Two stories that explain the wipeout of Labour
IN yesterday’s edition of the Irish Daily Mail, there are two stories that, surely, define the new world of fairness and equality for all that we were promised.
The first on page four reports upon the mother forced to steal two packs of corned beef and a slab of cheese to provide her children with a school lunch after all the welfare cuts.
Then on page six we read that the severance and pension payments to Eamon Gilmore, Ruairi Quinn, and Pat Rabbitte will cost the taxpayer about €7million.
Perhaps Joan Burton and particularly Enda Kenny might reflect upon the reasons for their outright rejection by the voters, because this is nothing less than an outrage.
Here is a woman who is desperate to find at least some work in the hours that she has available in order to scrape together enough to feed her family without being forced to steal. There we have three failed politicians being paid off with sums that would feed such families for years.
That might be your idea of fairness and equality, Mr Kenny, but if it is then it is a very unpleasant world that you inhabit.
So don’t bother yourself with trying to cobble together yet another coalition that will keep all of your noses firmly in the trough.
The people don’t want you, and I suspect that a lot of them don’t even want you in the country!
ANTHONY MANSER, Faithlegg, Co. Waterford.
In defence of Lucinda
WHAT a headline from your letter’s page, ‘Lucinda lost when she promoted fox-hunting’ quoting from letter from John Fitzgerald (yesterday’s Daily Mail). While I have no issue with those who promote animal welfare, I have to say that I consider it even more important to promote protection of unborn babies and not have them subjected to what he describes as happens to ‘the gentle hare and the wily fox’.
Ms Creighton forfeited her career and lost heavily economically when she refused to vote for the abortion bill in the Dáil.
Rather than criticism, she deserves the admiration and support of all those who consider the most basic human right of all is the right to be born. Without this, all other rights are meaningless.
I would like to publicly thank her for her courage and her voice for those who have none and for defending the most helpless and vulnerable of all, the baby in the womb.
It is absolutely disgraceful how Fine Gael treated Lucinda Creighton, even resorting to a smear campaign regarding an issue that had been dealt with and from which she emerged blameless, and also keeping an allowance allotted for her after she was dismissed from the party.
The Dáil is the poorer for her absence but, thankfully, many who supported abortion and other socalled liberal issues, have been dismissed from public office and we will all benefit from that.
MARY STEWART, Donegal town.
Making water work
THE people have spoken: the Irish Water quango has to go.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Irish Water fitted a meter to my supply and found a serious leak, losing thousands of litres every month.
Only for this meter we did not know this. It means the meters are a very good way to find these leaks throughout the country. Irish Water fitted a new pipe to the front of the house and did a good job, however the leak was under the house and cost €2,000 to fix.
The cost of supplying water should be taken from the property tax. Close the administration side of Irish Water and give a credit from the property tax to those who have paid for water.
Just use the Irish Water as a central control for all the councils to make combined decisions. Employ as few as possible to keep the cost down and pay reasonable wages.
This quango is one of the worst decisions any government has ever made. No wonder they lost so many seats in the election. STANLEY JERRARD-DUNNE,
Churchtown, Dublin 14.
An electoral failure
NOW that the 2016 gravy train drivers’ competition is over, we have to face the stark reality, democracy in Ireland, if it ever existed, is dead.
From an electorate of 3,298,827, only 2,151,293 or 65.2% voted, and 1,147,534 or 34.8% didn’t bother or couldn’t vote.
This is nothing short of a national disgrace when you consider that brave people gave their lives so that we might have the right to vote.
In many other countries around the world people are not allowed to vote or the vote is rigged so that the incumbent stays in power. We have to bring in compulsory voting: it is the only way to establish the real wishes of our people.
We have handed over our hard-won freedom to a shower of gurriers. We do have some decent public representatives, more after this last election, but the majority in the main parties are only interested in selfenrichment.
As the late Tom Gilmartin said of one of the groups, they would make the Mafia seem like a shower of choirboys.
For Ireland to have a better future and fulfil its potential, we have to get away from the civil war parish pump politics. We have to take a major leap into the unknown and bring decency, honesty and integrity into our politics by having a proper election where every citizen votes for the individual they think is best for the country, and not for their parish.
JOHN FAIR, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
Call it a day, Enda
ENDA Kenny still doesn’t get it. The electorate told him, in no uncertain way, that he is no longer wanted and yet he is swanning around the Dáil believing he is the Taoiseach.
How arrogant it that? Either he has completely lost the plot or maybe he lives in cloud cuckoo land thinking the recent election result was just a very bad dream.
Well, let’s hope that someone with a tiny bit of gumption left in Fine Gael might go and wake him up, whisper in his ear, and tell him its time to go.
All political careers end in failure, so join the club, Enda!
S HOLLAND, Dublin 9.