The latest CSO report which revealed that 135,000 children, or one-in-eight are living in poverty is deplorable.

Tomorrow the Dáil will have the opportunity to support what could be an epochal change in constitutional democracy. 

In his State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama vowed to “relentlessly hunt down terrorists” (“Obama vows to hunt down terrorists and help the poor”; January 21). He will continue the US’s ‘War On Terror’, a cure more deadly than the disease.

Last Thursday, Environment Minister Alan Kelly said an expert review group would make recommendations on Cork’s boundaries and its local government.

As a trademark lawyer and consultant to Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP), an initiative of the International Chamber of Commerce, I read your editorial (16 January) on tobacco smuggling. 

One of the teachers union’s original objections to the changes in the Junior Cycle was that the Certificate would be a school certificate instead of a state certificate.

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, we have heard much from governments and from the mass media about freedom of speech. But it appears that there is little understanding that freedom of speech comes with responsibility.

Thank you Ms Lagarde. Thank you ever so much for paying tribute to my heroism over the past years in enduring the regime of austerity that you, the Brians and Enda imposed on me and my fellow citizens. I’m so proud and re-energised by your plaudits!

Barry Walsh ( Letters, January 17 ) is misled if he thinks that what he calls “illegal settlements” – ie Jewish towns and villages in Judea-Samaria (aka the “West Bank”) – formed part of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. The Accords have nothing to say about the subject. The whole question was left to be discussed in future final status negotiations.

I am confused. I am actually a little perplexed, and I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.