NEXT time I’m stopped by a garda at a checkpoint I think I’ll ask him if he’s Fine Gael or Fianna Fáíl.

IN his brief “memo to teacher” (Letters, April 8), PJ McElhone says he cannot afford to “restore” teachers’ pay.

A dead bank in a bankrupt state offers €700m for a risky insurer whose owner owes billions to both.

LEADING by example ... all credit to our children and welfare recipients.

WE should erect a monument in Newry to those visionary British statesmen who foresaw the economic benefits of partition for the great majority of the Irish people.

WHICH is deadliest — swine flu or a new strain of blue flu?

NOTICE how Fine Gael and Labour merely sought an apology from John O’Donoghue for fleecing the taxpayer over several years.

IS a condom on a plate the new After Eight or an inter-course option?

NOW that we know PJ McElhone (Letters, August 10) couldn’t give a damn about the Lisbon Treaty debate, perhaps the Government will do the decent thing and call off the referendum.

ALL the same old names with the same tired old arguments for and against the Lisbon Treaty are back in your letters pages.

FAREWELL to the welfare state.

SOME people believe our politicians should be confined to Leinster House all summer long in the hope they might do something to revitalise the economy.

YOU tell us (June 22) that specialists in European affairs like Robbie Keane, the Edge, Deirdre Purcell and Seamus Heaney are joining the celebrity circus touting a Lisbon yes vote.

I’M a twilight years Catholic who never abused anyone — man or woman, boy or girl.

OUR Taoiseach is “Offaly” touchy, isn’t he?

THE political and administrative elite need not expect the rest of us to take any more pain until they show they are willing to lead by example.

OBSCENELY overpaid politicians, top civil servants, lawyers, judges, media ‘stars’, bankers, company managers, etc, etc, etc.

YOU report (February 3) that it cost us an astounding 164,000 to send Willie O’Dea and Mary Coughlan on the Government jet to Texas to plead with Michael Dell not to abandon Limerick.

SO that other great seer of the Irish banking system — the Central Bank — now informs us we’re in for a hard time for at least two years.

SO a Taoiseach bankrupt of ideas is about to consult the so-called social partners — the price-gougers and benchmarkers — who between them have played a major part in bankrupting the country.

THE Government’s ‘new’ economic plan focuses on some mythical hi-tech future — Silicone Alley in the Bog of Allen.

SO Matt Cooper (December 12) thinks Charlie McCreevy is the answer to our economic woes.

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan was just whistling past the Republican plot in Glasnevin on his way to the Dáil chamber yesterday afternoon.

IN his letter (September 27), PJ McElhone asks whether John McCain is a good investment if the US economy struggles for the long term. The answer is a resounding yes.

IS John McCain a good investment if there is to be a prolonged recession?

A Fianna Fáil think-in is a mind-blowing concept.

A POLITICIAN blames the people.

SO Senator Joe Biden is Irish, too. Haven’t we had enough of this leprechaun politics/journalism?

Neither Brian Cowen nor Charlie McCreevy has read the Lisbon Treaty in its entirety (May 23).

THE outburst from PJ McElhone, in a letter headlined ‘No going back’ (April 7), is a sure sign that the Lisbon Treaty is sinking faster than the Titanic.

PJ McELHONE (Letters, April 7) rightly points out the historical benefits of the EU to this country.

IRELAND has lost the genuine, astute and honourable leadership of a fine Taoiseach in his prime, not to the evidence and discernment of the Mahon Tribunal, not to democratic elections, but to the prejudice of the media.

’08 ... Obama ... OK.

RTÉ gets the wobbles over an ad mentioning the crib, but broadcasts the Angelus every day. The lunatics have taken over the media.

A tiny State of fewer than five million people with a few major hospitals must dump patients in corridors and on trolleys or put them on endless waiting lists before failing to diagnose a potentially fatal disease. Maybe we’re just an abject race whose moaning and groaning is a cover for our civic cowardice?

If YOU voted back that self-serving lot last summer, come out now with your hands up.

SHANNON should set up camp at Heathrow and demand its slot machine back.

IF the super-democtatic Greens had to summon all their card-carrying members to decide whether or not to enter government, why did they include a former Dáil deputy rejected by the voters in their team negotiating terms with Fianna Fáil?

TWO Southern politicians above all had the courage to stand against the IRA murder machine: Conor Cruise O’Brien and Michael McDowell.

FUNNY how the worm turns.

SO the pundits — yours included — think Enda did famously at the FG árd fheis.

TOO old for the new commonwealth of cricket and rugger, but young enough to remember Garrison Ireland and the placemen who regretted its passing.

SO health workers are trying to frighten politicians in election mode. In pursuit of their claims, they’re threatening to shut down the system.

IF I see another godless card or sign wishing me a ‘Happy Holiday’ or ‘Happy Season’, I’m going to send for the Taliban.