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Letters from the past month

I am starting to get a slight smell of all this recent PR about government aid programs. It is all beginning to sound like, "Look lads, we know you haven't got any more idea about how to run a country than we have so here's a few million to help you cover up a few cock-ups - lack of health-care, education, transport, food and water, for instance. If there's anything left over, just increase your expenses like we do".

Dick Barton, Tinahely, Co.Wicklow

Now that the media hype and back slapping concerning our attitude to the singing of God Save the Queen at Croke Park is over, I am wondering why we are all still caressing ourselves in such self satisfaction.

A recent scientific article shows some evidence of global warming on Mars at this time. This is clearly not caused by our cars.

Knowing that about 80% of things that appear in the media are there because somebody wants them there, we should ask who benefits from this barrage of PR on carbon emissions. The answer is the industry that has had such an appalling record for the last 15 or 20 years - nuclear. By grossly exaggerating the carbon emissions situation and getting yet another scare going, they have a chance of getting back into the picture.

The traffic lights at the Kilmore Road/Malahide Road Junction are causing serious gridlock on the Malahide Road especially inbound during the morning, when they cause traffic on the Malahide Road to become gridlocked way past the Artane Roundabout.  It often takes over a half hour to get from the Artane Roundabout to the Kilmore Road/Malahide Road Junction, a distance of just a few hundred yards.

Has Ireland not got enough wealth yet for it to feel obliged to spend a little time, thought and energy getting involved with the problems of the rest of the world? Or is the making of money to be its sole raison d'etre for ever?

Why do so many of us look the other way when horrendous abuses and injustices are being committed under our very noses? Maybe it's an unsavoury part of human nature that we find it easier to ignore or pretend we don't see things that we know are wrong and causing great suffering to our fellow human beings.

How naïve it was to believe that the scene of panic and wanton cruelty witnessed in a County Meath schoolyard recently was an isolated incident. The sight of a stag, panting, pain-wracked, and covered in muck, being chased by a pack of salivating vicious hounds, upset and frightened the pupils.

The news that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), (inflation by any other name!), rose by 5.2% last month easily wiping out the already small pay rises under the 'Towards 2016' agreement means that at the very least, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) must immediately renegotiate these ridiculously small pay rises ASAP.  The very least that I, and most other Workers are demanding is a special catch-up clause to give us some chance of actually seeing an improvement in our living standards.  

I was quite taken aback to hear a leading advocate of field sports warn recently about the supposed threat cats pose to Ireland's wildlife. They are sinister, sneaky little buggers, he cautioned, that kill for sport rather than for food, and he urged that the cat population needed to be controlled as matter of urgency. He ranted in earnest about the perfidious felines and the "breathtaking ignorance" of all those silly people who fawn on them.