When the financial crisis happened they, who know of such things, told us our prices were too high, we were spending beyond our means and had too much debt.

One of the teachers union’s original objections to the changes in the Junior Cycle was that the Certificate would be a school certificate instead of a state certificate.

When the economy is doing better than expected and growth is racing past our EU neighbours, why would you disturb this happy state? Stick to the plan and pay off some of our enormous €200 billion national debt.

First year post-primary students around the country braved huge changes in their lives this week; the move to a new school, separation from siblings, 15+ new/mostly new subjects, 15 or so new teachers, new fellow students, new books, new rules, new procedures, new times, longer days, more homework, tiredness, separation from friends now in other schools, all in the space of a week or less and all without special training, attention or experience.

Reading Alison O’Connor’s column (Opinion, June 6) prompts me to write in praise of, and agreement with, her excellent article on the Minister of Health, Dr James Reilly and for her fair and impartial assessment of him and his ministry.

It is said that we get the politicians we deserve.

Though not a Labour supporter, I take my hat off to Eamon Gilmore. He and the Labour Party have followed a quiet, but determined, ‘Tallaght strategy’ in Government over the last three years, putting the interests of country first and the interests of party second.

The call by trade union leaders for increases in wages for public sector workers privileges the secure at the expense of the insecure.

Ruairi Quinn states that the removal of the teaching of the Catholic religion from school will help those parents who hypocritically baptise children for school.

When I bought my house my solicitor advised me to employ an engineer to check it out first.

No human being can be separated from their conscience.

I am appalled at the lack of coverage of the agricultural sector on the TV and newspapers.

The RTÉ report on the standard of care (or the lack of) in creches raises a stark and pertinent question, given that créches which repeatedly breached regulations received clean bills of health (and funding) from the HSE.

The RTÉ report on the standard of care (or the lack of) in creches raises a stark and pertinent question, given that créches which repeatedly breached regulations received clean bills of health (and funding) from the HSE.

Now that the public-service unions are doing individual deals with the Troika ‘government’, let’s hope this is the end of the truly ruinous benchmarking, which was so beloved by the unions and politicians.

When should a bust bank be liquidated? Answer: when it is Cypriot, but not when it is Anglo Irish.

News that Tesco own brand burgers contain horsemeat is riding high on the airwaves.

Now that Germany and France have ruled out a debt deal for Ireland similar to that doled out to Greece, it is time to act.

We’ve seen Government supporters suggest that participating in the household charge non-payment campaign is a form of tax evasion, but we were surprised you used Friday’s editorial to endorse this line, and to conflate non-payment of the charge with corruption.

It seems clear that signing up to the fiscal treaty following the referendum and the European Stability Mechanism funds when we already have too much debt and a broken economy is just rolling this snowball down the hill, collecting more unsustainable debt as we go.

There is common agreement that whichever way the referendum goes, we are in for austerity.

Eamon Ó Cuív has got it exactly right. We are not looking for a bail out or a dig out for the Anglo promissory loan; rather we are looking for what is fair and equitable.

We squeeze our tea bag not once, but thrice, and we rinse our milk bottle into the jug, not the sink, while you throw billions at belligerent bondholders.

Yesterday, on a residential road in Mitchelstown, I passed a man and a woman with a Rottweiler.

When I heard Leo Varadkar announce that the EU/ECB element of the troika had threatened that if the Government did not pay the €1.25bn unguaranteed debt to bank bondholders yesterday a financial bomb would go off in Dublin, and not in Frankfurt, it was all I could do to not eviscerate the TV.

SPEAKING of the ordinary citizen, the one liberating element in the Taoiseach’s address to the nation were his words: “You are not responsible for the crisis.”

THE spat between the Government and the banks over interest rate reductions is all about who “Sean taxpayer” pays, nothing more.

IT IS curious logic that Greece must default on its bondholders in order to stabilise its debt so it can return to the markets, but on no account must Ireland not pay its bondholders in order to build investor confidence so it can return to the markets. Total nonsense.

A PONZI scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays increasing returns to its investors primarily from the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than or more so from any actual profit earned by the scheme.

LEFT to themselves, banks, including the ECB — which had oversight of all EU banks — made a complete hames of the EU economy in the current crisis, not to say the lives of many of its citizens.

WE have a health system that we cannot afford and, by all accounts in a lot of cases, does not deliver.

AMID the ruined lives, ruined fortunes and carnage of otherwise good businesses that this financial crisis has left, two things (among several others) must change.

WITH the new Greek rescue the EU should take heed that it is now heading where Greece has gone.

I AM writing this letter in response to the regular presence of political parties at church gate collections.

IRELAND will not be going back to borrow from the markets until 2013 at the earliest, at which time the principle that both debtor and creditor (bondholder) will be obliged to share bank losses will be firmly established.

JAMES McGRATH’S letter (March 10) on Queen Elizabeth’s visit is hugely misplaced.

THIS year parents realised that they had far less money for presents for their children and some had none at all — the banks had stolen it.

BRIAN Cowen and his ministers are now so delusional and out of touch with reality they do not even know when they are using pure fiction, misrepresentation and obfuscation in place of a modicum of the plain unbridled truth.

UP to October 29 last, German chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU maintained the right thing for Ireland to do was to pay all debts to bondholders and we duly followed that advice.

WHILE export growth will undoubtedly improve our balance of payments, it cannot succeed in raising us out of the mire without significant growth in domestic demand.

SEEING ministers arrive at Farmleigh House chauffeur driven in shiny Mercs and Audis to plan cuts for everyone it seems but themselves displays graphically the extent to which this Government is out of touch. Amid all the discussion about cuts and taxes, there are three cuts that must be made.

WITH reference to Dessie Ellis’s letter (October 12) on water charges and the drowning of a certain minister, I think Mr Ellis misses the point – the purpose is to raise taxes, not conserve water.