I’m writing to ask for support in delaying one major cutback.

The facts and figures in the F and A columns don’t lie (and it’s not over yet).

Once again we hear the old codswallop about the great fans and all the singing and partying.

The writing has been on the wall for some time now — events of the last week have just reinforced things.

Far from being disgraced by losing 4-0 to an outstanding Spanish team, the Irish team fought to the end, and the Irish supporters were simply magnificent.

This is an important and exciting time for Irish soccer, and, like most people, I have been watching our matches.

Desmond Fitzgerald is so right when he writes (Letters, June 11), that none of our public representatives publish audited accounts, receipts for expenses or, indeed, donations towards election campaigns.

As the deserter issue is such a complicated one, I believe that Justice Minister Alan Shatter has approached it in the right way.

Following the announcement in Dáil Eireann on June 12 by Minister for Justice, Equality, and Defence Alan Shatter, on behalf of the Irish Government, the Irish Soldiers Pardons Campaign (WW2), would like to take this opportunity to commend him for having the wisdom, compassion and moral courage in taking positive action to enable a resolution on the pardons issue to be achieved which will remove in so far as practical the stigmaof dishonour attached to those named as dismissed for desertion in the republished blacklist.

The former Minister for Health, Mary Harney, stated in the Dáil on Feb 23, 2010, that she has “ruled out an inquiry into symphysiotomy surgical operations”.