Letters to the Editor: Post-marking intervention may lift some Leaving Cert grades

There will be a copious supply of CAO, further education, apprenticeships, traineeships and employment places available for 2022 school leavers

The waiting is over for about 120,000 candidates as the state exams get underway next Wednesday. The Junior Cycle exam takes place for the first time since 2019. The Leaving Cert exam returns to the traditional format after two years of calculated and accredited grades. 

However, candidates will have additional choices and fewer questions to compensate for Covid-related disruption to the school year. Minister Norma Foley has said the overall marks in the Leaving Cert this year will be no lower than last year’s record-breaking set of results. This will be achieved by allowing the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to apply a ‘post-marking intervention’ which will lift all students’ marks, if necessary.

There will also be a copious supply of CAO, further education, apprenticeships, traineeships and employment places available for 2022 school leavers in a buoyant economy which has a job for everybody who is willing and able to work.

It’s all good news for candidates, who can approach the exams with confidence and in the reasonable certainty of performing well. They have come through the past few difficult years with stoicism and resilience. They have coped admirably with the challenges confronting them and they never lost the energy, determination and optimism of youth. They have done the hard work so it’s time for them to go in and ‘play a blinder’ in the 2022 State Exams.

Good luck to everybody beginning the exams on Wednesday. The world is your oyster so now it’s time to seize the moment!

Billy Ryle

Tralee

Co Kerry

Parents are the primary educators

Dearbhail McDonald (Dearbhail McDonald: Rapists think they can get away with it — because most of them do, Irish Examiner, June 4) is of the opinion that “comprehensive sex education and healthy relationship programmes” in school curricula is the key to changing the culture of sexual violence.

Really? Schools would now appear to be the “key to sorting out all the ills of contemporary society like obesity, mental health, violence, drug addiction, abuse et al and all in about five hours daily?

Any chance that education might get a look in? Parents are the primary educators of their children. Let’s not forget that inconvenient fact and abrogate parents of their responsibility to rear their offspring with an ingrained respect for everyone in the wider community.

Aileen Hooper

Stoneybatter

Dublin 7

Orange Order must take action on hate

I note that the Orange Order has begun an investigation into the video posted on social media which appears to show a number of people in an Orange Order hall singing and mocking the murder of Michaela McAreavey (‘Hate can hurt, but never win’: John McAreavey says on ‘vile’ video mocking the murder of Michaela, Irish Examiner, June 4th). 

This appalling video was viewable on social media on the day that the grand secretary of the Orange Order, Rev. Mervyn Gibson, was awarded an honour in the British queen’s birthday honours list.

John McAreavey's response to the 'vile' video mocking the murder of his wife Michaela McAreavey was: "Michaela was a vessel of love, courage and dignity. Hate can hurt, but never win."

The statement from the Orange Order said if those involved were found to be members of the institution they would face disciplinary proceedings. The Orange Order needs to spell out what they mean by disciplinary proceedings. How much longer will authorities in the North indulge loyalists and the Orange Order by permitting sectarian bonfires which pollute the atmosphere and poison community relations throughout Northern Ireland?

Tom Cooper

Pearse Street

Dublin 2

Sectarianism as Queen celebrates

A mind-boggling exhibition of vicious and clubby sectarianism took place at a social gathering to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee. It was captured on video and entered the public domain.

We profess to be shocked. But are we? Sinn Féin profess to be shocked. But are they?

The fact of the matter is this. Both sides have songbooks they sing from when they are amongst their own and no one is watching. Many’s the salty “republican” wedding where polluted people sing polluted songs. 

Meanwhile, decent centrist and civil people go about their business and try to keep the show on the road. They’re the only people who ever have. The dreary steeples of Northern Ireland also have plenty of shining lights. “It never gets dark in Kielty Park”. Wouldn’t it be great if it was like that everywhere. We must keep to the bright side of the street.

Michael Deasy

Bandon

County Cork

How to get more flights from Cork

Over the past week, there have been many calls to move flights from Dublin to Cork.

While I can identify with the sentiment behind such suggestions, your columnist Michael Moynihan correctly stated in Thursday’s Irish Examiner that “Those in charge of the flights are the airlines, not the airports and not the Government.” The easiest way to get more airlines and more routes for Cork is for people living in the south of the country to support its existing services whenever possible.

This summer there are eight airlines operating 40 direct routes from Cork. In addition to Ryanair and Aer Lingus, airlines such as KLM, Air France and Lufthansa provide onward connectivity to hundreds of destinations throughout Europe and the rest of the world from their hubs in Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt. Each of these hubs is now served directly from Cork.

Using these services rather than making the tedious and often unnecessary journey to Dublin will encourage airlines to expand frequency and consider new routes in the years ahead.

Tom O’Driscoll

Former Lord Mayor of Cork

Red alert over latest gardening trends

I call it red gardening because red is the opposite colour to green and green is the symbolic colour of sustainability and organic produce. Many of the prize-winning gardens and examples shown on TV gardening programmes are red gardens.

They involve the importation of materials such as stone, beams and cladding. All these come with a high carbon footprint. In the name of low-maintenance gardening, the current trend is fake lawn grass. 

Twenty years ago it was decking, the worst possible surface for an Irish garden. Slippery when wet, in need of chemicals to remove moss and stop rot, it ended up rotting anyway and is being dumped and replaced with something equally red in the name of low maintenance.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

The biggest offender is artificial grass. I saw one TV garden design with an area for meditation floored with fake lawn. This means that the soil beneath was covered to die, along with all the living organisms that support a healthy planet. Worms, insects, fungi and bacteria all play their part and are killed by overlaying with artificial grass and the soil eventually turns to dust. Hectares upon hectares of fake lawn are being laid in suburban gardens.

I have a small lawn. It supports about six starling families as well as blackbirds and wood pigeons. The starlings, while they have a brood, are particularly adept at pulling high protein food for their chicks from this plot.

Paul MacCormaic

Kilbarrack

Dublin 5

Environmental suicide must stop

Global plastic waste will triple by 2060 as predicted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. With developing countries creating an increase, that could be five-fold in less than 40 years. 

Plastic waste over the period in question will exceed one billion tonnes or three times the annual figure in 2019. Since the 1950s 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste has been created with 60% dumped into landfill or going directly to our rivers or oceans. When is the environmental suicide going to stop?

Tadhg O’Sullivan

Fermoy

Cork

Saudi trip for those beyond their prime

I hardly need to point out the common denominator, apart from greed, of those joining the ‘’Saudi Golf Tour’’, are the words 'has been'. All of them are as far from winning a professional golf tournament as I am.

Liam Power

Dundalk

Co Louth

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB