vegetarian Society.
Indeed in conjunction with her misplaced belief that RTE have breached the ECHR, its inclusion is a patently obvious tactic intended to bully the recipient into a retraction or apology.

As such I would very much look forward to N.U.I.G's opinion as to whether the Doctor's choice to address her correspondence as being from N.U.I.G, is in breach of their communications policy? Or if indeed it now constitutes N.U.I.G's stated position on this matter?

I do wonder if her position allows her the authority to communicate on behalf of, or to imply such communication originates feom N.U.I.G without clearing it with their communications/PR department/officer?

Considering what Darina et family have had to weather in terms of negative news coverage in the past - I reckon she'll have a good laugh at that and deposit same in the nearest bio-compost unit.

What is your one like? And how the hell...
"how dare you" lol.
A Universal mule, no?

UsedToWait

banie01 wrote: »

As such I would very much look forward to N.U.I.G's opinion as to whether the Doctor's choice to address her correspondence as being from N.U.I.G, is in breach of their communications policy? Or if indeed it now constitutes N.U.I.G's stated position on this matter?

I do wonder if her position allows her the authority to communicate on behalf of, or to imply such communication originates from N.U.I.G without clearing it with their communications/PR department/officer?

I was interested in this too, so I've asked them - will update if they respond.

banie01

gozunda wrote: »

Considering what Darina et family have had to weather in terms of negative news coverage in the past - I reckon she'll have a good laugh at that and deposit same in the nearest bio-compost unit.

What is your one like? And how the hell...
"how dare you" lol.

It actually is descending into farce at this stage.
If I didn't know better I'd nearly believe that the Dr was a parody intent on hitting every Vegan Stereotype possible!

banie01

UsedToWait wrote: »

I was interested in this too, so I've asked them - will update if they respond.

Funnily enough, so did I.
Will keep you updated if I hear back.

L1011

Mentalmiss wrote: »

It is a European law

That you don't appear to have much knowledge of. Can you detail the violations?

jh79

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

When i said from 0 it was because neither the WHO nor IARC mentioned that the linear graph did not start at 0 and merely said every 50g until 140g is linear. Looking now, the graph indeed only goes down to around 5g of processed and red meat and I'm sure a case could me made that it's ok to eat 1-4 grams per day, be interesting to get that research group together :pac:

Again you are not paying attention to what the y axis data is. In this case it is relative risk not actual risk. The data does not suggest that 1-4 grams is ok and anything above will lead to more incidences of cancer of any clinical significance.

Obviously you can't have a bit of cancer, so you would have to increase the size of the cohort until you have a large enough sample size to get one extra incidence of cancer to determine the actual risk. The numbers are so small that that you wouldn't have a linear trend anymore.

It's safe to say if a linear trend was observed for the actual risk (authors could of easily done this -they had the necessary data) they would of reported it.

markodaly

UsedToWait wrote: »

Your unfortunate remark about “cranky” vegans needing a steak has caused deep offence across the country and beyond and also is a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. How dare you!

.

Irony is not the good Dr. strong suit, is it!

L1011

Watched the show as someone who isn't vegan but would eat a probably 60% vegetarian diet (paneer being the main thing that means its not 60% vegan at that).

The OP is such an over-reaction I'm not sure they actually watched it; or just heard some snippets about it before flying off the handle.

The refusing to take B12 against advice was stroppy but you don't make TV to do things easily. The amateur 'advice' he found online is easily found by the uninitiated and is nonsense as I imagine everyone here knows.

Once you get passed the few comments in the opening section, it was pretty balanced. The OP goes off about the animal slaughter scenes - sourced from a vegan campaigning group so you'd need to ask them about whether they meet safety standards (and can assume they don't - that was the point)

As an aside, I wonder if the black pudding in Sova was the Real Lancashire one - it does taste better than pretty much all the pig-based ones. Would buy it in preference if it was more commonly sold.

Greentopia

Anywhere I can watch the programme for those of us outside the country? I missed it when shown on RTE and it's not on the international version of the Player.

SinSim2

Greentopia wrote: »

Anywhere I can watch the programme for those of us outside the country? I missed it when shown on RTE and it's not on the international version of the Player.

I have a copy. Is there a way to private message?

Greentopia

SinSim2 wrote: »

I have a copy. Is there a way to private message?

Great, is it an online link? Yes you can PM me in your control panel page under the 'private messages' tab on the left. Ta

UsedToWait

banie01 wrote: »

Will keep you updated if I hear back.

