FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan proposes we prop up, at withering and continuous expense, the zombie Anglo Irish Bank – while the DPP announces that his office will not seek extradition of those rogue bankers who have scuttled abroad to avoid the, eh, “blame culture” of Ireland.

Edited by Máire Nic Gearailt

THAT was a wonderful piece of straight talking by your columnist Fergus Finlay (‘Government might as well move its entire business behind closed doors,’ January 19).

NOW that the Government has shown us that the vulnerable and even the blind must pay for the destruction wrought by greedy bankers and developers, is there even a remote chance that those who used the banks as their personal collection boxes might be brought to justice – or are the public to be content with the message that we are engaged in a stealthy but developing class war?

YOUR columnist Ivan Yates gets directly to the heart of the matter — ‘Lack of accountability is the real scandal in Anglo Irish fiasco’ (November 5).

US President Barack Obama receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Nice one. This is the man who refused to see the Dalai Lama recently because he didn’t want to offend the Chinese; and who permits the Israeli government to continue building illegal settlements and retain a massive nuclear arsenal, while at the same time he makes threatening noises at Iran.

SO some of our banks, who can wade in behind failed developers and be bailed out by the public, refuse Pat O’Leary a loan to make arrangements for his paralysed daughter (August 18)

I READ with interest Fergus Finlay’s column (July 14) on the nature of our low regard for TDs and the functioning of the Dáil. One doesn’t have to search far for reasons for this.

IT’S good to see a columnist telling it like it really is.

GARDAÍ raid a radio station looking for names, the State broadcaster makes a grovelling apology, an artist is interviewed under caution — all because of some paintings of Brian Cowen.

IN her letter (February 12), Gretta Hurley suggests that in some measure we are all to blame for the mess the country is in on several fronts.

YOU reported recently that the cost of flying Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and Defence Minister Willie O’Dea to Texas to meet Michael Dell last December was more than €164,000, even though the cost per person on a scheduled service would have been less that €1,000. The Charvet shirt philosophy hasn’t gone away.

THE Irish people spoke in May when they re-elected Fianna Fáil to government.

EVEN in the ranks of Fianna Fáil there is recognition that the recent pay-rises for the boys and gals have caused serious damage with the electorate.

I BELIEVE it’s time for ordinary people to protest to the Government, or through the media, against the cultural vandalism threatening the ancient, sacred site of Tara.

The 2006 edition of the Cork Literary Review is calling for submissions, with a particular leaning towards Cork, the West of Ireland and France.

I WAS heartened to see Maureen Gallagher’s letter (Irish Examiner, January 18) in support of the Western Writers’ Centre in Galway, following the refusal of the Arts Council, for the sixth time, to give the centre funding.

Ireland's top writers have come together to voice their opposition to the war through the power of the pen.