I am glad the suggestion (Jan 17) to lower working hours (from a 5 day week, to a 4.5 day week) to increase employment, is causing ripples.

Pub representatives are looking for a minimum price for alcohol; this makes perfect sense.

John McHenry’s assertion that 96FM has “gone out of its way to inflame [the Vita Cortex] situation rather than attempting to find out the accurate information before giving a balanced opinion” is both outrageous and itself inaccurate.

David Becan is only partially right when he warns readers to stop waiting for the messiah because he’s not coming (Letters, Jan 26).

Most people accept that there is a problem with alcohol misuse in this country but increasing the price or making it less available is surely not the solution.

As a taxpayer I am seriously concerned that my hard earned money should be used to “improve prison conditions”.

It seems that Social Protection Minister Joan Burton has kicked off the new year in the same vein as she left off in 2011, issuing statements and plans which imply widespread welfare fraud.

At present we have a weak government and a weaker opposition.

When I heard Leo Varadkar announce that the EU/ECB element of the troika had threatened that if the Government did not pay the €1.25bn unguaranteed debt to bank bondholders yesterday a financial bomb would go off in Dublin, and not in Frankfurt, it was all I could do to not eviscerate the TV.

The civil service may indeed serve Ireland very well, but in the hectic business of public life, nobody has asked one obvious question.