Sir, – No one is arguing against the disadvantages of not having an underground transport system in Dublin today. The question is, will MetroLink be the best solution to our traffic woes in decades to come?
When other countries were developing theirs, they were looking at horizons where driver-controlled vehicular traffic was the future, if not already the norm.
Today, the outlook differs, with the potential for centrally regulated autonomous vehicles a realistic proposition.
We can all recognise that the current system of roads, motorways, traffic lights, etc, cannot continue to expand infinitum, where road rage, accidents and deaths are destroying our quality of life.
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But is building an underground system the best solution given the technology that is speeding down the tracks?
There is potentially a better way, and we have a golden opportunity to plan for a sustainable future for our capital city as opposed to spending billions filling a gap that may not be the best solution for future generations of transport users.
It’s a big leap, but at least let us have a conversation free of prejudice, where the opinions of a billionaire are just as valid as those of the man on the Clapham omnibus. – Yours, etc,
HUGH McDONNELL,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.
Sir, – I don’t understand why certain well-to-do people have a problem with the idea of having the MetroLink built. The Harcourt Line in Dublin was closed in 1958 by Seán Lemass because the car was deemed to be supreme. In hindsight, it was a retrograde step.
Also, there was a total underestimation of south Dublin’s population growth. The same could be said today. Public transport has improved in recent years and more and more people are availing of it.
The roads are frequently gridlocked with cars and why should that change? AI may improved some things but how could it be expected to cope with excess cars, so really the Government is thinking ahead. And there’s no substitute for a good public transport system. Get a Chinese company to build it on time and within budget.
Fáilte Ireland is also trying to sell Ireland – slow travel in Ireland which encourages visitors to immerse themselves in the local culture, appreciate the natural beauty, and connect with communities by spending more time in fewer places.
These tourists are not hiring cars – they are using public transport, bikes, walking and occasionally coaches.
So who knows what’s needed for our future transport system but a public one is essential. – Yours, etc,
GEMMA HENSEY,
Westport,
Co Mayo.
Sir, – I am writing this from a train speeding through the Nevada desert. While I don’t expect the MetroLink to ever evoke the same awe as the Sierra Nevada foothills in the middle distance, the link that came to me is that rail is a special form of transport.
Some of the 200-plus people on this train are tourists but many if not most seem to be ordinary people getting on with their everyday lives travelling between stops on the nearly 4,000 km route between Chicago and Emeryville (San Francisco).
Likewise, MetroLink will deliver for the ordinary people of Dublin and Ireland. Dermot Desmond might be good with money but why are his opinions – for that is what they are – given such prominence?
He is just as likely to be as right or a wrong about AI and EVs as the ordinary person, currently paying ¤50 to ¤70 and more for a short taxi trip to the airport, and MetroLink is about much more than the airport.
Please let us listen to the real experts in transport planning, the vast majority of whom say that MetroLink is needed. – Yours, etc,
LIAM DWAN,
Kimmage Road Lower,
Dublin 6W.
Songwriter takes the rap
Sir, – I read Mark O’Connell’s informative article on songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer from the end of the article back to the beginning (“No one sent up an old Nazi better than Tom Lehrer”, August 2nd).
My interest in the complete article was piqued after reading that the 85-year-old Lehrer granted permission to rap artist 2 Chainz to use one of his songs.
Lehrer wrote as follows: “As sole copyright owner of The Old Dope Peddler, I grant you motherf***ers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr Chainz, or may I call him 2?”.
Age defying, genre appropriate, gracious and hilarious. – Yours, etc,
MARY FOGARTY,
Balbriggan,
Co Dublin.
Bombs, bonds, and Palestinians
Sir, – In the 1980s , I was cabin crew for Royal Jordanian Airlines. Most of the male cabin crew were displaced Palestinians.
They were like protective older brothers to us when we were away on overnight stops. Absolute gentlemen.
It breaks my heart to see the unfolding tragedy in Gaza.
It feels like watching news of Srebenica in the 1990s. Back then the world turned its back while hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were massacred.
Now this is happening today in Gaza. Where is the outcry from other Arab states? Why is Netanyahu not arrested for crimes against humanity?
The evidence is before our eyes in the bombed cities, wounded civilians and starving children. Where is the global action?
I, for one, am ashamed at the lack of any real intervention by the United Nations or global leaders who have the power to stop this war.
If they only had the courage to do so. – Yours, etc,
MARY FRANCES DOUGLAS,
Youghal,
Co Cork.
Sir, – On August 9th, 1945, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki killed between 60,000 and 70,000 people instantly.
The world still remembers this horrific event a annually, and speeches by politicians at such events all make the point that such barbarity must never be allowed to happen again.
We wonder how such an act of evil could be conceived by human beings, and yet we are witness to similar numbers being killed in Gaza, and the same politicians seem unable to stop it.
The fact that the deaths there are by starvation and bullets makes little difference to the victim. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT ACTON,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Just as he spoke up for the rights of Catholics, Jews and enslaved people in the Americas, I have no doubt that if he were alive today Daniel O’Connell would not be quiet about the atrocities being committed against Palestinians.
