The letter to you from Dr Owen Gallagher regarding Savita Hallappanavar (Letters, September 22) and the abortion issue shows how confused even some educated people are on this issue.

It was with great interest I read your article ‘Concern at Proposed Aran Island Fish Farm’ (Irish Examiner, September 20).

The Garda Síochána is on its knees. Almost regularly we hear about abuses of power, penalty points being knocked off, and summonses disappearing. But why are we only hearing this now? This kind of bullshit has been going on for years. Has anyone ever tried doing something about it?

The imposition of savage sentences on six young people in Iran for making a video of themselves singing and dancing is another example of the regime’s horrifying attitude to human rights and freedom of expression.

I refer to Ann Cahill’s article (Irish Examiner, September 17) concerning a report from the European Court of Auditors entitled ‘EU has ‘wasted’ €500m on fish farms’.

News that the State-owned Permanent TSB has presided over the eviction of 25 families is disturbing. Back in 2008, government went out on a €400bn limb for bank bondholders. 

We believe that we have a lot of friends around the world and we like to think that we are a valued and popular member of the European family. But when you look at what happened in Scotland and within Ireland during the economic crash, does it not make you think a little deeper about what makes a friend?

It is with great interest I have been following the recent IT crash at CUH. Was their IT infrastructure tested to cope with  additional workload as the hospital expanded? 

I am sure no-one, and not least the Deputy First Minister, wants to go down in history as the organ grinder’s monkey and, for that reason, I found it astonishing that Martin McGuinness reversed Sinn Fein policy and announced without consultation of any kind that he would agree to shrinking the structures of the Northern Assembly.

John Bruton’s assertion that the Home Rule Act of 1914 would have ultimately led peacefully to national independence is mere speculation.