Ministers opt for jets but jettison the needy

SO, we are going to have three Government jets. We are told this is necessary because we are a modern European nation and our Taoiseach, ministers and senior civil servants must look and act the part.

But we are not a modern European nation. We are a country that has one neurologist for every 300,000 adults. A modern European nation has one neurologist for every 20,000-30,000 adults.

We have one immunologist for every two million people, not very modern when you consider that one in three Irish people now has an autoimmune condition.

Nor can the fact that we still hide away our mentally ill and disabled adults in psychiatric lock-ups, and that our special needs children must fight in the courts for even basic education, qualify us as a modern European nation.

If our ministers are meant to represent Ireland and the reality of life as they govern it, it’s not jets, giving a false impression of modernity, they should be taking to Brussels. Far more representative of the reality of life in Ireland would be a method of travel that involved begging and waiting. Perhaps hitching would be an appropriate expression of our national modernity as experienced by the vulnerable in our modern European nation.

Kathy Sinnott,

HOPE Project/La Pilar Learning Centre,

St Joseph,

Ballinabearna,

Ballinhassig,

Co Cork.