Person: Michele Savage

HOW credible an institution is one whose agents, hierarchy and systems belie and negate everything that they purport to believe and would have people believe?

Fri, 15 Jul, 2011

Alcohol and pregnancy don’t mix

YOUR Alcohol and Ireland supplement, and follow-up booklet, provided much-needed core reading about most issues arising from the use of the substance.

Sat, 14 May, 2011

Census birth question

QUESTION 13 on the 1911 Census requires women to state how many live babies were born to them.

Wed, 30 Mar, 2011

Out of the traps

ONCE again ‘tis the season for seeing what a real live politician looks like in person.

Fri, 04 Feb, 2011

Our goose is cooked

THE eggs were not golden.

Mon, 31 Jan, 2011

Words of advice

THREE words of advice for Fianna Fáil party leader aspirants — Ready, Steady ... GO!

Tue, 25 Jan, 2011

Presidential fee

Suggested application fee for Bertie’s possible presidential candidacy: €85,000,000,000.

Tue, 04 Jan, 2011

Removed from the truth

HOW can and how does the Pope even countenance saying what he has said about sexual abuse of children by priests?

Wed, 29 Dec, 2010

Alcohol and babies don’t mix at all

THERE is substantial research in the US and Canada around the effects of alcohol consumption in pregnancy, many of which will manifest only when the child has any combination of attention deficit, autistic, learning and behavioural problems.

Wed, 01 Dec, 2010

Grecian 2010

GREECE is the way we are feeling, EU know.

Wed, 17 Nov, 2010

Long-distance diagnosis is not good practice

IN his response to the Neil Prendeville affair, perhaps Dr JB O’Keeffe (Letters, November 10) might have been better advised to write an article on parasomnia for the Irish Examiner and desist from ascribing it to any particular case or event.

Sat, 13 Nov, 2010

Banks in trouble

THE banks of our own lovely Lee need urgent action to prevent possible further flooding, and the Banks of the Pontchartrain need rescuing from the Taoiseach.

Wed, 20 Oct, 2010

Honey money

LOLLY required: lots for the exchequer and one for the Taoiseach’s throat.

Sat, 18 Sep, 2010

We understand all too well, Mr Lenihan

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan said in his Béal na mBláth address he understands the public “incomprehension and anger” at the vast sums being poured into the banking sector.

Thu, 26 Aug, 2010

Protecting whom?

YOUR editorial and article, (August 4), focus on Ireland’s Child Protection Services, which are currently under the control of the HSE.

Thu, 05 Aug, 2010

The real issue

THE HSE only lately started to release data on deaths of children in care as “a public confidence issue”.

Tue, 08 Jun, 2010

Enemy within

JOHN Herriott (‘Three wise women aid destruction of church’, Letters, April 27) cannot but be aware that the Catholic Church is its own worst enemy.

Mon, 03 May, 2010

Welfare transfer

WELFARE was once the bane of capitalism, but now that it is being given to one particularly reckless sector, it is called “supporting the economy”.

Thu, 01 Apr, 2010

Missing link

FAITH, hope, and charity aren’t worth a fig if truth, decency, transparency and honour are absent.

Tue, 23 Mar, 2010

We never met our little cousin who was abused in an orphanage in Australia

BRITISH prime minister Gordon Brown apologised in parliament recently for the deportation of more than 130,000 children from the 1920s to the 1960s, mostly without parental knowledge and consent.

Mon, 15 Mar, 2010

Job for a saint

IF St Patrick isn’t too busy on March 17, could he please sort out the church, the HSE, the education system, the banks, etc, because those we elected to do so will have stepped out of the office for a couple of days to charm everyone around the world into believing in this wonderful little country.

Tue, 09 Mar, 2010

Giant windmills hardly a tourist attraction

IT is both interesting and ironic that the entrepreneurs behind the proposed wind farm on Slieve Callan in Co Clare say the venture might become a tourist attraction (Irish Examiner, February 16).

