Better to invest in our mythology than new port

THE 10 national ports in Ireland are under-performing, all need assistance and all employ people. Our present economy cannot sustain them and if in future a smart economy replaces the rubble of the present developer-led economy, as experts claim it should, then some of these may have to close.

As a nation we are broke. Drogheda Port Company is almost broke and laying off staff, yet it plans to build a new port at Gormonstown/Bremore.

Treasury Holdings, which is to undertake the project for the port company, is broke too.

Just last week it was announced that Treasury was transferring its assets to NAMA. This means it has failed as a company and is handing the bill for this failure to the taxpayer. Sanity and sustainability should dictate abandonment and investment instead in existing ports and in the recognised strengths we still have – tourism, our culture, mythology and landscape. If we can do this and finally abandon the environmental carnage and heritage destruction that our skewed version of progress has brought us to date, then perhaps our children will have a chance and maybe even a future too.

John Farrelly.

Ballybough Road

Dublin 3