Our politics is in the gutter and I foresee a bleak future for Ireland

Over the past 30 years, politics in Ireland has descended into a stinking gutter. 

The Government’s imposition of a water charge, supposedly so we can have clean water at a fair cost, is ludicrous as water is now available at one tenth of that being charged by some EU countries. Its decision to staff this same water company with cronies has angered people like nothing else.

Also, a great many jobs being created in the pharmaceutical industry aren’t of real value, as they are not part of a sustainable economy. Their products are being subsidised by government to make them competitive on the open market and so the companies will stay here.

Furthermore, our public service costs are treble what the country can afford, having been designed to protect civil servants from wrongdoing.

Even when trade union officials were caught diverting HSE funds for their own benefit, no punishment was meted out, but it exposed the type of hypocrisy that prevails in this country.

Meanwhile, the length of queues of people waiting for treatment in the HSE has been growing, despite more funding being allocated to the service. Where is that money going?

And, yet, at a time when there is a definite need for better housekeeping, sectors of the public service are putting in for wage increases, and Bord Gáis is in the forefront with a 6% demand.

I am beginning to have visions of a more chaotic future than we have endured in the past.

Richard Prendergast

Mondaniel

Rathcormac

Co. Cork.