Madam, – I am a 21-year-old student and my experience with politicians and their canvassers has been a bad one.
When canvassers call to my door they ask if my parents are home and, if they aren’t, they leave without talking to me. When I was in Nutgrove Shopping Centre on Tuesday a well-known politician blanked me and did not give me the leaflet. How are young people supposed to take the election seriously when politicians don’t talk to them or ask them for their views on current affairs? Young people are the future of Ireland and the actions of the last Government have potentially damaged our future.
Jobs are in short supply and many people are considering emigration. This election is probably the most important in our history and I think politicians need to pay more attention to the young voters and their views. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Watching the TG4 election debate in Irish on Wednesday, I couldn’t help feeling proud that it took place in Irish, but at the same time thought it a pity that these men can’t find their way to work together for the common good.
Electing Fine Gael to punish Fianna Fáil is flawed as a strategy. When did Fine Gael call for government direct intervention in banks or the building industry in the “boom years”? Fine Gael success so far is based on the false perception that Fine Gael would have done differently, and I wonder why this has not been challenged.
Have journalists fallen for spin? There has been no economic debate. Listen again to the transcripts of both debates and you will hear abuse not economic argument from Enda Kenny in response to Micheál Martin. If we are paying minders big money to hijack our debates, perhaps we should come to our senses and send them packing. An election won by dishonourable means is not worth winning! – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Blaa-blaa . . .an Béal Bocht agus Beal na Bláth. If the DUP and Sinn Féin can share power in Northern Ireland why in heaven’s name cannot Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael get together and form a proper administration? They do after all share a common gene pool. They should get over it and get on with it and keep the looney left out of the equation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The next government has one imperative – political stability based on a coherent Dáil majority. The manner by which the outgoing Cabinet was held up to ransom every few months by self-seeking “Independents” and the flaky Greens diminished the Dáil and stifled the Cabinet. Another Dáil stalemate for five years would destroy our hopes for economic and social recovery and vital reforms.
A major complication is that in this election there are 235 so-called “Independents and others”. Despite their local fancy braces and the esoteric labels on their belts, they do not, in reality, have any political trousers. Many are of vintage dissident stock from the main political parties. Others are designer Trotskyites-cum-Socialist-Party activists now adopting the “People Before Profit” umbrella. These perpetual protesters are more preoccupied with their revolutionary street protests than democratic elections to Dáil Éireann. And of course there are the ageing officers of the Marxist Militant Tendency and the Provos who very belatedly now stand reborn into democratic politics.
Deputies elected under a party manifesto and pledge are obliged to take the much wider national and party interests into account. Independents invariably want their local shopping lists filled with no responsibility for paying for them.
The assertion that there is a commonality of economic and social policy among the diffused independent groups is a mirage. I nearly choked on my porridge the other morning when I heard Shane Ross proclaim on radio that he had a great deal in common with Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett. I am sure they share Mr Ross’s virulent hostility to the public services! The reality is that these celebrity independent and socialist factions have no common platform. And those elected invariably splinter in many directions in the Dáil. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Is there a morning after election pill? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Is it my imagination or has Brian Cowen really vanished from the face of the earth since the beginning of the election campaign? I reckon the powers that be in Fianna Fáil have come to the conclusion that the sight of him in the media would remind the electorate of where Micheál Martin came from. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – One of the most disturbing and despicable aspects of the present general election campaign is the total moral and intellectual cowardice of the media (especially RTÉ), politicians and the various churches with regard to Sinn Féin. This party’s private army murdered more than 1,800 people and carried out a wave of savage massacres on the most innocent of people (Birmingham, Kingsmill, La Mon, Enniskillen, etc). It was also involved in widespread intimidation, extortion rackets, bank robberies and other criminal activities.
In this context, Gerry Adams has been the chief spokesman and apologist for the Provisional IRA for many years and it would be absolutely disgraceful if such a person were to be voted into Dáil Éireann by Louth people. The chilling silence from politicians and the media when faced with Sinn Féin’s airbrushing of recent history is shocking. Louth people in particular should recall the brutal torture and murder of the farmer Tom Oliver in 1991 by Provisional IRA thugs on the Cooley Peninsula. They should consider the dumped body of Jean McConville – found on a Louth beach years after her sinister abduction and murder by Provisional IRA cowards in 1972. Despite Sinn Féin’s cant about freedom and democracy it is very disturbing to hear Jean McConville’s eldest daughter and husband recently expressing their fear of running against Adams in the upcoming election as they would dread meeting Sinn Féin supporters by night or when they have no security. Anyone with a scrap of decency or conscience should not vote for Adams or any other Sinn Féin candidate.
