Matt Cooper, (Opinion, Mar 23) patiently explains to us all that, “The gap between what the State is spending annually and taking in tax revenue is not far short of €20bn”.

I refer to the subject of fracking for gas in Leitrim. I believe we should do what we can to protect the environment.

I really enjoyed reading Michael Moynihan’s tribute to Nicky Rackard in your newspaper recently, (Sport, March 19).

I have just issued a €100 personal bond for the household charge which will not be payable until 2025.

The investigation by the Vatican into clerical child abuse is a whitewash as it should have been carried out by non-Catholic secular lawyers of the highest integrity and not by senior Catholic clergymen.

Rather than the scrapping of Transition Year to become a year of community service, as proposed by Friends of the Elderly, perhaps the smarter option would be to increase the number of community service hours for each Transition Year student.

I don’t think people realise that if every household pays the €100 charge the Government will only take in €160m.

With reference to the debate on the household charge, we are told by the powers that be the charge is for “fire and emergency services, maintenance and cleaning of streets, planning and development, etc.”

Regarding the proposed household charge, it seems to me not much thought went into it. Did anyone consider people like me living on their own with just the State pension to live on?

So, after all that, all the Vatican has to say is that it is ‘dismayed’ at the ‘sinful and criminal acts’ of the Irish Catholic hierarchy and the abuses that same Vatican allowed it to inflict on men, women and children in Ireland for decades.