One-step plan to solve2018 every Brexit dilemma

I AM surprised there is so much hassle in London and Brussels trying to solve the Brexit dilemma.

Massive integration of the six counties with the Irish Republic might solve the problem.

The border problems would disappear overnight.

Based on integration, there will be no hard borders to worry about as we would all be part of the EU in one united Ireland.

There would be no need for a Good Friday Agreement, us being unified into one nation.

Theresa May could get on with detaching the UK from Europe without the present difficulties.

The Irish language problem could be solved and the government could be restarted in the North straight away.

It seems so simple and ticks all the boxes.

Well, why not start tomorrow, realising our dreams for a happy, peaceful and unified future? Best of all, there would be no more Brexit to worry about.

Your readers will be happy to forgive these rantings of an 85year-old Irish dinosaur.

Pat O’Brien,

Every life matters

I’VE lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people express relief or even approval when a news reporter announces that one gangland thug has killed another.

It’s partly understandable, given the misery and mayhem generated by such criminals.

But a life is still a life and murder is still the most despicable of all crimes. Apart from that, these thugs who can turn so quickly against each other are more than capable of killing people with no involvement in their own underworld activities.

So, when gardaí appeal for help in solving a gangland killing, we should be as willing to come forward with information as we would if the victim had no criminal connections whatsoever.

It’s worth remembering too that even a gangland figure has family and friends who are left grieving. Nobody deserves to end his/her life riddled with bullets and laid out on a cold mortuary slab, another statistic to be shrugged off as ‘just one of them’.

Every murder, regardless of motive or victim (intended or otherwise) diminishes us. John Fitzgerald,

I couldn’t vote

WE ARE told that those Catholics who voted Yes in the abortion referendum have sinned and must go to Confession to receive absolution.

What of the many Catholics who in good conscience would not vote, myself included? We would not vote Yes because we believed it was too extreme. We would not vote No because we believed the status quo needed to changed, but not to the extent envisaged by the Yes campaign.

Paddy Daly,

Boylan’s failures

DR Peter Boylan did not become the ‘bete noir’ of the No campaign because he was ‘so knowledgeable, calm and dignified during the campaign’ (Joe Duffy, MoS, June 3), but because he simply replied to any contrary opinion put to him with ‘not true’ or ‘incorrect’.

This included when the Medical Council guidelines were involved and he ‘was urged to go back to school by a colleague’ when he questioned the development of a 12-week baby in the womb and was pulled up on it by the colleague quoting Dr Boylan’s own previous contradictory description.

Dr Boylan’s consistent stance on the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar was at odds with three independent inquests, which, incidentally, did not accept his evidence but gave verdicts of sepsis and dreadful medical

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neglect, for which a number of staff were censured.

He bears a big responsibility for continuing to claim the Eighth Amendment caused her death and ignores the confirmation from Dr Michael F. O’Hare, chairman of the Joint Institute of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists/ HSE Working Group on Maternal Mortality, which is notified of all maternal deaths, that no deaths have occurred because of the Amendment.

Dr Boylan also ignored the call of four of his predecessors to resign because of his baseless claims.

It is very disappointing that journalists allowed Dr Boylan to continue to make claims about maternal deaths which were not based on facts.

Mary Stewart,

My problem with ‘r’

ONE thing that annoys me in speech is people putting an ‘r’ in sentences where it doesn’t belong. Such as: ‘Jessica rand her sister watched their little sister draw-ring a picture.’

It is used on radio and TV. I’ve heard newsreaders, sports commentators, documentary narrators, professional speakers who know better, using that annoying ‘r’. Do they think it makes them sound posh?

W.T. Murphy,