We will pay human cost for super casino

I DISAGREE strongly with the proposed construction of a Las Vegas style casino at Two-Mile-Borris in north Tipperary.

An Bord Pleanala supposedly makes a decision on such projects based, for one thing, on their environmental impact but, I ask, what about the human impact? Even if billions of revenue are generated and thousands of jobs created, this will amount to nought if even one person takes their life under the burden of debts incurred from gambling at the casino.

As the gospels say, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”

This is not to talk of the many people’s lives which will be made really miserable on account of this venture if it goes ahead.

What a legacy it would be for the developers concerned if, instead of borrowing the €450 million for this venture, they honed in on the €100 billion of savings that Irish people have in banks in this country and built state-of-the-art A&E centres in the many rural towns whose hospitals are about to close, thus saving lives rather than indirectly taking them away.

Under such a scheme, the people who lent the money to the developers could rent the facilities to the HSE or equivalent who would eventually pay them out handsomely in better times.

Anne Finn

Dundalk

Co Louth