Any response from NUIG?
Nothing here..

Anyone on twitter care to point them to this thread, particularly this succinct explanation of why they should comment on Dr O'Sullivan's complaints?


https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=106419756&postcount=124


https://twitter.com/nuigalway

banie01

UsedToWait wrote: »

Any response from NUIG?
Nothing here..

Anyone on twitter care to point them to this thread, particularly this succinct explanation of why they should comment on Dr O'Sullivan's complaints?


https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=106419756&postcount=124


https://twitter.com/nuigalway

I've had no response as yet either.
So I have taken the liberty of directly contacting their comms staff as listed on the N.U.I.G website.

I have particular concerns regarding breaches of N.U.I.G communications and Ethics policy regarding the originating address and title of the complainant, and the complaints purporting to be from the N.U.I.G school of law, rather than from her mandated and personal position as Chair of the vegetarian society.
It does seem contrived to give the impression that this is the official position of a University, rather than a personal opinion.

If I get no satisfactory reply, from reading over the complaints protocol it would seem that any unresolved issue can be raised to the office of the Ombudsman.

banie01

banie01 wrote: »

So I have taken the liberty of directly contacting their comms staff as listed on the N.U.I.G website.

So within 10 minutes of the above, I've received a reply confirming my emails have been forwarded to the "Person in question".
So I have replied seeking confirmation of whom that is.

AngryHippie

oh dear

banie01

N.U.I.G have responded to confirm that they have forwarded the query to Dr O'Sullivan as she is the person in question.

I have sought confirmation that a complaint regarding a possible breach of N.U.I.G's communication and ethics policy should be reviewed by the person likely responsible?
Rather than by the Communications/Ethics officer with regard to the actual policy in place!

The have point blank ignored the question asked as to wheter the good Doctor's missive is now N.U.I.G policy and are letting her review herself!

I do wonder if Dr O'Sullivans position allows her the authority to communicate on behalf of, or to imply such communication originates from N.U.I.G without clearing it with your communications/PR department/officer?

The Bishop Basher

banie01 wrote: »

I have sought confirmation that a complaint regarding a possible breach of N.U.I.G's communication and ethics policy should be reviewed by the person likely responsible?
Rather than by the Communications/Ethics officer with regard to the actual policy in place!

The have point blank ignored the question asked as to wheter the good Doctor's missive is now N.U.I.G policy and are letting her review herself!

I have to ask..

Why do you care

banie01

Swanner wrote: »

I have to ask..

Why do you care

Because I do not see how it is fair for someone to seek to bully any person by dint of their position, particularly when that person chooses to sign off their personal correspondence as purporting to be directly from a state funded institute.

Thats ignoring the actual legalese being spouted in support of the complaint being patently wrong.

SinSim2

banie01 wrote: »

Swanner wrote: »

I have to ask..

Why do you care

Because I do not see how it is fair for someone to seek to bully any person by dint of their position, particularly when that person chooses to sign off their personal correspondence as purporting to be directly from a state funded institute.

Thats ignoring the actual legalese being spouted in support of the complaint being patently wrong.

Are you referring to RTÉ as a "person"? Do you think there would be any bases for a complaint regarding the program? - putting aside the letter of the Dr.

banie01

SinSim2 wrote: »

Are you referring to RTÉ as a "person"? Do you think there would be any bases for a complaint regarding the program? - putting aside the letter of the Dr.

A body corporate is treated as a "person" in law.
Further to that whilst RTÈ would be liable to any action that managed to be successful in pursuit of the complaint, the buck always stops at an actual person.
So yes.

Actually it ties in well with my main issue with the manner of the actions the Dr has taken to date.
The Dr has submitted her complaints as originating fromThe School of Law in N.U.I.G.
This gives the impression that the Dr has authority to formulate policy for N.U.I.G and that they as a body corporate have taken the Doctor's position and that this is now the institutional position on the matter.

Signing off or presenting as a body corporate without actually being authorised amounts to misrepresentation at very least, and fraud at the worst.

As for grounds for complaint I've addressed that in previous posts on the matter.

banie01

SinSim2 wrote: »

Are you referring to RTÉ as a "person"? Do you think there would be any bases for a complaint regarding the program? - putting aside the letter of the Dr.

Just to add, are you saying Darina Allen is not a person?

