With the publication of the Panama papers we are reminded once again of the contrast between the lives of a rich elite and the rest of humanity.

A small country with a population less than Birmingham and we want another referendum in order to re-define “marriage”. What a waste of time and money.

It’s extremely hard to believe that a so-called socialist party is in a government that will infiltrate workers’ wages, social-welfare payments and pensions

I read with interest figures provided by Cork City Council that parking fines decreased 22% during 2014. The council lists street-parking facilities and greater compliance levels as the reasons for this loss of revenue.

“Elephants are very intelligent, sensitive animals.”

THE very high tides of last week resulted in flooding over the wonderful Mahon walkway past Blackrock Castle in Cork. The walkway was covered in seaweed and debris as a result.

THE publication of the two reports on the causes of the economic crash do not make for surprising reading.

IT’S a great pity that you chose to reprint (April 28) Christopher Hitchens’s ridiculous defamation of Pope Benedict XVI in which he presents a preposterous argument for charging the pontiff with involvement in organised crime.

MILTON Friedman, the architect of the current version of capitalism foisted on the world, must be looking down from wherever he is spending his afterlife and cracking a wry smile at the goings on in Ireland.

THE analysis by TP O’Mahony of the Pope’s pastoral letter (March 22) was the most careless I have read.

FOLLOWING the lead of Mairéad Scannell (Letters, October 22), I am going to “give political correctness the boot” and deliver some real Truth.

SO the ruling class believes that rejecting the project of the ruling class, the Lisbon Treaty, was damaging to Ireland’s interests (Irish Examiner, July 27).

AS another G8 summit comes and goes we are again left with, judging from previous summits, potentially empty pledges on poverty and the usual frustrations in relation to the battle against climate change.

DESPITE the grossly unjust generalisations being made by some in response to the Ryan report, it is crazy to speak of the Catholic church as a corporate entity being responsible for these outrages.

FROM recent reports it seems some group with the collective intelligence of a somewhat dim-witted hen wants to replace the doors at the west end of the Honan Chapel in UCC with glass double-glazed ones.

TONY PROCTOR (Letters, October 7) appears to believe that a Catholic ethos in schools tends to stunt high performance in mathematics, science and technology and that more generally it is inimical to a true spirit of educational inquiry.

THE disconnect between the Government and the citizens whose interests it has been elected to represent has been strikingly illustrated by the recent astoundingly coercive measure taken against the Shell to Sea protesters.

FILM censor John Kelleher — or classifier as he prefers to be known — disclaims all responsibility for the fact that parents brought young children to see the new Batman film and instead blames the parents themselves.

THE story of the surrender of the world’s richest fishing waters, consisting of the seas surrounding Britain and Ireland, is one of the most scandalous in the history of the EU.

I WISH to respond to Barry Walsh’s criticism (June 20) of the letter from Michael O’Driscoll (June 17) regarding the role of the Referendum Commission in relation to the yes side in the Lisbon Treaty campaign.

DESPITE the victory for democracy last week, serious questions must now be asked of the Referendum Commission.

THE media recently reported on secret plans to develop EU embassies as part of the European External Action Service which will be instituted by the Lisbon Treaty.

WHEN I set up home many years ago in what’s now the Cork suburb of Blackrock, it seemed we were living in the countryside.

I WISH to express my agreement with Donal O’Driscoll (Irish Examiner letters, November 27) concerning Dr Ian Paisley.