When Queen Elizabeth met with Martin McGuinness recently it was noticeable that the Queen kept her gloves on when shaking hands.

As the recession moves on banks are trying to sell more and more properties out from under the people who they had initially supported to purchase same. Former support has now been replaced by aggressive tactics designed at best to wear people down and to break their resolve to try and continue trading.

Irishman Steve Redmond, 47, became the first person in the world on Jul 14 to do the Oceans 7, modelled on the Seven Summits — climbing the highest mountain on each continent. He swam all 7 toughest channels of the world’s oceans from 2009 and it took 3 years to complete.

There is an urgent need for the Minister for Finance to amend the Valuation Act 2001 to allow the business community to improve their shops without excess increases in valuation.

I refer to the article “Funding diverted to road repairs” (Jul 17).

Jim O’Sullivan (Letters, Jul 13) raises a very important point in relation to the recently launched Mortgage to Rent scheme.

On February 13 Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced his Government’s action plan to create 100,000 new jobs over the following four years.

While the Government might celebrate our most recent ‘pat on the back’ from the Troika it should react seriously to statistics that revealed the dire health of our domestic economy and the impact on households.

I agree with Matt Cooper (Jul 14) when he says we ought to have a rational public debate about alcohol consumption, but unfortunately I feel we all know, including Mr Cooper, it’s never going to happen.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “A nation will be judged by how it treats its weakest members”.