As a further "complaint" again repeating the error regarding the breach of ECHR and going so far as to insinuate a vicarious liabilty should any restaurant staff anywhere, who heard her "Cranky Vegans need steak" comment decide to start "spiking" vegans!

Should the good doctor wish to issue complaints from her position as Chair of the Vegetarian Society, and actually addressed as originating as such, I have no issue whatsoever!

But, she chose to present her ramblings as being directed from a state funded institute and furthermore presented them as a definitive legal position supported by her actual job title.
That is an attempt to both bully and mislead.
That I have serious issue with.

Should the Dr believe her interpretation of any protection owed to her under the ECHR is correct, I would be very happy to see her submit a formal complaint to the equality commission.

UsedToWait

banie01 wrote: »

Should the good doctor wish to issue complaints from her position as Chair of the Vegetarian Society, and actually addressed as originating as such, I have no issue whatsoever!

But, she chose to present her ramblings as being directed from a state funded institute and furthermore presented them as a definitive legal position supported by her actual job title.
That is an attempt to both bully and mislead.
That I have serious issue with.

Should the Dr believe her interpretation of any protection owed to her under the ECHR is correct, I would be very happy to see her submit a formal complaint to the equality commission.

Well the response from the good Dr is:

I wrote to RTE in my capacity as Chairperson of the Vegetarian Society of Ireland only

No mention of her mail to Darina Allen, but presumably it was the same.

So avoiding the issue completely imo, but hopefully she will consider in future if she should be sending these complaints from her NUIG address, and passing off dubious legal opinions as being backed up by her position as a law lecturer.

SinSim2

banie01 wrote: »

Just to add, are you saying Darina Allen is not a person?

As a further "complaint" again repeating the error regarding the breach of ECHR and going so far as to insinuate a vicarious liabilty should any restaurant staff anywhere, who heard her "Cranky Vegans need steak" comment decide to start "spiking" vegans!

Should the good doctor wish to issue complaints from her position as Chair of the Vegetarian Society, and actually addressed as originating as such, I have no issue whatsoever!

But, she chose to present her ramblings as being directed from a state funded institute and furthermore presented them as a definitive legal position supported by her actual job title.
That is an attempt to both bully and mislead.
That I have serious issue with.

Should the Dr believe her interpretation of any protection owed to her under the ECHR is correct, I would be very happy to see her submit a formal complaint to the equality commission.

I never mentioned Darina Allen, let alone say she wasn't a person. I think my question was very clear and obviously looking for clarification. The OP is a complaint to RTÉ.

So are you saying that you used "person" to refer to both RTÉ and Darina Allen in the same sentence?

banie01

SinSim2 wrote: »

I never mentioned Darina Allen, let alone say she wasn't a person. I think my question was very clear and obviously looking for clarification. The OP is a complaint to RTÉ.

So are you saying that you used "person" to refer to both RTÉ and Darina Allen in the same sentence?

In the context of the entire thread the OP made 2 complaints.
As for the use of person to refer to 2 entities, does it matter?
If in case it does, the reasoning behind it is as both are "people" before the law it makes little difference what term of reference is used in a general discussion, unless you have an alternative opinion?

In any case my response to your is RTE a person question is above but you seem to have ignored it.
.

SinSim2

banie01 wrote: »

SinSim2 wrote: »

I never mentioned Darina Allen, let alone say she wasn't a person. I think my question was very clear and obviously looking for clarification. The OP is a complaint to RTÉ.

So are you saying that you used "person" to refer to both RTÉ and Darina Allen in the same sentence?

In the context of the entire thread the OP made 2 complaints.
As for the use of person to refer to 2 entities, does it matter?
If in case it does, the reasoning behind it is as both are "people" before the law it makes little difference what term of reference is used in a general discussion, unless you have an alternative opinion?

It mattered because it wasn't clear. When I read a sentence I like to know what any particular word is representing. Are you bothered by the fact that I asked? You're coming off as being "cranky" :-D It's the weekend - have some fun ;-)

banie01

SinSim2 wrote: »

It mattered because it wasn't clear. When I read a sentence I like to know what any particular word is representing. Are you bothered by the fact that I asked? You're coming off as being "cranky" :-D It's the weekend - have some fun ;-)

The answer to your question was laid out in my 1st reply to you, whilst my second was extending a slightly absurdist logical argument based on that reply
You seemed to pointedly ignore the answer you were given is all.
That said I'm far from cranky, enjoy your weelend too.