Finally, consider the true image of present day Sinn Féin behind all the gloss and false smiles – that of ex-Provo Martin Ferris TD collecting the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe from prison. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It has never been more crucial that education be made a key election issue by all voters, regardless of political leanings or traditional party loyalties.
As a nation, we need to drastically change our lexicon regarding education to reflect a more enlightened attitude. There should be no such thing as “spending” on education, it is investment. Similarly, there should be no “current” budget. How can it be labelled such when it defines the life chances of those who pass through the education system? Cuts have been made based on the simplistic view that a cut in teacher or lecturer numbers only leads to a small increase in class size with negligible impact on student experience; this is completely flawed.
At second-level, restricted subject choice, particularly in the crucial science and maths areas and reduced access to higher-level options in many subjects are just two of the devastating effects that cuts in teacher numbers have wreaked on students.
The ludicrous situation whereby young people are being paid to do nothing rather than be encouraged or incentivised to pursue further education and training can be changed at no great expense to the exchequer.
A TUI survey found there were three applications for every Post Leaving Cert (PLC) course this year, yet despite demand, the sector remains artificially capped at 30,000 places with charges now proposed for attendance.
TUI believes much of the basic infrastructure is already in place in our schools, institutes of technology and universities to develop Ireland as a world leader in technological, pharmaceutical and scientific research. Yet without strategic planning and targeted investment, this lofty goal is doomed to failure.
With bravery and resolve any new government can move towards protecting core services on a cost-neutral basis by examining elements of the current budget. We are enduring harsh times of an unprecedented nature, but the unacceptable hypocrisy of cutting from the weak while funding privilege continues.
For example additional support for Traveller children was withdrawn in the last budget’s assault on education, while the pupil- teacher ratio for fee-paying schools (subsidised to the tune of €100m of taxpayers’ money every year) was left untouched. How can this be justified? We need a clear and unequivocal commitment to education from those political parties that aspire to governance. The future of our young people must be paramount in the minds of voters next week. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Each government department has a full complement of civil servants to assist the Minister. One of the main points of Micheál Martin’s plan is that henceforth each Minister should employ one outside expert to run the department. For many, many years he has been part of a government whose taoiseach and Ministers employ up to 10 or 12 full-time outside experts each. These are called advisers, and are an enormous cost to the taxpayer. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Deputy Lucinda Creighton (“Siptu warning on single party government”, February 15th) warns that trade unions should be worried about the prospect of Fine Gael getting into government.
Ms Creighton echoes the statement on the Fine Gael website that the party “will take on the big vested interests that have contributed to the current crisis – the bankers, the bondholders, the developers and the unions.” The party has moved a long way to the right since my colleague in the print industry the late Cllr Pat O’Reilly of Kildare proudly wore his Fine Gael and GPMU badges side by side, insisting that Fine Gael was a broad church which saw no conflict between organised labour and free enterprise. How Mr O’Reilly and his colleagues in the FG Trade Union Group would have raged with indignation at being lumped in with those responsible for wrecking the Irish economy.
The Fine Gael declaration of war on trade unions should not go unchallenged. My union is not affiliated to any political party and over the years we have dealt with all the political parties on a range of policy issues.
Trade unions exist for the benefit of members and the use of the term “vested interests” to describe organised labour is as insulting as it is inappropriate.
No private benefit is gained by my union from representing workers, including journalists in the low-paid regional media sector; in national media organisations on the brink of collapse or the hundreds of freelance workers deprived of the right to collective representation due to the actions of the Competition Authority.
Like colleague unions we exist for the benefit of members, whose interests we struggle to serve in an increasingly hostile environment. And Ms Creighton promises it will get worse! Social partnership, the object of scorn from Ms Creighton, covered the public and private sector and is multi-faceted. It was not just about public sector pay – or indeed just about wages, payments and conditions. Sadly the “undue influence” referred to by the deputy did not extend to influencing fiscal policy or the treatment of the developers, the banking institutions or the bondholders.
Finally, Ms Creighton has a right to chase the old PD vote in Dublin South East, but I would never suggest that in doing so she is motivated by a vested interest. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Last December, RTÉ’s Primetime produced a programme on the lack of regulation and standards in the home care sector. At that time all the political parties were rushing to the media expressing outrage at the lack of regulation in the home care sector.
I have taken the trouble to read the election manifestos for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour and I am sorry to have to report that not one of these political parties give any commitment to the older people of Ireland or state they would introduce national home care standards if elected to Government. It would appear that Irish political parties would like the votes of older people, but don’t find it necessary to commit to adequate standards of care for those same people in their own homes. – Yours, etc,