We Sent Australia Our Weak During Our Crisis; Let's Send Them Our Strong During Theirs

Many of us in Ireland have extended family or good friends living in Australia. Cousins, aunts, uncles, colleagues, former school-friends, online pals - we all almost certainly have people there we care about.

To the best of my knowledge air quality is around 200 times worse than what is considered a major health hazard and the equivalent of smoking around 40 cigarettes in their capital city. Thankfully, for now, the direct death toll is low; if we are proactive in helping and inspiring others to act we can make a real difference. It's not to late yet but time is of the essence.

They need someone to step up for them. When we look at other English speaking countries like the UK and US it is quite obvious that, for all their size and influence, they aren't in a position to lead on this.

It can be tempting to shirk away from our duty to our fellow man and worry about only our island and maybe our allies on mainland Europe in such complicated times, but please remember that their population contains among it descendants of our own ancestors who were sent there because of the famine (for they stole Trevelyan's Corn so our younger ancestors might see the morn), and a native people who suffered in turn from how our desperate ancestors were used by the British Empire to steal their land from them. They are not a people we can turn our back on in their moment of crisis, because as small as we are we have the power to get the ball rolling. Once we do it can create monumentum that will encourage our allies to follow suit, and put pressure on larger governments to do the same.

To be blunt: We can act, and we should act, so we must act. It is the right thing to do.