TO argue that the car scrappage scheme was “not a cost to the state” because it generated net revenue for the government, as Alan Nolan does (Letters, June 22) is wrong.

JOHN Herriot (Letters, June 29) laments the paucity of young men entering seminaries in Ireland and, while his point is a valid one based purely on statistics, he falls into a very Irish trap of blaming everyone else.

I AGREE with Joanna Tuffy TD when she said she believed in ” the principle that anyone can contest an election irrespective of their gender and that voters can make up their own minds who to vote for irrespective of gender.”

WHEN Dr Kadar Asmal died recently in Cape Town, South Africa, he left a world that is poorer for his passing but so much morally and socially richer for his living.

I AGREE with Richard Powers (Letters, June 22) that Pat Cox should be the next president of this country.

YOUR report of last week’s meeting of Kerry County Council treated us to a re-run of the ‘environmentalist and the snail’ story (Snail blamed for delays to Cork-Kerry road plan, June 22). We were told a judicial review on behalf of the snail by “environmentalists” was holding up the road.

RICHARD POWER (Letters, June 22) states that “the greatest problems facing this country are economic”. He then suggests that the best person to deal with this economic problem is Pat Cox.

THE use of wild animals to entertain in circuses will be outlawed thanks to the recent legalisation passed in the British parliament.

NEIL DIAMOND at The Aviva last Saturday night was truly a “beautiful noise”. Some 50,000 plus people arrived for the concert from the four corners of the country by car and coaches.

THE Chatsworth Settlement Trust in Derbyshire is “loaning” the Leabhar Mac Cártaigh Riabhach for exhibition at the Glucksman Gallery in UCC.