For the class of 2020, Leaving Cert should be badge of pride

IF ANY year group in the history of the Leaving Cert ever deserved successm then the Class of 2020 certainly does.

They have been through an emotional mill since last March. They have suffered the distress of uncertainty and indecision. They had no closure as they completed their second level education. They had no opportunity to sit the Leaving Cert exam.

Their calculated grades results were delayed until today, September 7. These resilient young people have endured more angst than any Leaving Cert class that went before.

In a generous intervention on behalf of candidates, Minister Norma Foley removed the socioeconomic algorithm from the standardisation process. Minister Foley has displayed outstanding leadership in the protracted saga of calculated grades and has behaved very sensibly by focussing on candidate welfare.

I hope that today’s results bring joy unconfined to every Leaving Cert candidate after the anxiety and mental anguish they have suffered during the past six months. Don’t believe it when the naysayers tell you that your Leaving Cert results are worthless. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Leaving Cert doesn’t define you, but it is a valuable document. Be proud of your results today. They are a real achievement despite very difficult odds. You have worked damn hard for them in extreme circumstances. Your results open the window of opportunity for you. At this stage, you are entitled to move on to the next stage of your young lives. Best of luck to all candidates receiving results today.

BILLY RYLE, Tralee.

No time for ‘losers’

JUST when you thought his image couldn’t get any worse, President Trump is accused of criticising the armed forces.

The Atlantic magazine has written that in 2018 Mr Trump cancelled a visit to a US cemetery in France because he said it was ‘filled with losers’. You wouldn’t think anyone could say that, but he considered war hero John McCain ‘a loser’ because he was captured in the Vietnam War.

Of course, Trump was exempted from serving in Vietnam because he had bone spurs in his feet.

A quote from the Bible, which Mr Trump proudly displays, although upside down, is ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’(John 15:13).

A final thought comes from The ANZAC Day reading from the Ode of Remembrance that is worth all reflecting on. ‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.’ DENNIS FITZGERALD,

by email.

A form of dictatorship

PUBS, and businesses in general, are struggling to keep their doors open without more bureaucracy from this Government.

The new pub regulations state that information must be kept for the purpose of inspection by An Garda Síochána – what we eat and what we drink and phone numbers of customers.

So it is no wonder that even the Government TDs want nothing to do with it.

The new regulations were signed by Minister Stephen Donnelly. This is more of the old boys’ club tactics. Do they take the public for fools? If they do, they are sadly mistaken, and keeping a record of what people actually eat is an invasion of privacy.

The Restaurants Association said all of this was sprung on them in a sneaky way without any consultation – a form of dictatorship by this present Government which is not living in the real world.

Not only are the rules not practical, they are authoritarian. This is not a police state – as yet. NOEL HARRINGTON,

Kinsale, Co. Cork.