Sir, – I was pleased to read in your editorial on textile waste that under a new directive, producers who make textiles available in the EU will have to cover the cost of their collection, sorting and recycling.
It is important that the producers of these (and other) products will be held financially responsible for the downstream costs of their products. The taxpayer should not bear these costs, while the profits go to industry and owners.
I propose a similar process for recouping the costs of alcohol harms from the alcohol manufacturing industry. Alcohol harms, such as the costs of healthcare, crime, traffic collisions and loss of productivity, are estimated by the World Health Organisation to cost more than 2.5 per cent of GDP in high income countries such as Ireland – €14 billion annually.
Not included are the significant costs of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), and alcohol-driven adverse childhood experiences and their life-long consequences.
RM Block
The alcohol industry in Ireland pays only a small fraction of these costs through excise duty, just €1.2 billion annually, levels which have not changed in more than 11 years. I recognise that they do make other contributions to the economy, but the gap between taxes from alcohol and their societal costs is enormous.
Profits from the alcohol industry are privatised to shareholders and owners, while the economic costs of alcohol harms are socialised to the Irish taxpayer and the State.
As a liver doctor, I have seen far too much illness, deaths and other harms due to alcohol. The alcohol industry turns a blind eye. It’s time we woke up as a society and held the alcohol industry financially liable for their harmful products. – Yours, etc,
PROF FRANK MURRAY,
Chair,
Alcohol Action Ireland,
Dublin 7.
Reforming the presidency
Sir, – Some suggestions to help make presidential elections and the office more open, democratic and fair. First, halve nomination number rules for TDs, senators and local authorities and add provision for direct nomination by citizens.
Second, reduce the presidential term to five years and permit a second term only after a break in service.
Finally, restrict financial support by political parties and extend voting to Northern Ireland. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Maeve O’Donnell, (Letters, September 26th) states the councils and Oireachtas are democratic institutions. I would suggest this is a mis-statement regarding the councils. When a councillor retires, resigns or gets elected to the Dáil, that position is filled by the sitting councillor co-opting their replacement, who can be from anywhere and more likely than not be party affiliated.
In my opinion, the position should be filled by the last person to be eliminated in that constituency. – Yours, etc,
JOE O’FLAHERTY,
Grattan Road,
Galway.
Sir, – Nationalism of a regressive variety begins its insidious creep when it invents special considerations for inclusion that are found neither in the law nor in the Constitution.
There is no constitutional stipulation that the president of Ireland must have any level of command of the Irish language. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’CONNOR,
School of Philosophy,
University College Dublin.
Maternity hospital
Sir, – Now that Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has decided to integrate Children’s Health Ireland into the Health Services Executive (September 25th), perhaps the Minister, who is clearly in the driving seat, can now tell us when the design brief will be completed and the enabling works will begin for the long-promised co-located maternity hospital on the campus of St James’s Hospital – and, furthermore, if there is money in the kitty to build it.
When the ribbon is cut on the ¤2 billion-plus new children’s hospital on the St James’s Hospital campus in 2026, it will, no doubt, be accompanied by exclamations of “sure wasn’t it worth the wait and the price” and lots of political and medical back slapping and photos in the media.
This hospital will, however, mean nothing for those babies with life-threatening complex congenital conditions who should be born in a maternity hospital on the same site (for immediate access to paediatric surgical interventions).
In addition, the ¤1.5 billion-plus new maternity hospital that will be built on the St Vincent’s University Hospital campus 9km down the road from the new children’s hospital will also have no co-location advantages for these babies.
The 1916 Proclamation aspiration of “cherishing all the children of the nation equally”, sadly, does not seem to apply to the smallest and most vulnerable children in the State – not even after spending ¤3.5 billion-plus on a new national children’s hospital and on a new national maternity hospital. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS FITZPATRICK,
Dublin 6.
Drug payment scheme
Sir, – I recently learned that the monthly limit which a couple or family has to pay for prescribed medications is €80. This is the same figure as that for a single person.
A couple’s combined maximum payment is €80, so in effect each person in a couple pays only €40 maximum for medications per month whereas a single person pays €80 maximum per month.
Isn’t this discriminatory against single people? Single people are already disadvantaged by the Irish tax system and are trying to pay mortgages, utilities and run a house on only one income.
Surely the scheme should treat all adults equally, and make the scheme fair and equitable? (In the case of adults with intellectual or long-term physical disabilities they will have their medications paid via medical card) – Yours, etc,
DR RUBEN KEANE,
Cobh,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Post-Covid and with their dwindling numbers catering for ever increasing numbers of patients, it has now become very difficult, due to their heavy workload, to get an appointment within a reasonable time period with a GP.
The following little story, definitely apocryphal, concerns a gentleman who rang his GP seeking an appointment, only to be told that the soonest appointment available was two weeks hence.
When he said, rather flippantly, to the receptionist that he could be dead by then, her response was: then make sure that your wife calls the surgery to cancel the appointment. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES SMYTH,
Kells,
Co Meath.
Defence and neutrality
Sir, – Catherine Connolly’s remarks, as reported, on increased defence spending is disappointing and worrying.
Is she implying that the actions of a democratic government today can be compared to that of the totalitarian Nazi state in the 1930s? I hope not, but it seems so.
A much better analogy for comparison would be between Ukraine today and Republican Spain during the 1930s. Republican Spain was unilaterally attacked by its own fascists with the active support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Ukraine has been attacked by Russia with the support of North Korea, Iran and China, all dictatorships.
Without increased defence spending across Europe, Ukraine will not survive intact, as Republican Spain did not because the “international community” would not stand up to fascist aggression.
