Letters to the Editor: Essential workers should get a just reward
A sign outside Midleton, Co Cork, earlier this year thanking frontline workers; do they deserve more from the Government? Picture: Denis Minihane
I worked throughout the entire pandemic, and each lockdown, as an essential worker.
Once the last lockdown ended I left the Republic for good so any talk of a bonus doesn’t apply to me now.
To think that a miserly extra bank holiday is all that is being mooted is an insult to the people I worked with, and who worked under me; we suffered physical and verbal abuse, as well as the psychological trauma of dealing with the pandemic itself.
Huge pay increases are what’s needed, considering the cost of living in the Republic, not to mention the fact that those of us who were working were contributing to the tax system.
Have politicians in the ivory tower of Dáil Eireann lost total touch with reality?
I agree with relatives and friends being able to travel home to see loved ones this Christmas — One in two Irish abroad plan to return home for Christmas, despite Covid uncertainty (Irish Examiner, November 23).
With the vaccine rollout across the world and the booster vaccine being administered as fast as possible, we have to trust the vaccines to help us in this fight against suppressing the virus.
There were very few vaccines administered before Christmas last year, therefore people were restricted in visiting families, especially those who were living on their own, and young people who have since had children and not been able to visit.
With Covid passes and testing available, and good hygiene protocol, I completely agree with travel.
It now appears unlikely that severe and nationally damaging restrictions can now be avoided over the Christmas period.
It must also be very demoralising for the Government and for our politicians in general.
As a community, we keep demanding to be given things that are bad for us.
Isn’t it a great country where you can refuse to take the government health advice but accept the benefits of the state’s heatlh service when the advice you refused to take lands you in hospital requiring an ICU bed.
Democracy has its price.
The Irish Examiner’s environmental coverage has been impressive in the last few months, it is refreshing to see the article — Ireland must break bond with ‘cosy fire’ as 50 places break air pollution guidelines (November 23). The era of fire is coming to an end whether we like it or not.
People should be able to walk around their communities in the evening and not have to worry about inhaling ash and other dangerous particulate matter.
It’s a burden on the community and people really need to realise that.
This isn’t even mentioning the environmental impact it has or the poor heating efficiency of coal and peat.
If you won’t leave the fire behind for those two reasons then think about your local community and the negative impact you may be having on it.
I am disgusted at the arrogance of An Bord Pleanála who have ignored the advice of their own Inspector and environmentally concerned organisations in giving permission for the excessively impactful Dursey cable car and visitor centre scheme.
Here we go again — Fresh plans for America’s Cup focus on Cork city centre (Irish Examiner, November 24).
It seems the only way to stop this profligate boating fiasco happening amid numerous crises is two torpedoes —one aimed at Micheál Martin and the other at Simon Coveney.
While having every sympathy with the people who’ve suffered in the mica building debacle, I can’t see why it’s down to Irish taxpayers to partially or fully compensate them for their loss.
There are companies directly involved with the supply and implementation of this faulty material.
Why does every claim on such issues have to boil down to the hard-pressed PAYE sector having to foot the bill.
This is wholly wrong.
In the course of a recent interview, Jeremy Irons was asked why he continues to work /act. “For the money,” he replied.
How refreshingly honest of the gentleman. No more to be said.
In her article about women not being involved in political decision making — Women drive local community groups but perceive politics as a job for someone else (Irish Examiner, November 22) — Mairead O’Shea left out the most important thing women can do to remedy the problem.
The basic situation is that women are empowered since, because they live longer, they are the majority in the democracies of the world.
All they have to do at the next election is field and vote for women candidates.
If they do that they will have the ability to change a situation in the Dáil from nearly 80% male to a situation in which women are in the majority.
Then they can just vote for the issues which are in their interests in the most powerful decision-making forum in our democracy.
Adam Bolger misunderstands human nature — Full separation of Church and State (Irish Examiner, Letters, November 22). When he calls for religion to be kept to ‘the private sphere’, he is making two huge assumptions.
First, that the public sphere is owned by secularists who alone get to decide what happens in it.
Second, that something as basic to our nature as our beliefs and worldview — including a religious one — can be kept ‘private’ and not have any impact on how we conduct ourselves in the public sphere.
Asking people to be ‘religious’ at home and ‘secular’ in the public sphere is asking them to develop a split personality.
The reality is we all live in society and we all have a right and duty to shape it as we see fit.
Neil Michael’s article — Cork Airport flying high as air services resume following runway upgrade works (Irish Examiner, November 22) on the re-opening of Cork Airport rightly welcomes the completion of the rebuild of the runway on time.
Would it have been too much to give a mention to the construction and design personnel who achieved this feat of engineering?
