THE decision by Michael Noonan, Minister for Finance, to allow pension companies pass on the 0.6% jobs tax to their customers, whether contributors or beneficiaries, was a direct contradiction of the views he had expressed in the Dáil debate and a capitulation to Industry pressure.

JUST a quick note to voice my complete exasperation at the media coverage of the death of Brian Lenihan.

EACH candidate seeking to contest the presidential election should realise that the principal qualification to occupy this office is the capacity to be the statesman who can embody the spirit of this sophisticated, progressive, resilient nation.

SINCE 1923, when she gained her independence, Old Mother Macree’s economic train has hit the buffers on a number of occasions and the seriousness of the crash depended on the type of cargo that she was carrying.

GIVEN the necessity for successive stringent budgets, including expansion of the taxation net, I have a proposal for Finance Minister Michael Noonan — consider starting to phase out physical cash in the next five years.

THE HSE claims that cigarettes kill one in every two smokers, based on the statistic that half of smokers die from smoking-related disease.

BRIAN P O CINNEIDE states: “The US Military Academy at West Point is one of the finest engineering universities in the world. All its graduates are qualified engineers.”

MICHAEL JOB (June 11) asks how American military cadets can help Irish students in engineering.

IT WAS very refreshing to read your feature about medicinal cannabis in your newspaper (News, June 6).

A NEW era dawned when the government received their seals of office from President McAleese on Wednesday, March 9, 2011.