MICHEÁL MARTIN has called for a three-way debate between the leaders of the main political parties.

PERHAPS it would be stretching cynicism way wide of the uprights of reality to suggest that the shenanigans of Fianna Fáil over the last week were nothing more than a sideshow to divert our attention from the litany of fiascoes that this party in government is responsible for.

MARCH will see a general election. It won’t make tuppence worth of a difference as the government will get in anyway.

HAS Ivan Yates completely lost the run of himself or is he now slanting his columnist’s pen towards Fianna Fáil and this shambles of a Government (‘Let’s get rid of all those freebies and put a ceiling on child benefit’, October 14).

YOUR editorial relating to the incredible cost of mobility aids within the HSE (August 17) highlights yet another example of gross mismanagement, at best, or the system being milked barefaced at worst.

A LIMERICK man was yesterday cleared of any involvement in a scam to sell the Ritz Hotel for £250 million (€300m).

A SOLICITOR was cleared yesterday of taking part in an ambitious scam with a Limerick man to try to sell the Ritz Hotel for £250 million (€300m).

IN RESPONSE to Patrick Dolan’s letter (May 20) concerning options for the “little people” in the current financial crisis, we have in fact one powerful weapon at our disposal.

“THE buck stops here” ... the sign on Harry S Truman’s desk stating clearly that ultimate responsibility was his and would not be passed on.

THANKS to Joyce Anderson Gleasure (Letters, April 26) for correcting me on my geographic illiteracy as to the whereabouts of America.

I MUST correct Patrick Dolan (Letters, April 9) who suggested Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez could be called Americans.

I’VE some good news for Patrick Dolan (Letters, April 2). If his figure for our national debt now as regards the banks of €81bn is correct, then five-year-old Amelia Dolan will “only” have to pay €18,000, and not €180,000.

IN her chiding of Joe Higgins MEP for his lack of historical sense, Joyce Anderson Gleasure (Letters, March 29) describes her people as being American who, as she implied, have done so much good in the world by killing and bombing civilians into friendship and democracy.

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has just committed €81bn of our money to bail out the banks.

IN my father’s time, he could buy a house, drive a Standard 10 car, join the golf club, have a family fortnight in Duncannon (Co Wexford) each year, feed and educate us children – all on a single salary commensurate to the lower middle class.

WE have a minister and a whole government department devoted to the principle that we need to defend ourselves.

IT grieves me that my remarks (Letters, June 16) in relation to soldiers and doctors and their relative usefulness in Haiti have caused offence — they were not intended to hurt. Nothing is as painful for a parent of any nationality as having to bury his son and my heart goes out to John Fenton. (Letters, January 19).

MY response to Patrick Dolan’s question (Letters, January 18) concerning who will be of the most benefit to Haiti quake victims — “the trained killers or the trained curers” — is one of incredulity.

OH, not the old chestnut (Letters, January 8) of how many years does it take to change a millennium or, in this case, a decade and the answers are 1,000 and 10 respectively.

IN his letter (January 16), Patrick Dolan asks what Haiti needs most — marines or doctors? I think I can answer his naivete: Haiti needs both.

THE United States is sending 3,500 troops and 2,200 marines to Haiti. Cuba has sent 1,500 doctors plus three field hospitals (The Henry Reeves Brigade).

WITHIN 24 hours of its opening, 15 babies had been born at the country’s newest maternity hospital.

Gardai investigating the murder and rape of a 22 year-old woman in a Co Cork park in 2000 identified a motorbike recovered in a derelict stone house not far from the scene as that belonging to a man accused of the attack.