DAVID Lawlor (Letters, Dec 7) takes me up on my comment that the Irish public sector are “the most cosseted in Europe”.

FERGUS Finlay (Opinion, Nov 29) takes on what he calls “the myths and mantras” around raising taxes in a time of recession.

THIS election is really rocking the system in that the people are now poised to disregard all the media pressure and hype including that of the national broadcaster to elect a rank outsider as our ninth president.

I WROTE to your newspaper in 2007 pointing out that the boom was over and the bizarre sense of entitlement in the public service would ruin us.

ENDA Kenny has shown himself to be red of tooth and claw in his tirade against the Church and its “dysfunctional elite”.

THAT there is something rotten in the state hardly needs saying. However, the eradication of rot requires corrective action from the inside out rather than the outside in via bailouts, etc.

SO the Greeks are bearing gifts to our shores. Well, obviously not the Greeks but everyone else in Europe is to give us the digout we don’t really need or want.

IT is hard to believe after so much comment and coverage that the Government is still hell bent on fixing our economy without touching the more privileged and protected among us.

READING your letters page, as well as opinion from the usual media commentariat regarding the Neil Prendeville incident, one wonders how different the tone and content would have been had a member of the clergy been involved?

IT sounds a bit provocative, to say the least, to hear Brian Lenihan tell us the economy won’t be fixed by driving trucks into the gates of Leinster House.

THE issue of female ordination should not be combined or confused with a campaign for greater accountablility and lay participation in the running of Catholic parishes and dioceses.

WHY is there all this hullabaloo in the media at the moment about the behaviour of Ivor Callely?

IT is a pity that Ian Paisley’s blind religious bigotry directed at the Catholic Church can get such free rein in the press and with little or no counter comment.

THE issue of clerical abuse in the Irish Catholic Church has unearthed depths of depravity and corruption that those of us who soldier in the ranks of the lay faithful can scarcely fathom.

LOW-PAID workers – those whose wages for a 40-hour week start and end below €20,000 – should march on the headquarters and regional offices of their unions and demand a refund of their contributions for the past 10 years.

IT is hard to see the wood for the trees given the deluge of claims, arguments and of course statistics being bandied about by all sides in the ongoing economic debate.

TO use a word she is particularly partial to, it would be “appropriate”, to say the least, if Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan took appropriate measures to convince the public that the profligacy over which the board of Fás presided would not be repeated.

IT is usually said the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it.

FOLLOWING publication of the Ryan commission report, no doubt the accusing finger will be pointed at the Catholic Church for its failure to monitor the behaviour of the personnel of these orders and take appropriate disciplinary action.

IN the heat and outrage triggered by the publication of the Report on the Abuse of Children in Catholic Institutions, there needs to be some reality check.

DESPITE everything that has befallen our economy in recent times, we are still living in a political never-never land where nobody wants to grow up.

DURING the Second World War blitz on London, the present Queen Elizabeth’s mother was urged to remove herself and her children to the safety of a country seat for the duration of the bombing.

FOLLOWING Ireland’s disastrous showing in the rugby World Cup, would, it now be timely to have Ireland Call changed to Ireland’s Fall.

IT started at €295,000, has an offer of €300,000, but auctioneer, Michael Downery of ERA Downey McCarthy Murphy expects 1, Castleowen in Blarney, Co Cork to go to €320,000 or thereabouts.

IN the wake of Dan Buckley’s article on waste management (Irish Examiner, Dec 1). I think that Cork — city and county — needs a proactive waste disposal strategy programme.

THE targeting of community employment schemes for revenue saving purposes is hardly the mark of a caring or indeed a civilised society.