Letters to the Editor: Portion sizes shrink, but costs rise

A reader says ministers should stop preaching and begin to focus on fair pricing and good service

Dining out, restaurant, istock

The extent to which current Government ministers are out of touch with what is happening on the ground is once again highlighted by the call to restaurants to serve smaller portions. (‘McConalogue calls for restaurants to serve smaller portions to cut food waste’, Irish Examiner, January 5)

The fact is that in recent times portion size has significantly reduced. 

Indeed, one of the biggest fast food outlets has reduced its burger so much that it has become a mere mouthful. 

But here’s the depressing fact: As portion sizes fall, the cost has soared. But not a word from the minister on that front.

Are we about to see a repeat of what happened with car insurance? 

Injured parties being denied fair compensation for loss and injuries suffered while premiums remain stubbornly high. 

The prices being charged now for a very basic lunch has risen by as much as a third, with some reporting being charged as much as €4 for a thimble-sized cup of coffee and €4.50 for a small serving of chips consisting of no more than a medium-sized potato.

The danger with the minister’s comments is that some in the hospitality trade will take what he says as an excuse to further fleece the public. 

The result could well be even more waste. 

As customers begin to stay away, more food will have to be dumped as it passes its use-by date. 

Is it not time that Government stopped preaching and began to focus on fair pricing and good service? 

The extent to which government policy is being dictated by lobbyists has surely gone far enough.

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond, Sligo

Might the GAA adopt AI?

I have been left little short of traumatised during these seasonal affective disorder days of winter because of the prevalence of many articles and exegeses, which I should have avoided, pertaining to the perplexing essence and inevitability of artificial intelligence (AI).

But now that the GAA inter-county season is awakening, I’m feeling a little better about AI. 

Finally, we may have the means to consistently detect the correct implementation of the ‘hand-pass’ in hurling.

Michael Gannon

Saint Thomas Sq, Kilkenny City

We must support South Africa in full

The South African government has made an application to the International Court of Justice, which rules on serious criminal offences between states, to initiate an indictment of the State of Israel for its current violent assault upon the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

Ireland has ratified the Genocide Convention, as has South Africa and Israel, and most states around the world that form up the UN General Assembly.

It follows then, that the Irish Government, as a member of the UN, and in recognition of the long oppression of Irish people carried out by the English state and our in-depth understanding of the history and adverse impacts of colonial conquest and genocidal actions designed to destroy the culture of the Irish, our language, our customs, culture, land tenure and polity by the English State, and later the British Empire, should support this application to the International Courts of Justice.

Can you please confirm that you will be taking the appropriate action to require the Irish State to uphold the convention on genocide, and other international laws of war and humanitarian law and join the South African application, to support it in full, without reservation?

Corneilius Crowley

Harrow, London

Voice for a deceased lecturer

Recently I read In The Blood by Pat Spillane of “eight All-Ireland senior medals for Gaelic football” fame. 

I remember Mr Spillane as a first- and second-year student at the National College of Physical Education (NCPE) in Limerick when I was a third- and fourth-year student between 1973 and 1975.

The book is interesting notwithstanding the inaccuracy of claiming that NCPE students were pioneers in their field. 

That distinction belongs to the female graduates of the Sion Hill and Ling Colleges that preceded it and to earlier male graduates of colleges located outside the State, including those who from 1968, attended St Mary’s Strawberry Hill, London, on Irish government scholarships. 

The claim that “generally as students we had a great time, an absolutely great time” because “it was football, football, football”, is also perplexing.

Most students had been selected for their outstanding grades in the highly academic Leaving Certificate examination. 

Pat Spillane pictured at the launch of his book 'In The Blood' in Templenoe, Co Kerry. Picture: Don MacMonagle

Thus, I am not surprised my own recollection is that for the majority the main focus was “study, study, study”.

Also, while a gifted group of sportsmen did play on an outstanding Gaelic football team, there were also inter-county hurling and camogie players, international cross-country runners, international track and field athletes, and international rugby players, as well as a cohort of very good all-rounders. 

More upsetting though is the claim by Mr Spillane that the late Dr AWS Watson was, and I quote directly, “a bad bastard”. 

That is a contemptible statement, and one to which Dr Watson, being deceased, cannot respond. 

I recall Dr Watson as being a very shy scholarly academic (one of only three English staff members in the college) who set the highest level of academic demands of himself and his students. 

That infuriated some, including at least one student who experienced difficulties when Dr Watson objected to a request for a lengthy period of absence from studies and without academic penalty to travel overseas to have fun in a sporting field.

Mr Spillane also states (and again I quote directly), that Dr Watson was “big into measuring body percentage fats with callipers and other instruments”, and that it is possible that those actions may have been accompanied by “a form of grooming”. 

While it is always correct to report through the appropriate channels any abuse, even that conducted by the dead, Mr Spillane stated that he was not “caught” and asks: “Were people caught by him? I would not be surprised?”

This is not even case of “dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi”. 

Sad too is Mr Spillane’s failure to state that at the time in question a major research project was being conducted by Dr Watson under the supervision of the late Dr DJ O’Donovan, Professor of Physiology at University College Galway, and was reported in 1977, the year in which those in Mr Spillane’s student cohort graduated.

The relevant reference is AWS Watson, ‘A study of the physical working capacity of elite Gaelic footballers and hurlers’, British Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol 11, No, 13, 1977, pp 133-137. 

The abstract states that, amongst other things, the measurements taken were height, weight, and skinfold thicknesses, and the physical working capacity at a heart rate of 170 beats per minute. 

A very lengthy list of similar publications by Dr Watson, including with Prof O’Donovan, are listed online under the “Research Gate” profiles of both.

As for the fact that tests were not conducted in public view; that was the approach deemed appropriate and courteous at the time. 

I state all of this since the deceased cannot do so. Finally, for any attempting to try to understand the machinations of the mind that led to Mr Spillane writing what I have indicated, the task is compounded by his statement in a conversation with Patrick Kielty on The Late Late Show on October 14, 2023, that: “I did not want to insult any single person and I think I have achieved it.”

Professor Emeritus Tom O’Donoghue

The University of Western Australia

Remembering stars

2023 witnessed the passing of many celebrities — super-talented people who were household names, some of them almost worldwide.

But others, not as well known but deeply precious to us, also departed this world that saw so much strife and calamity in the past year — people treasured beyond words whose absence leaves an emptiness and a grief that only we can understand.

So, while we mourn the deaths of the mega-achievers who gave us joy, entertainment, and enriched our lives in a multitude of ways, we have every reason to be equally, and more, devoted to the memories and now invisible presence of absent loved ones. 

They mightn’t be “up there” with the glitzy and the glamorous of this ever-changing world, or the subjects of unending reviews and analyses in the print and visual media or online, but to us they shine as brightly as any light in the sky. 

Each one of them is a superstar.

John Fitzgerald

Callan, Co Kilkenny