BACK in the dark 1980s, Margaret Thatcher became known as ‘Tina’ because of her repeated insistence that ‘There Is No Alternative’.

YOU have to feel for the Government. They slash budgets, pour good money into bad banks, take possession of unwanted development sites and squeeze workers until the pips squeak – all to satisfy what they imagine to be the requirements of international credit rating agencies.

AS I won’t be able to personally wish you all bon voyage, may I – through the letters page of the Irish Examiner – say goodbye and best of luck to the hundreds of thousands of people who are about to blaze Ireland’s latest emigrant trail.

A TREK across the Burren or a stroll along a deserted beach may no longer satisfy our yearning for solitude now that a district court judge has authorised local authorities to conduct covert surveillance of citizens in its “war on waste” (“Hidden camera helps convict three for Cork dumping“, Irish Examiner, June 6).

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney’s willingness to risk women’s lives by cutting the cervical cancer vaccine scheme supposedly stems from her concern about State finances.

I’M with Dominic Carroll (‘President sets the new salary benchmark,’ Letters, October 17). Limit me also to €292,500 per annum.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese has announced that she’s reducing her salary by 10% from €325,000 a year to €292,500.

LAST Tuesday will surely be remembered as a day when what passes for democracy in Ireland was once more revealed as a web of corruption.

IN his defence of the recent Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Professor Michael Wald is keen to make a distinction between murder and what he refers to as “collateral damage”, something, he assures us, that “regrettably happens in any war” (Irish Examiner letters, August 29).

THE Irish Examiner seems to be under sustained Israeli bombardment.

GEORGE W BUSH is scheduled to visit Ireland this weekend, despite widespread abhorrence in this country of his belligerent foreign policy and, more particularly, of the illegitimate and immoral occupation of Iraq.

HAVING heard Senator Terry Leyden attribute the Taoiseach’s intervention in the recent Roscommon planning controversy to his being a ‘humanitarian’ with a ‘big heart’, I’ve wasted no time faxing Mr Ahern to request the release of Fintan Lane of the Irish Anti-War Movement from Limerick Prison.

SOMETHING is seriously wrong when an anti-war protester is jailed for participating in a peaceful protest at Shannon airport.

I FIND Dominic Carroll's claim on your letters page of September 3 quite appalling. He seems to believe that World War II was an imperialistic war with the US playing the role of the most belligerent superpower.

IT’S incredible how history can be turned so easily on its head. Five brothers of Irish descent perish in the Pacific during a World War II naval battle.

Anti-war protesters are making their voices heard in Castletownbere in Co Cork this afternoon.