Letters to the Editor: Politicians need to deal with unsatisfactory situation in HSE

The HSE has been a problem area for many years.

Readers of a certain vintage may remember the HSE being referred to as “Ireland’s Angola”.

The problems existed long before Paul Reid took up his post.

While some may say matters have improved, others will point to the long waiting lists for services.

There is dissatisfaction among many staff, in particular junior doctors.

Yet we have ministers and TDs “lauding” Mr Reid’s performance.

Perhaps this is why the country has so many problems — the lack of honesty by elected representatives.

Elected representatives need to face up to their responsibilities to the electorate and once and for all deal with the “unsatisfactory” situation that exists within HSE.

Michael A Moriarty

Rochestown

Cork

Government must ease costs burden

This Government will not cap the cost of living in this country and the paltry €200 rebates and the 20% reduction on travel fares will not put much back in people’s pockets.

A raft of increases in energy bills will add to the load of hard-hit customers from this month on.

That is not to mention outrageous rents on houses and flats, and the cost of childcare.

Prices are all above the European average. It is getting harder and harder for the public to keep their heads above water.

This Government must come up with solutions.

Noel Harrington

Kinsale

Co Cork

Time to abolish USC to restore pay for all

So Leo Varadkar has said it’s not a pay rise but pay restoration (Leo Varadkar: Restoring the wages of high earners is not a pay rise, Irish Examiner, June 23).

That’s fantastic news.

I expect an imminent announcement regarding the abolition of the universal social charge so that my pay will also be restored.

I’m so confident of this that I might even put a down payment on a sliced pan or a litre of home heating oil!

Brendan O’Shea

Listry

Killarney

Gardaí should probe GAA eye-gouging

The gardaí have confirmed that they will not proactively investigate Sunday’s unsavoury melee at Croke Park.

If outbreaks of violence within sport were to become legal issues, apologists would likely ask: “Where do we draw the line?”

Galway's Damien Comer clashes with a member of the Armagh panel.

Eye-gouging, would be my reply.

Alan Murphy

Knocklyon

Dublin 16

Four ways to end violence in sport

The violence at the end of the Armagh v Galway match was appalling.

A short-term solution may be to have teams exiting the pitch separately.

However, a longer-term solution is more important.

I suggest starting a new culture in coaching, beginning with children.

Have four principals:

1. Respect your team-mates — no giving out to someone who misses a chance, for example;

2. Respect your opponents — don’t foul back if they foul you, either with abusive comments or physical foul. It is the referee’s job to deal with that. If the ref does not deal with it, don’t succumb to the same level as your opponent by responding similarly to their misdemeanor;

3. Respect the ref — he or she is human and, like us all, they make mistakes. When they do, accept the decision; don’t argue;

4. Within the above parameters, try your best to win.

Joe Harte

Carrigaline

Co Cork

Grocery bill increase a little understated

It would be interesting to know how the figure of €453 was calculated, ie the exact groceries and the definition of an “average” family (Average family’s annual grocery bill could go up by €453, Irish Examiner, June 27).

If the family is the traditional two adults and two children, €453 seems understated. I shop at SuperValu for two elderly people and my grocery bill has increased by €9 a week, since mid-February, or €468 per annum provided there are no further increases in basic groceries — a sobering realisation.

Norma Mulligan

Kinsale

Co Cork

Pius XII helped save thousands of Jews

I write in reference to Terry Prone’s piece regarding Pope Pius XII’s alleged silent complicity in the Nazi holocaust (Secrecy a thing of the past as Pope opens up WWII letters, Irish Examiner, June 27).

It is a well-documented fact that Pius XII worked tirelessly to hide thousands of Jews throughout Rome. The Pope sent out the order that religious buildings were to give refuge to Jews, even at the price of great personal sacrifice on the part of the occupants.

Pope Pius XII (1876 - 1958) blesses a group of war correspondents in the Vatican, shortly after the liberation of Rome during World War II, 7th June 1944.

The following contemporaneous testimonies speak volumes:

Former Israeli diplomat Rabbi Pinchas Lapide wrote that “in Rome we saw a list of 155 convents and monasteries which sheltered throughout the German occupation some 5,000 Jews in Rome. No less than 3,000 Jews found refuge at one time at the Pope’s summer residence at Castle Gandolfo.”

In June 1944, Pius XII sent a message to Admiral Miklos Horthy, ruler of Hungary, and managed to stop the deportation of 800,000 Jews from that country.

In all, Pius XII helped save the lives of an estimated 860,000 individuals, a fact that did not go unappreciated by Israel Zoli chief Rabbi of Rome during the war, who said: “What the Vatican did will be indelibly and eternally engraved in our hearts. Priests and even high prelates did things that will be forever an honour to Catholicism.”

In 1944 the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Isaac Herzog sent a message to the Pope saying: “The people of Israel will never forget what his Holiness and his illustrious delegates are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history.”

Albert Einstein wrote in the American Jewish yearbook 1944-1945:

“Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty.”

Seán Mac Cárthaigh

Sagart Paróiste

Baile Mhuirne

Collapse of stand at Columbian bull fight

The deaths and injuries that resulted from the collapse of a stand at a bullfight arena in Bogota, Columbia, were shocking, but also completely avoidable.

While nothing can take away from the grief caused to the families and friends of the victims, we can’t overlook the fact that the event itself amounted to nothing less than organised cruelty to animals.

John Fitzgerald

Callan

Co Kilkenny

Uncomfortable truth of women’s rights

It is with deep sadness I witness women’s rights being eroded in the US. It is illegal (or soon will be) to terminate your pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

Millions of women will not be allowed to control their own bodies, a level of fundamentalism we are more used to seeing in places like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

An uncomfortable truth must be faced: a woman’s personal autonomy (in the hierarchy of things) is higher than that of her unborn child. An unborn child, before viability, should have no personal autonomy in the eyes of the law.

Alison Hackett

Dún Laoghaire

Co Dublin

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