We don’t want Nigel making plans for us
SO Nigel Farage is coming to Dublin to lecture us about the European Union (Irish Daily Mail, January 1).
Could this be the same Nigel Farage who has been rejected seven times by voters in a UK general election?
Indeed, could this be the same Nigel Farage who, despite campaigning against the European Union for years, has said he won’t be giving up the £73,000 (€82,000) annual pension he is entitled to from Europe?
The answer to both questions is, sadly, yes.
Mr Farage seems to have a poor grasp of Britain’s somewhat chequered colonial history if he thinks his London outlook and ‘wotcher, lads’ attitude will be taken seriously here.
In general, we see the European Union in principle as a force for good – although it needs continual reform just like any political or official institution does. This applies as much to Mr Farage’s beloved UKIP as it does to, say, the British government.
Simply shouting from the sidelines at the RDS, rather than trying to reform an institution from within, is as ineffective as the football fan who believes his cries of joy or despair can influence the outcome of an FA Cup final.
Mr Farage, take your bluster elsewhere. AOIFE KELLY, Cork
Grave crimes
WE all know that these are worrying times as regards to the amount of criminality in this country; it seems to be on a never-ending upward curve.
Criminal drug gangs are killing each other on the streets of our capital; it’s hard to countenance that Irish patriots fought on those same streets so that Irish people could live in a better society.
That new society of freedom for which those brave patriots fought is now under attack itself, and it’s from within, like a silent cancer.
This is most evident in the many militant agitators who are preaching a mantra of unfair exclusion, often based on a restructuring of history and blatant lies; a dangerous mix when it’s delivered by a motivational speaker.
The effect this has on the young and gullible was brought home to me recently when one of our local graveyards was vandalised, and a lot of headstones were smashed.
When I heard about it I was shocked, not just because my family are buried there, but because I did not realise that this kind of corruption could be successfully exercised to the point that people could be made destroy graves.
I hadn’t been in that graveyard for some time and I have to say it was a sad day; a very sad and upsetting day. A day when I looked down on the grave of someone I knew and loved, who was decent and kind, and I could not understand how this could happen.
Despite how absolutely demoralising this experience was, I don’t wholly blame those who carried out the vandalism.
I suspect those who violated the graveyard are being spoonfed hatred and they are unaware of it. When things get this low, danger abounds. Some things are just too sacred to be abandoned. Freedom is one of them – some people don’t know the meaning of the word. The men and women of 1916 did, but the present teenage rebels don’t realise they are getting trapped in a web of deceit.
We need to open our eyes or else we are going to crash headlong into a whole lot of trouble.
JOHN WILLOUGHBY, Carlow
Pensions now, please
I COULD not agree more with Denis O’Higgins’ letter (Mail, January 1).
More than 35,000 older people were disqualified from receiving a full State pension since the unfair 2012 legislation was introduced.
This legislation changed the criteria for the higher rates of pension which in turn harmed those with irregular PRSI contributions. The changing of the PRSI bands from four to six also disadvantaged pensioners.
These changes were brought in as austerity measures by Joan Burton and have not been reversed.
My husband and I are two of the many deprived of a sizeable monetary portion of our State Pensions each week, contributed to for over 40 years.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe described this outrageous discrimination, perpetrated mainly against women, as ‘bonkers and unbelievable’.
The Government has pledged to end this anomaly but not until 2020. This is surely adding insult to injury. What of today’s pensioners affected by this, some of whom sadly will have passed away by then?
This State discrimination must be repealed and replaced and full entitlements restored now.
Perhaps it is time to take to the streets. The grey brigade are a force to be reckoned with, and an election can’t be too far off!
Name and address supplied.
Motorists’ heaven
THINK of the positives of driverless cars: no car insurance companies, no idiots in four-wheel-drives acting as if they are God’s gift, no more arguments in car parks, no more road rage, no speed cameras or coppers in laybys waiting to pounce because you have a bulb out.
And, best of all, being able to go to the pub and knowing you will be driven home by your own car.
PAUL COOK, Huddersfield