Having until recently lived abroad and now residing one again in my native Ireland, I am puzzled by the proposed water tax.

We all know that gardaí and judges are prepared to make motorists’ lives miserable because they might possibly, maybe, some time cause an accident.

It’s a funny old world.

With reference to Shane Minogue’s letter (Apr 17), I think it is high time that mis-statements regarding export of “food” during the Great Famine were challenged.

Mary Regan says Sinn Féin has few answers to the country’s problems, and she is dismissive of our call for a wealth tax (Irish Examiner, Apr 15).

Over the last year the culmination of bad weather coupled with cash-flow issues have spelled the end for many small farmers with low income and bad land.

Daniel Teegan (Letters, Apr 16) is entitled to his opinion that the decision of a few hundred TUI delegates to boycott Israel is courageous.

Global warming or no global warming, there is no scarcity of water in this country.

The imminent unwarranted sale of the National Lottery licence is another example of the short-sightedness of our blinkered Government.

While our thoughts are rightly with the victims of the Boston bombings in what Taoiseach Enda Kenny called “this senseless and terrible event”, we might reflect on the contrasting standards applied to equally appalling or worse acts from elsewhere in the world.