Sir, - Our former leader enjoys near-immunity for large-scale corruption and happily sails a yacht between his private island and his large villa outside the capital while his ex-mistress entertains the public with lurid tales.
The Opposition leader will publicly welcome back his disgraced colleague after a vague "debt to society" is paid.
The current Taoiseach defends the status quo of a party system supported by corporate interests without considering that a referendum is usually called when a constitution is deemed inadequate to deal with current developments.
A teetering government's committee investigating endemic corruption steers clear of disciplinary measures in the way that turkeys are unlikely to vote for Christmas and a disgraced member of the judiciary is rewarded with one of the highest paid jobs the State can offer without so much as an ad in the paper.
Government Ministers openly and without excuse move their departments back to their constituencies under the guise of decentralisation in order to guarantee their local popularity. A top planning official has been in the pocket of property developers for over a decade.
Taxi numbers, decrepit trains on the pitifully few tracks and the price of a pint are all controlled by little groups which can successfully keep the government on their side against the public interest.
Would it really be that hard to grow bananas ? - Yours, etc,
David French, Wiesbadener Strasse, Stuttgart, Germany.