We deserve better than useless crew in Dáil Éireann

Am I alone in being fed up to the teeth with the current batch of TDs? We appear to have elected a full range of morons from taxevaders to terrorists, from clowns to the walking dead.

We are paying these people huge salaries and expenses, which are considerably more than many of them would earn in the private sector – and they cannot get their act together to form a government. The interest of the people is not on their radar.

These self-serving, largely inarticulate, moaning, greedy people are an embarrassment to the people of this country. We deserve better.

If there is another election this year, I will not vote for any independents – what a letdown the ones that fooled the voters are

Wake up boys and girls, this country needs a working government now.

Harold Reeves, Gorey, Co. Wexford.

Bar access to bar

The papal election from 1268 to 1271 was the longest in history. After two years of infighting, the magistrates of Viterbo locked the cardinals inside, reduced their food to bread and water and removed the roof over their heads. That formula would hasten the creation of our new government. They would quickly come to a consensus if they were all barred from the Dáil bar.

Michael Mernagh,

Carrigaline, Co. Cork.

Leinster Housing

Instead of trying to evict old people out of their own homes. In order to free up housing. How about evicting a crowd of dossers out of that little used palace called Leinster House, Dáil Éireann? Then convert into housing units? At least then the building would be of use to the country.

Anthony Woods, Ennis, Co. Clare.

Slithered away

As children the one legend associated with Saint Patrick that always captured our imaginations was that he had banished all of the snakes from Ireland. In the years since then, I’ve wondered if maybe it wasn’t actual reptiles at all, but the metaphorical kind.

If so, I regret to say that he missed a lot of them. Examples: drug dealers plying their poison in the streets of the Emerald Isle; the reckless nod-and-wink politicians with their greed and narrow self interest who helped to wreck our economy and destroy so many innocent lives; the bankers who lent money as if there was no tomorrow but weren’t so kind-hearted or concerned about their customers when tomorrow arrived and their mortgage payments fell behind or they couldn’t afford the rent any more due to loss of their livelihoods after the crash.

The bankers who were rescued by the State and then showed their gratitude by crushing so many lives might not have slithered and hissed and crawled on the ground like serpents, but boy did they have forked tongues and weren’t they sneaky!

It will be a great day for the Irish when at least a few of the financial wheeler-dealer snakes who sank their fangs into us face justice. Their banishment to barred cells will be in the true spirit of Saint Patrick and should be a cause of even bigger celebrations nationwide than we witnessed on St Patrick’s Day.

John Fitzgerald,

Callan, Co. Kilkenny.

Wonderful news

After weeks of doom and gloom, it was great on Wednesday to hear the wonderful news about a young lady, Leigh Bagnall, who has made wonderful progress following a ground-breaking double lung transplant (the procedure involves reconditioning donor lungs outside the body, lungs that were previously classed as unsuitable for transplant).

It’s wonderful for her and for all people suffering with cystic fibrosis.

Margaret Walshe, Dublin 15.

Forgotten men

With the forthcoming anniversary of the 1916 Rising, it should also be a celebration for all the Irishmen and women who have died in wars throughout the ages, not least those who fought in the ‘war to end all wars’.

These forgotten men were also fighting something they believed in. Many were treated as outcasts by their families. Some emigrated, while others ended up walking the roads as tramps to the end of their days.

Ignored and forgotten by a country they too loved.

Tommy Deenihan, Blackrock, Cork.

It’s their party…

Gerry Adams being stopped from entering the White House fills me with amusement. Gerry has told the world that he was never a member of the IRA – even when he was in charge of everything in the North for so many years.

Well, Gerry, it was their party and you can cry if you want to but the fact remains that if one lauds the IRA there is bound to be doubts and alarm as you walk among us.

Robert Sullivan, Bantry, Co. Cork.

National pride

I’m tired of avoiding the city centre on St Patrick’s Day because I don’t fancy the company of drunken idiots. Isn’t it time we reclaimed the day as a celebration of Irish culture rather than an occasion that honours the drinks industry?

B. Madden, Dublin 7.