We live in a great old country, all the same: people being jailed for not paying €160 TV licences, others getting away with €57m tax liabilities.

It’s guff of Fine Gael to claim there will be a financial saving if the Seanad is abolished, or that it will be reformed if it is not.

Recently, two letter writers asked for respect for cyclists: surely those writers should acknowledge some cyclists are dangerous and should have respect for pedestrians.

With regard to the article, “Mental health ‘a stigma’ for youths seeking help” (Irish Examiner, Sep 10), Paul Gilligan said “the stigma which still attached to mental-health issues needed to be tackled, with a greater emphasis on the problem at school level”.

Whatever one’s views on the abolition or retention of the Seanad, or on austerity, the media discussion is enlightening.

Last weekend, I reviewed every letter-to-the-paper that I had sent over the last 23 years.

The word on the street is the Seanad costs the Exchequer €20 million a year.

Reading reports on this year’s drawn All-Ireland hurling final and listening to people talking about the performance of our team, the general consensus seems to conclude that Cork were inferior to Clare. People, pundits and indeed hurling fans, seem to think that Cork got the ‘out of jail card’.

Proponents of the ‘no’ vote in the forthcoming Senate referendum are putting the case that it should be retained, but radically reformed.

I am appalled at the treatment of mother-of-two Stephanie Meehan, partner of Fiachra Daly, the Priory Hall resident who tragically took his own life.