We need to investigate all these investigations
IN VIEW of the multiplicity of tribunals, commissions, investigations, errors and omissions in recent times, one wonders which is greater: the cost of running the country, or the cost of inquiring into the running of the country?
Steve McGarry, Bishopstown, Cork.
System in crisis
I HAVE to applaud your editorial on the many failings of the health service (‘Fightback of an utterly broken system’, MoS, May 6).
Since Ireland became a republic, many changes, good and bad, have landed on these shores, but the levers of power in government have sadly let down every citizen appallingly.
They say you get what you vote for but in recent times people are fed up with the main parties throwing crumbs to sweeten up the population.
It’s difficult not to but be cynical and disappointed. The system needs root-and-branch reform for the next generation.
Shane Mullally, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. …HYPOCRISY, self-advancement and self-preservation now permeate all State and other bodies throughout our nation.
The politicians we elect are reduced to nothing better than puppets and their impotent utterings never rise above the hypocritical. While we continue to elect hypocrites, we will be dealt hypocrisy.
The Oireachtas is a charade. The interests of our citizens should be first but are last. Only for the raised voices of some courageous individuals, official Ireland would continue to polish the veneer that hides the underlying rot. The scandals in health, housing and justice are symptoms of the rot.
It took revolution and sacrifice of life to establish our nation. Life has again been sacrificed, this time involuntarily and for the wrong reasons.
It is a tragedy that our nation has been subverted by selfinterest. Revolution is again required; a social revolution to reclaim the principle of Government of the citizen, by the citizen for the citizen.
Tom Beckett, Limerick.
I can’t vote Yes
THIS abortion referendum is a paradox. A Yes vote appears to be right but, on reflection, it has to be a No.
I would like to say Yes to clarify for medical staff that they are allowed to do what is necessary to save women’s lives even if, in so doing, the foetus is killed.
I would like to say Yes to allow women to terminate where there is fatal foetal abnormality.
I would tolerate a Yes vote in cases of rape because allowing full term could subsequently seriously affect the woman’s health, even life.
I do not know how I would vote on the grounds of disabilities. I don’t know how I would deal with that, so I cannot legislate for others in that regard. But, the parallel question of euthanasia comes to mind.
I don’t want abortion to become an alternative to contraception and, by allowing it, being responsible for the unnecessary loss of even one baby’s life.
Ask the women who still grieve the loss of their unborn babies years after they had a miscarriage. It must hurt them so much to hear of terminating a viable foetus as a woman’s right.
Ask the mothers who lost their babies after only hours, days, weeks, or even months, if they would rather have terminated their baby before it was born. To allow free access to abortion must be offensive to them.
This is where the question being put to the people is the wrong question and has to fail. A No vote allows for a future vote on the individual questions to which I would vote Yes. These questions are for women’s rights, women’s health. But, a Yes vote closes the door on future votes and opens the door to wholesale terminations for no good reason. John Colgan, Fairview, Dublin 3.
Seminary farce
IN a move reminiscent of a particularly farcical Father Ted episode, two student priests have been sent home from the Irish College seminary in Rome after being found in bed together.
The two trainees had earlier attended a function celebrating the 50th anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, which banned contraception for married couples as an ‘intrinsic evil’. The wine must have been flowing freely!
I suppose the Irish Catholic Church can draw some consolation in the face of this latest example of its world-class hypocrisy.
At least the two frisky apprentice clerics had no need to use contraception!
I suspect the late, lamented Dermot Morgan would have had a good laugh at the whole shenanigans. John O’Sullivan,