Full marks to The Irish Examiner for publishing the enormous salaries of charity CEOs and for listing those who refused to disclose theirs.

I saw some alarming front page headlines in the Irish Examiner recently, like ‘€50m pay to experts’ and ‘Half of children with Down’s lose vital aid’.

Cork TD and Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, says that the protests against the Grid 25 programme will give Ireland a bad name. The plan is for 5,000km of cables, including pylons and 7,000 wind turbines.

Now that, officially at least, our Troika “friends” have relinquished their involvement in the affairs of this State, I feel for our Government.

The Personal Insolvency Bill has given tremendous powers of repossession to the banks.

Re your Where Are They Now piece on the Young Scientists — I just wish to note that Jean Byrne, 1992 Young Scientist, sadly passed away in 2007 from the complications of cystic fibrosis. She was just 31 years old and had been heavily involved in CF campaigning and education.

The sacrifices the Irish people have made cannot continue into the last two years of this Coalition’s tenure. I hope we will have a return to Fianna Fáil, for these reasons:

Listening to Colm O’Gorman and Mary McAleese dominating the airwaves last week on the subject of anti-homosexuality in places as diverse as the Catholic Church and Uganda, I would say what any Catholic could have told RTÉ: the Church’s condemnation of Uganda’s new anti-gay legislation is in no way a departure from the Church’s established position.

Patrick L O’Brien (‘The Renewable Energy Debate is Just Hot Air’, 7/1/14) decries energy policy that promotes the use of local, sustainable, clean sources to reduce our consumption of imported, scarce and dirty fossil fuels.

In the 50th year of the Young Scientist Exhibition, the political and media establishment have little appreciation of what science and technology have achieved. Humanity has been transformed: we live longer, healthier, relatively pain-free lives, with comforts, education, communication, entertainment, travel and countless choices that have enhanced us beyond anything contemplated 50 years ago.