Letters to the Editor: Young people have no loyalty to banks in Ireland
If you’re looking for basic competence or respect as a customer, honestly, look somewhere else. File photo: Tim Goode/PA
Banks in Ireland keep wondering why younger people have zero loyalty to them.
Their whole billing structure feels designed to squeeze every cent possible out of customers. Fees layered on fees, confusing charges, systems that always seem to benefit the bank and never the person using it. They’ve been fined for this kind of behaviour before, so it’s not exactly a surprise. It shows.
What really gets me is how little actual service exists. Branches close at 5pm. No weekends. No flexibility. Exactly the hours that suit the bank, not the people paying for it. For millennials trying to work, travel, or just live normal lives, it’s useless.
I dealt with one bank over an internal error that damaged my credit rating. What followed was rudeness, defensiveness, and delay. No urgency. No accountability. I had to raise the same complaint four times before anything even started to move. That’s not bad luck, that’s how the system works.
Banks feel like a boomer industry that never updated its attitude. If you’re looking for basic competence or respect as a customer, honestly, look somewhere else. This isn’t it.
Alan Kelly
Straffan, Co Kildare
Are our inheritance tax rules fair and equitable to childless citizens and their families? Parents can pass assets up to €400,000 tax-free to each of their children during their lifetime or upon death. Childless citizens can pass assets up to €40,000 tax-free to each of their loved ones (10 times less).
We either live in a republic where all citizens are treated equally or we don’t. Childless citizens and their families need to wake up to this inequality and to demand answers from our elected public representatives. Remaining silent on this national issue is no longer tenable.
Your leader article on the ‘soul’ of the GAA points clearly to its ongoing adjustments to the changing face of Irish society today — ‘GAA must not lose its soul in modernisation’ (Irish Examiner, December 19). The dilemma it faces is equally evident.
As one engaged in the task of spiritual leadership, I note your observation that its amateur status is “not merely a rule but a moral anchor”. A strong declaration indeed.
The ‘lure of riches’ is very powerful and most difficult to resist organisationally and personally for elite players. In seeking to understand the sociological consequences of the progression of that dynamic are clear.
Though originally rooted in parishes, clubs have discretely migrated from parish religious communities. This is most evident in the scheduling of training and games for children and other age cohorts at times that coincide with the celebration of Holy Mass. This practice reflects a prioritisation on the part of club leadership.
I commend GAA clubs for their excellent service to our young people and to their families. My point is that in your reflection on the wider issues facing the GAA and the road they choose, this disconnect has already taken place. Both the parish and the club are the poorer.
To quote your penultimate paragraph: “The challenge now is to modernise without losing the core values that made the association distinctive in the first place.”
Social media leads to lower moral standards
It is a sad reflection on the society we are fast becoming to see Tánaiste Simon Harris having to give a victim impact statement with regard to the trauma suffered by his family because of vicious social media messages.
Regrettably, with US president Donald Trump as the ‘role model’ for arrogant, offensive, and derogatory social media commentary, licence to unscrupulously lambaste ‘one’s neighbour’, devoid of any moral propensity is therewith endorsed.
More than 180 people have died on our roads so far this year, not counting the scores of people who have been injured or seriously injured for life. Government road safety strategies have proven to be ineffective in reducing the carnage on our roads.
Stronger enforcement is the only solution to crack down on flagrant breaches of road safety legislation by drivers, who for one reason or another, should not be behind the wheel. It may also be the case that insurance companies are being mislead by drivers in accepting false information.
We all have each other’s lives in our hands and we need to understand that when we are driving; sadly many drivers don’t and take chances, chances which prove fatal in many cases while others are very seriously hurt.
We cannot go on with the way things are going and radical action needs to be taken to reduce the high tolls of death and injuries. Driving is a very serious business and with more vehicles coming onto the roads each year the more careful we have to become.
The Medical Bureau of Road Safety has been scathingly critical of not only people who drink and drive and take drugs and drive, but those who take prescription medication which seriously impairs their ability to drive properly. According to the bureau, between 1,300 to 1,500 people get injured every year, notwithstanding any fatalities.
We are in a very serious situation when it comes to road safety unquestionably. Over the Christmas period impaired driving will go up extraordinarily and so will the risks of being on the road in any way.
Nothing whatsoever is being done in any realistic way to deal with the issue of e-scooters. These are essentially motor bikes that can be used without insurance and are highly susceptible to crashes. This is one example of the many things we need to address to make our roads safer.
An Garda Síochána must act with regard to the Crowe Report — an independent review of the roads policing unit — which documented many failures of our national police force, especially in relation to roads policing. I offer a ‘rest in peace’ to all those who have died on our roads prematurely, and a pain-free life for those injured and injured for life.
I am sick of seeing rape coverage where the practical effect of a woman waiving her anonymity is that she becomes more exposed, while the man who raped her remains comparatively invisible.
Women waive anonymity for a reason. It is usually done to speak openly, to be believed, and more often than not to ensure that the perpetrator is publicly identified and held to account. Yet the opposite repeatedly happens. The victim is named, photographed, and remembered; the convicted perpetrator is mentioned briefly and then disappears from view.
Waiving anonymity is not a surrender of privacy, nor is it consent to become the public face of the crime. It is a choice made, in many cases, precisely so that attention will fall where it belongs — on the person who committed the offence.
Instead, the result is often a cruel inversion. The exposure follows the victim long after the case is over, while the identity of perpetrator fades back shielded by editorial decisions that serves no ethical purpose once a conviction has been secured.
Waiving anonymity does not automatically mean that the identity should be revealed. This is not about denying victims a voice. It is about where emphasis and responsibility are placed. At present, too many reporting decisions ensure that victims carry the visibility, and perpetrators carry the silence.
That balance is wrong, and it deserves to be challenged.
I read with deep sadness, and growing anger, that once again the Irish government has failed to ban fox hunting.
Despite overwhelming public opposition, clear evidence of animal cruelty, and repeated promises of reform, our elected representatives have chosen inaction.
This failure speaks volumes. Fox hunting survives not because it reflects modern Irish values, but because it is protected by privilege.
The continued tolerance of this blood sport sends a clear message: the interests of a well-connected minority still outweigh compassion, ethics, and the wishes of the majority.
Ireland has rightly taken pride in progress on many social issues, yet when it comes to animal welfare, the government continues to defer to the traditions of the privileged 1%. Tradition alone cannot justify cruelty. Nor can political convenience excuse moral cowardice.
Many citizens are left wondering whose interests our government truly serves.
Until fox hunting is finally banned, claims of a commitment to animal welfare will ring hollow.