How depressing that 250 years after his birth, our species is still capable of such inhumanity. – Yours, etc,
KAY CHALMERS,
Cork.
Sir, – It is 2025 and an entire world cannot/will not stop one country from wiping out tens of thousands of people living next to them.
As the writer Philip Gourevitch says in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, “The problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.” – Yours, etc,
KEHLEN MIKKELSON,
Dublin 13.
On your bike
Sir, – Frank McNally has found out the hard way that the only thing less desirable than a Dublin Bike is being charged €150 for one he no longer has (An Irishman’s Diary, August 8th). – Yours, etc,
ENDA CULLEN,
Armagh.
Breastfeeding and the media
Sir, – As World Breastfeeding Week slips by with barely a ripple in the national media, including your own pages, one wonders if Ireland is simply too shy to talk about breasts unless they appear in court cases or Caravaggios.
Ireland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. Just 31 per cent of babies here are still breastfed at three months.
In countries like Norway and New Zealand, that figure is over 70 per cent. That is not a difference in biology; it is a difference in culture, policy and visibility.
While Irish mothers face systemic barriers to breastfeeding, my thoughts this week are also with mothers in Gaza.
Many desperately want to feed their babies but are too malnourished to do so. Breastfeeding is not a lifestyle choice. It is a lifeline, and for some, it is heartbreakingly out of reach.
Coverage matters. When breastfeeding is treated as a private eccentricity, mothers are left unsupported and babies underserved.
The silence this week across most Irish media only reinforces that.
Perhaps next August, our editors might latch on a little earlier. – Yours, etc,
KATIE CORCORAN,
(Mother of two),
Dundrum,
Dublin.
Changing times
Sir, –This anecdote may interest your readers as an example of how much Ireland has changed.
One hundred years ago this summer, in 1925, my grandparents and family moved into a house on the South Circular Road in Dublin, backing on to the Grand Canal – a mile from Dublin Castle.
One of their sons, my uncle, who was 19 at the time, kept a diary.
In an entry soon after they moved in, he wrote that when he opened his bedroom window in the evening, he could hear corncrakes calling in the fields across the canal. – Yours, etc,
MIKE FINEGAN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
Sheehan takes the shine off
Sir, – Barry Sheehan, the father of hooker Dan Sheehan, writes in praise of effort, commitment and bravery in a team in pursuit of a common goal.
His son’s four-week suspension for an illegal clearout of Australia’s Tom Lynagh tarnishes that utopian vista. – Yours, etc,
ARTHUR BRADY,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin.
Simply Simplex
Sir, – Following the recent meeting of the president of the European Commission and the president of the United States, I have been searching for a word that might characterise the attitude of the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen towards US president Donald Trump.
I think that the Simplex Crossword of August 6th may have provided it: 13 across, Submissive respect – obeisance.
Or, is that perhaps a little too weak? – Yours, etc,
Dr VIVIAN BRENNAN,
Co Galway.
What do they really earn?
Sir, – In an attempt to resolve the differences of opinion in relation to the returns enjoyed by small landlords let me set out the details of a typical apartment purchased some years age for €400,000.
The annual rent at €2,000 per month yields a gross return of €24,000 per annum. If we deduct a management fee of €3,000, LPT of €405 (which is not deductible against the income tax liability) and income tax, USC and PRSI (total 52 per cent) of the net rent, the net return is €9,675 or just over €800 per month.
I’ll let your readers decide for themselves whether they consider this an adequate return on the original investment.
After all, this is the key issue when an individual decides to become or remain a landlord. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL CAWLEY,
Delgany,
Co Wicklow.
Data doubter
Sir, - Am I the only person in Ireland who doesn’t believe the consumer price index statistics?
JOHN SMYTH,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin,
Football fantasy
Sir, – What a great surprise I had on reading today’s Irish Times (August 7th) to find it had a full page about League of Ireland football teams and it was all very positive.
Is this a record?
Keep up the good work. – Yours, etc,
TERRY CONNAUGHTON,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
Remembering Seán Rocks
Sir, – I love listening to the radio, but one soothing radio voice was missing this last week or so, that of Seán Rocks, who presented RTÉ’s arts programme Arena with panache.
A voice like Seán’s is very rare and he had such wonderful knowledge of all aspects of the arts. A lovely man by all accounts. Rest in peace Seán. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN McDEVITT,
Glenties,
Co Donegal
Love letter
Sir, – Your Letters page today, Friday, August 8th, was masterful. Fourteen separate topics were covered, with a combination of humour, anger, frustration and love.
The letters were concise and written by ordinary citizens. Thank God there wasn’t a single letter from a professor and only one letter from a doctor.
As someone who reads the Letters page first, it was a wonderful start to my day. – Yours, etc,
LESLIE LAWLESS,
Mount Merrion,
Dublin 4.
Woolly thinking
Sir, – On August 8th, I encountered a woman who was wearing a woolly hat. Is this a record? – Yours, etc,
FRANK J BYRNE,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.
Is that a record?
Sir – Four letters in The Irish Times today from Cork (August 6th).
Is that a record? – Yours, etc,
JOSEPH DESMOND,
Cork
