Victims of bank theft should sue Government
WHAT is it about the law that this Government, Fianna Fáil and Labour do not understand? Theft and fraud are criminal offences. When the sums involved are over €500million, then that becomes a serious criminal offence.
It is the function of government not only to legislate but also to ensure those laws are obeyed. It would appear there are two classes of people in this country: those who can ignore the law, and people like me who have to obey it.
Why should the average citizen obey the law when the law apparently does not apply to everyone equally, as it should in a democratic country.
Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan and the Director of Public Prosecutions should be sacked for incompetency in not addressing the theft by the banks of millions of euro from hard-pressed citizens who are caught up in the tracker mortgage scandal.
The victims of this scam by the banks should get together and sue the banks for €500,000 damages for each victim. There might also be a good case for suing the Government for failing in its duty to protect the public.
The Government needs to get a grip of this before the public take matters into their own hands and dispense people’s justice.
JOHN FAIR, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
Spin and image
I REMEMBER a time before the Dáil installed cameras. Headlines from some of the nation’s papers roared: ‘What will the gombeen men do now?’ The inference was about their mode of dress: how would some of these ‘yokels’ stand up to scrutiny when a TV camera was pointed at them.
Big, wide, red ties – and red faces to match – on a white shirted background, would surely expose them to ridicule, more so than a black and white photograph.
But no, the cute ‘boys’ adapted well and have since embraced the former enemy (camera) as a friend. Make-up and fake tan can do wonders for an appearance on a TV show, or the six o’clock news. I now fear they have adapted too well with spin doctors, advisers, photo opportunities, and that awful word... ‘image’.
The first party that announces its intentions to drop the above list will get my No.1 vote – and that’s a promise. I’m really not interested in what colour socks Leo Varadkar wears, as long as he does some decent footwork. HOLLY BARRETT, Mallow, Co. Cork.
Right to life
WITH the vote by the Oireachtas Committee last week in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment, we can see that, piece by piece, the stage is being set to remove the right of the unborn to life.
In a way, the socialising and normalising process in politics and media that we are being taken on mirrors the procedure itself: deliberate, intentional, fatal, consequential and permanent.
We need to wake up to the fact that voting to repeal actually means removing the right to life of the unborn. You and I are both here because of that inalienable natural human right.
Voting to remove that right in a world that is hell-bent on taking human life is as illogical and senseless as voting against breathing.
WILLIE HAYES, Midleton, Co. Cork
Continental drift
WHAT plans is the EU making for its own organisation post Brexit? Precious little, I suspect.
If a company loses one-sixth of its income, it would have to cull its workforce, shut part of its premises and cut other expenditure – or hopefully increase the contributions from remaining members by 20%.
Could this have anything to do with the faceless ones in Brussels dragging their feet?
T. N. BALMER, North Yorkshire.
Short-changed
EC president Jean-Claude Juncker says the UK is leaving the pub without paying its corner. That’s rich when there’s 27 in the round, and the vast majority have never been to the bar, but are glad to get plenty of free drinks down them.
T. COATES, Birmingham.
Unique insight
AT LAST: someone who doesn’t want a cure for autism.
In his recent TV programme, Chris Packham spoke movingly about having Asperger’s and the problems he faces. But he also described the benefits of being ‘different’. My seven-year-old grandson has high-functioning autism and has difficulties with social interactions, but I wouldn’t change him for a moment. The way he views the world is unique, and I have learned a lot from him.
DIANE JACKSON, Suffolk.
Trump in the frame
I WAS surprised to read that Donald Trump bought a fake painting of the Two Sisters by Renoir. You would imagine he could spot a fake quite easily, he sees one every morning in the shaving mirror.
MARTIN STRINGER, Co. Mayo. ...DONALD Trump is now essentially calling a soldier’s widow he upset a liar. After the wife of a fallen US soldier claimed the President couldn’t remember her loved one’s name in a phone call, he was straight on Twitter refuting this.
In this strange time of fake news, I know whose story I believe.
PAT CAFFREY, via email.