Call a national emergency

Sir — If we believe the two parties chiefly responsible for leaving us with a health service that has been run into the ground, leaving us with over half a million citizens on waiting lists for healthcare and ill-equipped to face any crisis, let alone one of such catastrophic proportions, are capable of leading us forward then we have not learned anything.

Yet they are continuing to cling to power when a national emergency should have been declared long before coronavirus raised its merciless head.

For Fine Gael and Fianna

Fail to form a coalition that disenfranchises representatives of half the population at a time such as this demonstrates a mindset which should be deeply worrying and which will further burden a population reeling from a growing realisation of the enormity of the task ahead.

A national emergency government with representatives of all parties, large and small, including independents, should be formed without delay.

Large buildings suitable for isolation wards should be commandeered, together with a special communications structure linked to a central command centre. This needs to be started with a sense of urgency. Equipment and personnel must then be sought.

However difficult this task will be, it deserves serious consideration. One thing for sure is that there is no room for a “preservation of party nor of self ” mentality in this equation. Joe Brennan,

Ballinspittle, Co Cork