Tue, 23 Feb, 2010

Dummy run?

IS the extra week’s winter leave for TDs a dummy run (no pun intended) for the aborted public sector unpaid leave plan or simply a measure to address global warming by reducing greenhouse gases?

Tue, 22 Dec, 2009

Translating Gogarty

IN response to Michele Savage’s query (Letters, December 16) about the Irish translation for Deputy Paul Fogarty’s Dáil outburst, it’s probably something like “fiucheainn tú”.

Sat, 19 Dec, 2009

... agus as Gaeilge?

I WONDER how the Irish translation of Deputy Paul Fogarty’s Dáil outburst reads.

Wed, 16 Dec, 2009

No honour in win

NO true glory can be gained from prolonged intentional steering of a soccer ball by a previously esteemed outfield player.

Sat, 21 Nov, 2009

Social work pledge unlikely to meet child needs

THE pledge by Minister for Children Barry Andrews (July 29) to fill 270 vacant social work posts in child protection services indicates that, on average, each local health office is down 8.5 posts.

Mon, 10 Aug, 2009

Conversion rate

THE Taoiseach says the Moriarty Tribunal has cost €36.25m to date.

Mon, 22 Jun, 2009

Church and children

THE terrible irony is that when state provision for education was first being introduced in Ireland a few of decades after the Act of Union, the Catholic Church opposed the system as it would be “interfering with the family”, even though this was only for daily attendance at primary level and children would continue to live at home, returning there after classes every day.

Fri, 19 Jun, 2009

Being poor should never be a life sentence

SEAN Brady, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland is reported as having said that “Our (sic) children were sent to institutions either for poverty, or for petty larceny, or for simply absence from schools.”

Sat, 13 Jun, 2009

Credibility gap

THE Taoiseach said in the run-up to polling that the economic slump was bottoming out — how timely was that. Who are we to believe — as George Lee is now in the grasp of Fine Gael?

Sat, 06 Jun, 2009

No data on impact of alcohol on foetus

DESPITE awareness of our national binge drinking culture, no data has been collected in this country on the number of children adversely affected by alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

Thu, 28 May, 2009

Making a point

LET June 5 next be remembered as the Day of the Sharp Pencils.

Sat, 23 May, 2009

Have FF candidates gone into hiding?

WILL the minimalist version of the Fianna Fáil logo on election posters be matched by whispered utterances of the party name when, or indeed if, FF candidates are asked which party they represent when or if they are brave (or silly) enough actually to appear on people’s doorsteps?

Wed, 13 May, 2009

The Church’s multitude of sins

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin forewarns us that we will soon learn that hundreds, if not thousands of children in Ireland may have been sexually abused by clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.

Fri, 17 Apr, 2009

We desperately need a forum for public debate

THE Casby caricatures are an exception to the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Wed, 01 Apr, 2009

Prankster pulls off a grand slam at the gallery

I WAS out of the jurisdiction for only two days, but thought I’d somehow managed to overstay for a few days as a result of unconsciousness or abduction by aliens because when I got back it was already April 1 in the National Gallery.

Sat, 28 Mar, 2009

Blown wide open

THE brave and patriotic army helicopter door took a stance by blowing unnecessary, unwarranted and unaffordable ministerial spending wide open, an example of military intelligence displaying more insight than those who voted for so many Fianna Fáil candidates in the last election.

Sat, 07 Mar, 2009

De Banks

HAS the title of Cork’s anthem been sullied for posterity by the actions of certain people in financial institutions?

Wed, 25 Feb, 2009

Saintly response

WHETHER it was a laugh which Tom Gilsenan heard, or even mild hysteria, as Breda Gilmer suggested (Letters, February 11/13), could it have been St Patrick’s response to the prospect of imminent political exodus/tourism by TDs in his honour, when they perhaps should stay at home on March 17 and not only keep public money where their country needs it, but make some attempt to get those abroad who really care enough, and can afford to travel, to come here?

Fri, 20 Feb, 2009