Enda Kenny’s Cabinet was good at doing what the Troika told them, but they were unable to produce a credible scheme for delivering and disposing of water. Instead, they managed to create the most powerful mass anti-governmental popular movement since the ’20s, 1918 and even the Land League.

“Do they think we are stupid?”

I am puzzled that there will be no public marking of VJ Day 70 in the Republic on the weekend of August 15. 

Are we looking at a straight choice between an eventual Sinn Féin led Government?

Enda Kenny’s vision of the next election as a Tudor jousting tournament between Gerry Adams and himself has credibility. Not so his exclusion of Fianna Fáil from coalition.

This Wednesday’s protest is intended to be the biggest eruption of popular anger in recent Irish history.

A national government will never happen or not till it’s too late because it would break the fundamental rule of politics: do not deal with a crisis until the water is sloshing around the kitchen floor.

Your reaction to Fr Gerard Condon (Irish Examiner, November 4) is distorted by confusion in your understanding of religion and faith.

In the acclaimed movie, Gravity, the character played by the wonderful Sandra Bullock is required to save herself.

With respect to your correspondents (August 16, 2014) who have attacked John Bruton, their approach has been unhistorical wishful-thinking and not an empirical appraisal.

In coming to terms with the 1910-1923 period that created the Irish republic, we must not play the game of ‘if’.

A window of opportunity has opened. Responding to the clear, brutal message sent by the voters to the Government, but particularly to Labour, Eamon Gilmore has acted with honour and pragmatism.

The moment of truth has arrived for this Government, particularly for Labour.

If and when our leaders regain their appetite for political reform, the entire Oireachtas must be reviewed as one system.

Maurice O’Connell (Letters, Sept 7) justifies the elitist Senate by saying we elected the councillors who elect the senators, and we elected the Taoiseach who appoints them.

You are to be congratulated on taking the debate on the Seanad seriously, (Editorial, Sept 3) – and calling for others to do so.

In the Government’s main statement of its reasons for trashing the Seanad, Minister Richard Bruton, cites as part of the main viciousness of the institution that ‘… the final 11 seats in the Seanad are hand-picked by the Taoiseach of the day, who can parachute individuals directly into a seat without reference to any electorate, large or small.’

The proposed ‘public execution’ of Seanad Éireann sums all that is wrong with this Government.

The mantra from Labour has been: ‘We must communicate better!’ Sometimes, the person with whom one wishes to communicate no longer wishes to hear.

A “new politics” certainly.

Ballynahinch and Dublin University are locked together on 26 points at the top of Division 1B after both making it six wins out of six this afternoon.

Horror does not adequately describe my reaction to the story that the children’s hospital (National Paediatric Hospital), had become a bone of “divergence” between the unhappy partners in this tatterdemalion Coalition.

Is the latest ‘failure in communication’ within the cabinet a watershed for this coalition?

The no people want us to send a clear message to Europe and the world that we, the proud Irish, will only accept those bits of ‘austerity’ which we like (ie none!), that we will only play by those already agreed rules which suit us (even fewer!) — and that, anyway, austerity is only a nasty type of kinky fringe-sadism thought up by a bunch of crazy academics in the Chicago School of Economics.

We welcome the Oireachtas Justice Committee initiative under Deputy David Stanton to hear from interested parties on legal capacity prior to publication of this important bill.

In a stunning run of results, the top three teams in Division 1B all suffered defeats today with Belfast Harlequins’ lead now standing at four points with just three rounds remaining.

A fire chief has warned that people starting illegal gorse fires are putting lives at risk, while gardaí in Cork and Kerry pledge to crack down on offenders this year.

The hysteria which has greeted the planning decision on the National Children’s Hospital, places us all in danger of a knee-jerk populist and partisan reaction leading to decisions as flawed as those which have got us “here” on this issue.

CARERS of people with dementia are at crisis point and waiting lists for services have increased by 20% in the last year, a charity has warned.

THE lay citizen, desperately trying to inform himself and herself, will be under-impressed by the latest round of the Berlin/Paris “pas de deux”. So, too, will the markets, but they at least will be able to make money on their pessimism.

A COPY of Ray Kinsella’s article, (April 27), should be sent to every Government in the EU, the European Commission and the ECB.

ONE of the advocates of the Mater site for the Children’s Hospital controversy admitted that the physical plant of Our Lady’s Crumlin is not fit for purpose, (despite the heroic work of the staff) — and that the hospital should be closed down ASAP.

WHEN the ship of state is sinking, clearly it should be “all hands to the pumps”.

UL BOHEMIANS 28 BRUFF 25

WE got the mess this fading Government left behind, not because of any flaws in our political system or institutions but because thousands of our fellow-citizens voted for them.

THERE is a fundamental contradiction between what the Taoiseach said at Bodenstown (October 17) about “not stifling debate” and his kneejerk approval of Health Minister Mary Harney’s ‘una duce, una voce’, bully-girl policy on the proposed National Children’s Hospital.

I WISH to congratulate you for your perceptive leading article (‘Master plan must be reconsidered’, October 12).

JENNIFER Sleeman is to be thanked. She has lifted the discourse for us from a debate about the liturgy of lamentation to a debate about action.

PLANNING permission for a Beacon private children’s hospital is to be welcomed.

ON our watch, in our care, Daniel McAnaspie was kicked around, killed and dumped in a ditch in like a stray dog. But a child – mentioned anonymously and aspirationally in the 1916 proclamation.

OBJECTIVELY, maybe something should be done about the VHI. However, surely it should be done in the context of – and after – the establishment of a comprehensive national medical service and national health insurance system such as exist successfully in many other countries?

HUGE gaps in care services for people with dementia are leaving an army of carers at breaking point, with one in five describing their role as “soul destroying”.

WHEN Brian Cowen became Taoiseach, the litmus test of his style was whether he would reshuffle Mary Harney.