I always associate last Papal visit with Kojak
IT WAS late September 1979. As I passed the sitting room window, on the way home from school through the net curtains I noticed 22 square inches of colour.
I couldn’t believe it! We had a colour TV! My late and dear mother confirmed that yes, we had a colour TV and she had been motivated to procure it by the impending visit of Pope John Paul. How fortuitous, I thought. Our entertainment, our world, our two-channel universe had received a shot in the arm from this Holy Man.
His omnipotence was confirmed when I watched my first episode of Kojak in colour. Now I could see the colour of Kojak’s head, the colour of his lollipops and finally see that New York taxis were yellow and not grey!
For me the highlight of Pope John Paul’s visit was not his famous `young people of Ireland I love you’ remark or his visit to Knock. For me, Papal visits will always be associated with seeing the Ewings having their breakfast beside the pool in Southfork with JR slagging Bobby and Sue Ellen hosing down the scotch in full, fabulous, fantastic colour!
Gerard Corrigan, AFTER all that has happened over the years, the abuse of children, the abuse of young pregent girls, we are still bowing and genuflecting to the head of the Catholic Church.
If we want to make the church change it ways, by naming the abusers and paying compensation to the people they abused for years and destroyed their lives, then we should ignore the Pope`s visit and show them that we are not prepared to listen to their sweet talk any longer, while they are covering their backs against accusations.
There will be no change in the Catholic Church as long as we treat them like royalty.
Eamonn Burke, Portlaoise, Co. Laois. SELF-SERVING lobbying in our judicial system, as witnessed in the case of Dr Basam Naser, is inappropriate (`Minister helps GP get a stint out of jail’, MoS, August 19).
The sentence of 16 months handed down for failing to pay €100,000 in tax is lenient given that citizens have served custodial sentences for not having a valid TV licence.
This fraud by Dr Naser was not a momentary lapse of character but a carefully contrived evasion of tax that deprived the State of much-needed revenue.
His tax evasion was effectively a wealthy man stealing from the poor and sick.
Claims that Dr Naser’s actions were a mistake between himself and his accountant are not supported by the facts, as he had a hidden bank account into which he lodged 1,686 cheques received from patients. I believe in prison reform and prisoner rehabilitation but do not believe that the welfare and rights of victims of crime are secondary to the rights of perpetrators of crime. Tony Corrigan, WITH Brexit looking like the impasse we already knew it was, is it not time for a new approach? There is no solution to the border issue short of Britain remaining inside the single market in some form.
Unless they cancel Brexit, that cannot happen because it allows every country in the EU to opt out of full membership for the freedom of retaining only economic trade unity.
That leaves Ireland with a very big problem. No matter how you regulate it, the border still must be regulated, patrolled and defined. Cross-border cooperation for crime prevention, medicine and tourism is gone.
We need a totally new approach. A compromise with a difference. It must maintain the trading links, travel links and financial support currently in place. It must satisfy the people who live there, both nationalist and unionist. The alternative does not bear thinking about.
A political joining of the two sections would alienate the unionists. A divisive separation of the two parts of Ireland would alienate the nationalists. How may these two ideologies be married into a successful unit? How about a federation?
What if Northern Ireland and the South entered a federal pact whereby the whole island operated as one economic unit within the EU? Northern Ireland could still maintain its links to the UK and be part of the Commonwealth.
Northern Ireland could maintain its autonomy and its parliament but would work in equality alongside the South for the good of the whole island.
Call it the Federation of Celtic Nations. And if Scotland want to join in later, sure, why not?
John Colgan,