HILL walkers and others planning to head for the mountains during Christmas and the new year period were yesterday urged to take extreme care.

A LONG-AWAITED improvement in the weather following the rain-sodden summer seems to have unleashed a burning desire in many people to head for the hills.

A BUSY season, so far, for the rescue services in Kerry continued on Wednesday night when a 19-year-old German was brought to safety from a dangerous ledge on Dingle Peninsula.

AN 82-year-old German woman was at the centre of a rescue operation on Ireland’s highest mountain early yesterday.

An 82-year-old woman who wanted to climb Ireland’s highest mountain one last time had to be rescued from the peak after midnight.

HILL walkers were yesterday urged to take special care if they go onto the mountains in wet, snowy, or frosty weather.

A body recovered from dangerous cliffs in the Kerry mountains today and believed to be that of a missing Swedish hiker may have been spotted after a landslide in the area days earlier.

THE president of Conradh na Gaeilge, Daithí MacCárthaigh, asks “are we to expect Fine Gael to blame compulsion and call for maths to be made an optional extra for the exam in future in light of the disappointing results in the Leaving Cert?”

DURING his speech announcing the establishment of a new Irish sports institute, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said: “In sport, winning is the ultimate reward.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with Dr Cormac Murphy’s view (letters, July 25) that parents should shoulder blame for the increase in child obesity.

BRENDAN COFFEY maintains that the policy of Fine Gael “to end the compulsion to take Irish for the Leaving Cert” is not abolition (Irish Examiner letters, July 3).

COUNCILLOR John Brady is completely disingenuous in his assertion that Enda Kenny is seeking to abolish Irish from the school curriculum (Irish Examiner letters, June 27).

THIS is time of general upheaval in the GAA, when skill levels are dropping and crowds are dispersing elsewhere; when the rules are in a state of perilous ambiguity and club players are treated with contempt by having their championship fixtures shunted about the place in favour of accommodating a small percentage of inter-county players.

RTÉ’s managing director of radio, Adrian Moynes, declared on Morning Ireland (June 6) that the proposed new arts programme presented by Dave Fanning on the revamped Radio 1 would be about “such things” as painting, sculpture and plays.

THE changes to the RTÉ Radio 1 schedule make for sad reading.

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell, got it right this time.

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell has engaged in a level of political correctness weighed down with hypocrisy in his assertions that Dr Bill Tormey’s views on returning missionaries having to undergo compulsory medical tests amount to a “type of xenophobia”.

ONE of the demands of the striking train drivers was a shorter working week.

Sir,

I AM surprised at Tom Carew's remarks about Noam Chomsky (Irish Examiner letters, January 24).

BRENDAN COFFEY praises Bertie Ahern for “understanding the difficulties” which nationalists in Northern Ireland have in trusting the PSNI (Irish Examiner letters, January 6).

THE Taoiseach was one of the few politicians who expressed disappointment and bewilderment at the Stormontgate fiasco.

MR JUSTICE FLOOD was not just “expressing an opinion.” He was emphasising a core principle of justice that any person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

FOR a long time now we have heard the dissenting voices against the cosy relationship alcohol advertisers enjoy with sport, particularly the GAA.

FOLLOWING Ray Burke’s imprisonment, maybe the initials PC should now stand for politically corrupt — not politically correct.

IS it time for a new bin tax?

IF we should hesitate to accept the word of the securocrats, as Sinn Féin-IRA suggest, we should be loathe also to accept the assurances of a group of terrorists and the most discredited political party in this state.

GOVERNMENT spokespersons have been praising themselves for having contributed as much per capita as any other country to the Asian disaster fund.