The discovery of the mass grave of 800 children in Tuam is a story of unspeakable horror for a time that produced such dreadful incidents in the name of the religion.

Regarding your report on court poor boxes (Irish Examiner, Jan 21), sending money to foreign charities is doing a disservice to our economy.

We are writing to express our utter disappointment and heartbreak at the developing crisis regarding cystic fibrosis beds in CUH.

Ryle Dwyer has through the medium of your paper and elsewhere written several articles in relation to the assassination of RIC inspector Thadeus O’Sullivan by Con Brosnan in Listowel.

To those of you who are under any illusion as to the importance of the Upper House or Seanad, at an annual cost of over €18m, this is an un-elected body which has, in its 90 years of existence, amended only 12 bills.

IRISH history did not begin in 1969.

CAN Richard Bruton have any idea of how incendiary his remarks are in view of the billions all but extorted out of the Irish people to repay recidivist banks, developers and bondholders?

AS we enter the third world war — which is a cyber war — it is disturbing that our own media remain in an insular cocoon.

BACK in the dark 1980s, Margaret Thatcher became known as ‘Tina’ because of her repeated insistence that ‘There Is No Alternative’.

I’M horrified at the introduction by Mary Harney of charges on medical card patients.

YOU have to feel for the Government. They slash budgets, pour good money into bad banks, take possession of unwanted development sites and squeeze workers until the pips squeak – all to satisfy what they imagine to be the requirements of international credit rating agencies.

FERGUS Finlay writes (July 13) about how when in government the Labour party made good progress in improving services for people with disability.

THE Saville report vindicates the victims of Bloody Sunday.

MYLES Duffy’s suggested use for the “floating NAMA” that is the replica Jeannie Johnston is a good one (Letters, June 7).

READING Terry Prone’s column (May 17) reminded me of an elderly relative who was staying with our family back in the early 1970s.

HOW can Mark Mulqueen (Letters, May 12) claim the Oireachtas bar and restaurant are not subsidised if the utility bills are covered by the Oireachtas.

YOUR editorial (April 28) began well, but quickly deteriorated into the usual inaccurate and criminalising caricature of the protest by people against Shell in Co Mayo.

IN 1972, when I was 13-years-old, some other children revealed to me they were being routinely abused by a man whom nobody had previously realised was a paedophile.

ARE you okay? That is the question.

IN his letter headlined ‘I feel blessed in the US – not Ireland’ (January 30), Dr Cormac Duffy describes a living nightmare – from the cacophony of religious radio stations, through visual assaults on passers-by from gawdy church signs to the bible and religious artefact-stuffed supermarkets.

SO Transport Minister Noel Dempsey has no “no pot of gold” to repair our cratered roads. Well, I hope he is aware taxpayers’ money is not his money.

I HOPE the Fine Gaelers who dedicated themselves so heartily to taunting Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe about his decision to close the schools are happy.

LAST Friday, Deputy Paul Gogarty of the Green party was heard in the Dáil attempting to persuade Labour’s Deputy Emmet Stagg — and the country at large — of the sincerity of his conviction that inflicting savage cuts on those who cannot afford them might be wrong but it was necessary. Deputy Stagg evidently had some understandable difficulty with the contradiction in Deputy Gogarty’s assertion.

AND so another Irish Examiner editorial (November 6) completely misses the point about why public sector workers are marching and striking.

WHEN will your editorial writers give up attacking public sector workers and unions as if they were responsible for what has happened to the economy?

THERE is an awful lot of commentary in recent times on the question of valuing NAMA’s assets.

CONSIDERING the direct role that corruption and cronyism – and the incompetence that are their signature – have played in bringing economic ruin, it’s depressing that so few candidates seem to be making these issues a priority in the lead-up to the local and European elections.

I AM vehemently opposed to the notion of a national unity government.

YOUR editorial (March 3) about the forthcoming budget concludes with the assertion that the alternative to cutting wages, taxing the poorest and cutting public services is “unthinkable”.

WHAT will poor George Lee do when the economy starts to improve?

NOW that the banks have pulled off the greatest heist in history we, the nation, have been made the ultimate patsy.

YOU report (February 17) Deputy Jim McDaid’s suggestion that the Government should call a general election as “a way of saving the party”.

I OBJECT strongly to Steven King’s column (January 7). The distortion of fact and history that it embodies is astounding.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney’s willingness to risk women’s lives by cutting the cervical cancer vaccine scheme supposedly stems from her concern about State finances.

GOVERNMENT abandons democracy. Ireland remortgaged to proven gambling addicts.

WITH regard to Oliver Broderick’s letter (September 24) on Lourdes, I fail to see what point he is struggling to make.

I WISH to register my dismay at the opposition to the proposed Clonakilty market by members of the town council. The market is welcomed by the vast majority of Clonakilty residents and traders alike.

SO French President Nicholas Sarkozy has come and gone from his whirlwind speed-dating of our Lisbon Treaty yes and no campaigners.

A RECENT editorial (June 6) might leave some people scratching their heads and wondering where you can have been during the last two US presidential elections.

WHAT a superb editorial (‘Intimidation like this is unacceptable’, December 22). At long last somebody in the mainstream media has told it like it is about Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil and their conduct in relation to the Mahon Tribunal.

IT is difficult to believe we are still at a time when a young woman has to prostrate herself in front of the courts and the media in order to travel to another country to obtain an abortion.

IT IS heartening to see the Irish Examiner’s coverage of special education needs in recent weeks.

LAST Tuesday will surely be remembered as a day when what passes for democracy in Ireland was once more revealed as a web of corruption.

I HAVE to take issue with Fergus Finlay’s column headlined ‘Aisling’s story shows how special people are doing it for themselves’ (Irish Examiner, September 19).