Congratulating Micheál Martin ( Irish Examiner editorial, January 26) for surviving 10 years as Fianna Fáil leader is akin to damning him with faint praise. For a man whose ambition was to become Taoiseach, should he be celebrated for achieving it?
Participating with the likes of Charlie McCreevy and Bertie Ahern in the government that presided over the Celtic Tiger and subsequent crash, Martin should have exited with the rest of them, when the country was bankrupt.
The fact that Mr Martin has since completed a decade in charge of that party says nothing glorious.
All that apart, what has Mr Martin achieved? He has had many ministerial roles — he has been foreign affairs minister, enterprise minister, health minister, and education minister — and he introduced the smoking ban and was involved in the impressive Cork School of Music building on Union Quay.
But Mr Martin, and his successor as health minister, Mary Harney, created/oversaw the wasteful white elephant that is the HSE: It is an administrative nightmare, a fiscal volcano that is in constant eruption mode. Productivity and valuable service delivery are mere aspirational in the halls of the HSE, which is supposed to manage essential healthcare for all, but which is probably less efficient than the health boards that preceded it.
Of course, like so many other politicians, Mr Martin is great for commissioning reports on just about every challenge that arises.
Fianna Fáil are optimistic if they think that the Taoiseach will guide them to a future election victory. But at least Mr Martin has achieved his aim of becoming leader of the country, even if only on a rotation basis with Leo Varadkar. Perhaps he will be content with that legacy, whether he steps aside after the pandemic or whether he is ousted after an election.
Jim Cosgrove
Chapel St
Lismore
Co Waterford
A not-for-profit housing example
In December, it was reported: “Kerry employer builds homes to help and retain staff... The houses in small blocks are A-rated, with air-to-water heating, and come in at the not-for-profit price of €150,000 — the price signalled by Tony and Patricia Walsh three years ago, when they began the project.”
Walsh Colour Print have built the houses for employees unable to get onto the property ladder.
The price, presumably, includes government tax and service charges. Can anyone explain why the Government cannot do this on a wider scale? When the former taoiseach, Charles J Haughey, wanted to build the Beaumont Hospital, he was given the usual reasons as to why it would take years. His reply was to the effect of: “Hold on, didn’t we just build a hospital in Cork? Get the plans and start building.” And that was just what happened. Ask the Walshs how they did it or, better still, ask them nicely for the plans. In fact, why not ask them to do the job?
Michael Foley
Palmerston Gardens
Rathmines
Dublin
I want my fair share on the markets
The GameStop financial trading has me worried.
The video-game retailer’s value surged from €2bn in December to €24bn last week, as investors betted on whether its stock would go up or down. Although I support the little guy against the big-business world, in this case I am worried, because David seems to have hurt Goliath and quite badly. The shutdown of some trading options seemed a good idea, given the circumstances, but why wasn’t it complete and what steps are taken to protect the small investor, like me?
I don’t really have that much money in shares, but I want to keep what I do have, and for that to happen I want to be confident that my shares, in safe stocks, won’t face an attack.
I understand the basics of what happened and can see a simple solution: Ban short selling, as it seems designed to prey on weak companies and make profits from the suffering of others. (Short selling is when an investor borrows a security, sells it on the open market, and buys it back for less. Short sellers bet on the security dropping in price.) Perhaps I should liquidise all my shares and put the money under my bed. I haven’t, as the interest rate will be about the same as putting it into a bank. What goes up will come down, and if it lands hard enough it will smash into small pieces.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Landale St Box Hill
Vic Melbourne
Australia
We just need strong leadership
Dr Florence Craven believes the country needs “martial law” to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Perhaps. However, I feel that strong and effective leadership would suffice.
Sadly, that is something that this country does not seem to have had for some time now.
Michael A Moriarty
Rochestown
Co Cork
A temporary reprieve for hare
Lockdown has deepened our appreciation of nature, with people taking a closer look at the robin in a winter garden, listening more intently to the wonderful dawn chorus, delighting in the sight of ducks gliding across a lake, rabbits playing in a meadow, or any of those bucolic scenes that would have inspired any 19th century poet.
But for wildlife protection campaigners, the absence of hare coursing is another one of those silver linings that make lockdown bearable.
Some politicians have denounced its suspension as an attack on rural Ireland. Coursing in Ireland is only two centuries old, the first organised fixture having been staged by the British army garrison at the Curragh in 1813. Hares were running free in our countryside long before Irish politics and when humans lived in caves.
For opponents of hare coursing, this February will be unlike any other. Every year, bar one, since 1966, campaigners have gathered outside Powerstown Park, in Clonmel, to protest against the setting of dogs on hares at the three-day national coursing festival. (The 1968 fixture was called off due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.)
Since 1993, coursing dogs have been muzzled, but they continue to forcibly strike, or otherwise injure, the animals, so that one can still hear that sad cry when a hare ‘gets into difficulty’, the euphemism applied by officials to describe its plight.
This year, Powerstown Park will be empty when normally it would echo to cheering.
Sadly, the respite for our native hares, though welcome, was granted only because of the threat posed by the coronavirus. Would it be too much to hope that coursing might be outlawed before the next season looms?
It’s time to protect the hare, this jewel in the crown of our wildlife heritage.
John Fitzgerald
Callan
Co Kilkenny
All creatures great and small
How I enjoyed veterinarian Paul Redmond’s letter, ‘If you find eight calves, look for the ninth’. Those words of Paul’s are so true. In Paul’s letter, he talks of cows and calving, but he really means it of all animal births, although twins are still a rarity.
Growing up on a farm, it was drummed into us by our father, from when we were the age of five or six, that when a ewe was about to give birth or a cow to calf: “Always give her time. Time, to an expecting mother, is precious. When the time is right to intervene, be gentle, and, on delivering, always check for the one hiding in the nice, warm bed, not wanting to come out.”
Nearly 60 years later, those words still ring in my ears as if it were only yesterday: Always check.
Thank you, Paul, for those lovely memories.
Liam Mounsey
via email
Nurses save lives, broadcasters don’t
It is galling to read of the extremely high salaries of RTÉ broadcasters: They are not justifiable, especially given the salaries of our over-worked nurses and healthcare staff in our hospitals, whose lives are at risk during this pandemic and who have to fight tooth and nail to get a pittance of a wage increase.
Let us be realistic: We do not need broadcasters to keep the nation alive, but, for that, we do need nurses and healthcare staff.
Another aspect of this that galls me is that RTÉ is always asking for more funding. What do they want the money for? To pay those broadcasters? I sincerely hope not. The Government should immediately step in and direct RTÉ to reassess the high salaries paid to broadcasters and perhaps some of that money could be redirected to our nurses and healthcare workers.
What would viewers consider to be a just wage for broadcasters in RTÉ? Perhaps they should set the benchmark
Edward Mahon.
76 Roebuck Castle.
Clonskeagh.
Dublin 14
