I BELIEVE that it was Francois de la Rochefoucauld who once said that it is great cleverness to know when to conceal one’s cleverness.

HAVING promised not to send its citizens to jail for non-payment of fines, our Government has sent even more this year than last year, for that very reason.

THERE has been much conversation about the new household charge which is, for many of us, a VAT charge on mortgage payments. Attempts to label this tax a wealth or property tax are just not accurate.

THE axing of new public lighting, estate resurfacing and traffic calming programmes, coupled with grossly inflated wages for the position of Lord Mayor and the insistence of some councillors on wasting money on conferences, were among the reasons I voted against the 2012 Cork City Council Budget.

WE were deeply concerned by the comments attributed to UCC President Dr Michael Murphy concerning access students (Irish Examiner, Dec 21).

THE recent intemperate language spoken by the Taoiseach, and the closure of the Irish Embassy to the Vatican have deeply disturbed the Catholic people of Ireland.

IT will not be too long before this country is given Third World status on the amount of leverage capital needed to keep it going.

THE problem with the €100 charge on households and the determination of certain TDs to resist it reminds me that in 1906 the government of the British colony of Natal brought in a “hut tax” in Zululand.

THERE was only one thing more worrying than some of the views expressed by UCC president Dr Michael Murphy, in your paper (Dec 21), amongst these:

THE imposition of the new household tax is clearly unjust.