Golf outing attendees should keep their jobs
REGARDING the Oireachtas golf outing – should everybody lose their jobs? I hope not.
When you look at more than 3,000 people protesting against wearing masks, should they all lose their jobs? Should the people who attended the republican funeral in the North also lose their jobs? Most people are jumping to judgement, but remember Alexander Pope’s words: ‘To err is human, to forgive divine.’
People should take a step back. What happened was wrong and unsafe, but everybody involved understands the error of their ways and they are unlikely to make the same mistake again.
If we are not careful we will be left with a nation of people afraid to do anything in case they make a mistake, and as we know, anybody who never made a mistake ever made anything. Aside from the politicians we have lost a great broadcaster in Seán O’Rourke because of the mob mentality. Please let us not lose any more.
PAUL PRICE, Clondalkin, Dublin.
On the other hand...
THIS Government is only in power a matter of weeks and has already made a huge mess of our country
What took place in the Station House Hotel in Clifden, Co. Galway, last week was unforgivable with more than 80 people, including politicians, attending a golf dinner despite the guidelines.
Such an event is a wake-up call for the whole country and shows bad leadership by this Government.
It screams of Celtic Tiger Ireland golden circles and the old boys’ club where you are not welcome. Why should they think the rules do not apply to them? They keep telling us we are all in this together and they have created a national outcry and rightly so. NOEL HARRINGTON,
Kinsale, Co. Cork.
... ‘WE’RE all in this together’ – that’s the official mantra being used to cajole us in flock formation into a brain-washed obedient sheep pen. Well I wasn’t in it, nor were my neighbours, when it came to getting an invite to sample the posh fayre in Clifden last week.
Reading through the names of the attendees, it is apparent that they represent a cross-section from the elected and appointed who frame the rules by which we ordinary citizens are governed.
This incident has made it clear that a certain class of people consider themselves to be superior and act way outside the rules even when it relates to a pandemic. Their cavalier attitude prevails and persists despite the horror imposed on lives and livelihoods on a daily basis. Listening to some of these attendees trying to verbally excuse and extricate themselves, they offer the impression, that having travelled the long distance to Clifden, they merely put one foot inside the hotel lobby, waved to their noble cohorts and immediately drove back home.
Then when the cat escaped from the bag, the guilty followed with another insult, by dishing out their pre-baked fig-leaf apology for having attended that high-profile party in breach of the medical advice and regulations. An apology has no place in this instance and alters nothing.
Many of us who have allowed ourselves to be restricted are feeling very foolish now. The brash actions of these people have torn the legislation on the pandemic restrictions into shreds.
DENIS O’HIGGINS, Monaghan.
I’ve had my Phil of this
I KEEP hearing the argument that it is important for Ireland to keep Phil Hogan in the job as an EU Commissioner, because he can represent us in Brexit negotiations. Not so. As a Commissioner he has to remain impartial.
MARTIN STRINGER, Barnacogue, Co. Mayo.
Leave Trump alone
REGARDING the article on QAnon by Helen Weathers (Mail, Monday) – QAnon brings US military intelligence into the light to counter the mainstream media, who never report the truth about President Donald Trump.
Ms Weathers does not mention that at one stage, ‘Q’ – the individual who inspired QAnon – was listed by Time Magazine among the 25 most influential people online. The Irish media are so biased against the Trump administration, and day after day they reprint Us fake-news.
I imagine the IDA, when trying to attract foreign direct investment from the US, must be embarrassed over the treatment given to their president here.
JOHN HUGHES, Clonbur, Co. Galway.
Come on, Boys in Green
I WAS delighted with Ireland soccer manager Stephen Kenny’s reply (Mail, yesterday) to criticism by Jason McAteer, whose comments I thought were in very bad form, as this new Irish set-up hasn’t even begun yet.
I hope this can be another Big Jack era for Ireland, as the country badly needs a break from Covid-19 and other recent controversies.
I hope Stephen can provide this, and at this time he needs encouragement, not criticism.
I wish Stephen and all the team all the very best in these difficult times. It was my pleasure to follow Big Jack all over in Euro ’88, Italia ’90, etc, and I hope the new manager will be our new hero.
VAL DAVIS, Crosshaven, Co. Cork.