If Ukraine is defeated or forced to accept an unequal ceasefire, then member states of the European Union will be threatened by Russian expansionism.
Neutrality will not promote peace as Ms Connolly alleges; it is part of an isolationist mentality that refuses to make hard decisions in the Europe of today.
Unfortunately, peace can be promoted only if it can be defended militarily. This might mean war, but war is less likely if there is a strong military presence in Europe prepared to counter aggression.
Ireland should follow the example of Sweden and Finland who recognised the Russian threat and abandoned their neutrality.
Now is the time for Ireland to reconsider its traditional neutrality, commit to work more closely with its European allies and, in the future, join Nato.
Is it not time for Ireland to make a positive contribution to the defence of Europe and the Ukraine? – Yours, etc,
BRIAN GIRVIN,
Glasgow,
Scotland.
Sir, – Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has said there are “parallels” between the current increase in military spending in Germany and its rearmament during the 1930s.
Hitler’s Germany was determined to wage aggressive war especially in the East against the Soviet Union to achieve Lebensraum (living space) for its people.
The current rearmament programme in Germany is entirely defensive and aimed at deterring Russia from further attacks such as the invasion of Ukraine. Catherine Connolly fails to draw any distinction between the two.
She also says that “as a neutral country, we have a duty to use our neutrality to call out the abuse of power”. Does she think our neutrality will defend us against an aggressor?
Neutrality did not protect Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg in 1939, Denmark and Norway in 1940, Tibet in the 1950s or Kuwait in 1990.
During the Second World War, the German command estimated that two divisions would be sufficient to conquer Ireland but that the invasion force could not be re-supplied because of Britain’s command of the sea – it was this, not Ireland’s neutrality, that protected us. – Yours, etc,
DONAL McGRATH,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
Squaring off
Sir, – As I walk to work in Grand Canal Square I am dismayed by the dilapidated state of the square itself.
Launched to much fanfare, this high-profile landmark space has been allowed to decay, with large sections of paving missing or broken.
I don’t understand how Dublin City Council can allow the deterioration of such a high profile space.
Perhaps the danger to public safety posed by large holes in the paving will be enough to spur them to action. Experience tells me not to hold my breath. – Yours, etc,
CIARAN KENNEDY,
Dundrum,
Dublin 14.
Not natural
Sir, – Alan C Newell (Letters, September 26th) accuses Ryanair of dehumanising us by insisting on digital boarding passes, as though sailing through the troposphere in an aluminium tube were somehow a natural activity of our species. – Yours, etc,
JOHN DUFFY,
Dublin 6W.
Changing bus routes
Sir, – When changing bus numbers and routes, sufficient notice should be given of these changes to all users.
Ample advance notice is particularly essential for people with autism and other neurodivergent bus users.
It may take many weeks to explain and prepare a person for a change when a bus they may have used for their whole life is not going to be there any more.
Travel training, designed to increase independence, may take weeks or months. If a person with autism arrives at their usual stop and their bus has “disappeared”, they may feel completely lost, confused and anxious.
They may have no way of understanding what has happened or how to get to a familiar destination.
Today, by complete chance, I discovered that the 83 bus will “disappear” shortly. As a support worker in this field I checked the BusConnects and TFI websites. There is no information about upcoming changes on either site. The Dublin Bus site does at least advise that there will be changes, but no detail is available.
Subsequent to a similar lack of advance information before other phases were introduced, I have seen extreme distress and confusion in the people who I support.
Detailed route maps and details of bus number changes should be easily available and advertised widely, well before any changes are enacted. – Yours, etc,
ROBBIE WELLS,
East Wall,
Dublin 3.
Thinking outside Dublin
Sir, – It occurs to me that a possible way out of the severe housing crisis we are experiencing, particularly in Dublin, is to think outside the box.
The box I refer to is Dublin itself. Suppose we make a move some 30 miles due west.
This puts us in or near the town of Edenderry; the wide area around which is sparsely populated.
Should a new town / city be planned and developed in this area it would provide cheaper and much more family-friendly housing.
A requirement from the start would be a strong rail service between Edenderry and Dublin.
At the beginning, this development would serve largely as a dormitory town for Dublin. As time moves on it would develop its own infrastructure, commerce and identity. This area is adjacent to all the mainline rail links from the north, west and southwest to Dublin.
Think: a 15-mile rail link from Edenderry to Portarlington and a 25- mile link from Edenderry to Navanwould provide a direct rail corridor from Belfast to Cork independent of the logjam in Dublin. A 22-mile rail link from Edenderry to Hazelhatch could provide the necessary commuter line to Dublin.
Water supply to such a development is already planned. The proposed water supply from the Shannon to Dublin passes directly through this area.
Built into planning would be provision for tram lines and urban rail services generally, thus obviating the current bellyaching about underground rail in Dublin.
No doubt, in time, a second “Dublin” airport would feature in this area. The present airport is operating at capacity.
As the years move on and discussion progresses on a possible new 32-county Ireland, such a city might well provide the location for a more acceptable seat of national administration. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE O’MALLEY,
Tivoli,
Cork.
Not so car-free
Sir, – Both Eithne O’Callaghan and Dr Ola Lokken Nordrum (Letters 24th and 26th) are in a position to call for car-free days in the city because both live in areas with good transport links and are also within easy walking distance to the city.
They do not consider people who have to travel from less serviced areas. The commute for some necessitates transport that is not provided by CIÉ, Dart or Luas.
Dublin house prices already exclude a lot of workers, do we need to also make their travel into the city even worse? – Yours, etc,
JOHN BERGIN,
Oxton Wirral,
England.
