No carols on the Late Late saves D’Arcy blushes
I WATCHED the Late Late Show last Friday night. I waited and waited and waited for O Holy Night, Away In A Manger, Silent Night and Adeste Fideles.
We had none of those.
I think that Ryan Tubridy was protecting Ray D’Arcy from any further distress after his difficulties with the Angelus.
It would have been so nice to hear the children’s lovely voices sing any of the usual Christmas hymns on the show.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed. M. SULLIVAN, Tivoli, Cork.
At least CJ had morals
I READ with incredulity your story on Seán Haughey.
Firstly, while acknowledging that Charles Haughey was no saint he contributed to the embryonic Peace Process through the Reid talks, supported establishing the IFSC and championed financial support of pensioners. Secondly, the salacious lifestyle of his father has no bearing on the solid public record of Seán Haughey,
While, the assertion that the Taoiseach is elitist is unproven, we know he believes that social media giants should not be regulated and landlords are a much maligned species.
What I consider hypocrisy is the Health Minister’s order that the new maternity hospital will have no semblance of a religious ethos, neither Christian or otherwise.
His comments confirm that abortion and even late-term abortion will be part of the service.
I would suggest that the late Charles Haughey was a flawed man and politician. But he had a moral compass in matters of life and death. DEREK TONER, Balbriggin, Co. Dublin.
A+ for Matt on uni snobs
MATT Cooper is on the button on this subject of going to college (Mail, Thursday).
In my time, about 20 years ahead of Matt, almost all of those who joined the public sector or banking did so straight from Leaving Cert, at around age 18.
Could we really claim that these institutions have performed better following an influx of graduates from the Eighties or Nineties on?
Leaving Cert is more than adequate to successfully perform most of tasks and build a career.
The snobbery factor referred to by Matt can also be seen in the way some technical institutions try to get university status. Not so MIT in the US which is probably the most prestigious technical institution on the globe.
PAT O’MAHONY, Dalkey, Co. Dublin.
Murphy’s housing mess
HAVING read Minister Eoghan Murphy’s Bill that he is going to
bring to Government, as well as comments from Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin and Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan, it is clear to me that they haven’t got a clue on what’s going on in the rental sector.
The reason why rents have increased so much is there are 75,000 less landlords than there were three years ago. There is another factor, the Residential Tenancies Board is running landlords out of town. There are so many horror stories about landlords being treated badly by the RTB system that you cannot blame landlords for selling up.
You have got to ask if it is so lucrative to be a landlord why are so many of them selling up.
The blame lies on the shoulders of Minister Murphy as he is the one turning the screw and he alone allowed the vulture landlords free reign.
The more regulations that the Minister for Housing – or should I say ‘Minister for No Housing’ – brings in and the more power he hands over to the RTB, the worse the housing crises will get. Regulations, and the RTB in particular, are the cause and reason why landlords are selling up.
It seems as if UCD has built more apartments on its campus than Dublin City Council has in the whole of Dublin. In fact, student accommodation and offices appear to be the only things being built and are they being ringfenced by the major players.
A full investigation should be carried out to see what effect the RTB are having on the rental sector.
LARRY HIGGINS, by email.