Regarding Lou Gogan’s letter (Apr 2), it is salutary to see how politics has always tended to attract people who are hell-bent on milking the State and who, too readily, succumb to dodgy deals aimed at improving their lot at the expense of the citizens.

Taking into consideration the fact that you have low income families trying to survive on €300 per week and expecting them to pay the €100 household charge, I think it is an absolute disgrace that you have the likes of Bertie Ahern and Padraig Flynn on pensions of €150,000 per year, or €3,000 per week who, along with their corrupt Fianna Fáil cronies, have cost taxpayers €300m in the Mahon Tribunal.

I am becoming increasingly fed up with the sympathy being shown to people who gambled on property and lost — 80-90% of us did not.

Well done to Michael Clifford for championing a public apology to Tom Gilmartin.

In the wake of the RTÉ Prime Time Investigates scandal, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte waffled on about ‘the need to restore viewer confidence in current affairs and news broadcasting’.

I was dismayed to read Maurice Fitzgerald’s letter (Apr 2) this morning concerning parking permits and the disabled.

It is bad enough when our economists repeatedly refuse to address the fact that the problems in our world are all caused by our so-called ’benign watchdog’ central banks, and that they are all privately owned institutions causing untold tyranny in our lives.

“Elephants are very intelligent, sensitive animals.”

Maurice Fitzgerald (Letter, Apr 2) is probably not aware, but the medical eligibility criteria for disabled parking permits were actually tightened up last year.

Spare a thought for Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy and all the other rich people at RTÉ, they will now have to ‘rub by’ on salaries between just ten and fifteen times the national average wage. God help the rich, the poor can beg! Miriam meets people like herself, and Joe Duffy exposes the things nobody wanted exposed.