Letters to the Editor: Is the HSE just a soulless entity?

'The HSE is not fit for purpose... And as a result we have the situation where vulnerable people are being uprooted from their homes.' File picture

The numerous failures of the HSE to deliver safe, rights based services across all sectors is well documented. Their nefarious actions, bullying, and threatening of families of people with disabilities is well known and has been raised many times at various hearings and meetings in the Oireachtas. 

The HSE is not fit for purpose — in any sector, yet here we are again... They are firefighting without planning or proper management of resources and wasting resources, outsourcing services they should deliver directly and take full responsibility for.

And as a result we have the situation where vulnerable people are being uprooted from their homes, relatives, friends, established routines, and community at the whim of some HSE bureaucrat who probably knows nothing about the person or their needs.

Before We Die (BWD) are doing great work highlighting this issue but even those who have set up a good system for their disabled son or daughter and in place for many years with appropriate supports and services, the rug can be pulled from under them when the services fail. 

And we’re right back to the HSE’s outsourcing of care without appropriate oversight, accountability and safeguards. And when it fails after all your work you will be told that they can go into respite care or residential services — despite the person’s will and preference, their rights under Article of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and against the recommendations of their treating neurologist. 

People with complex needs are being treated as disposable objects to be moved around at will. All care and humanity appears to have departed this soulless entity. So even if you’ve done the work, the heavy lifting, of securing services for your loved one which should remain stable if they lose their main caregiver/s, the HSE can mess that up too creating a crisis where none should exist. People need to stop accepting this. It’s affecting all disability sectors.

Mary Farrell, Enfield, Co Meath

Early help for families

When a family reaches out for support, the timing of the response matters.

At Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service, we work with children and families across Dublin, Louth, Meath and Wicklow, providing therapeutic and support services. In 2025, we received 1,092 new referrals, the first time referrals have exceeded 1,000 in a single year, and recorded more than 32,000 client activities across our services.

These figures are part of a wider picture of families coming to services with a range of needs. We are also seeing greater complexity in some cases. Alongside therapeutic and family support, we are increasingly seeing the impact of pressures such as poverty and housing insecurity. This is why early intervention matters. It is about being able to listen to families, understand what support they need, and respond before things get more difficult.

We are working to make that response more timely. We are committed to responding to all family referrals within 48 hours, with this commitment being fully implemented by the first quarter of 2027. We have also expanded our assessment services into Meath and Louth, recruited and trained 14 new staff in the Signs of Safety model, and are investing in access to speech and language therapy. We are also strengthening our professional leadership by recruiting a principal social worker, while contracting in principal social worker-level expertise to provide support and oversight in the meantime.

Our role is not to assume what a family needs, but to make sure that when they ask for help, the appropriate support is available and they can be connected with it as quickly as possible.

The increase in referrals we saw in 2025, alongside the complexity of the cases presenting to our services, reinforces the need to keep early intervention and specialist family support at the centre of how we respond to children and families.

Dr Tracey Monson, CEO, Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service

Time for a Second Republic?

As we approach the 100th anniversary of our Constitution in 2037, perhaps it is time to ask ourselves a question: should Ireland begin a national conversation about the possibility of a Second Republic?

The seemingly endless revelations of clerical abuse, the appalling treatment of women and children in our mother-and-baby homes, and the many other institutional scandals that have plagued our country have brought much of our First Republic into disrepute. They have exposed serious failures in the relationship between Church, State, and the Irish people. After all that has emerged, surely we should be willing to question whether the foundations of our republic need to be reconsidered.

There is also the question of Northern Ireland. Our relationship with the North continues to evolve, and the possibility of a united Ireland raises important questions about the kind of country we might one day share. Any discussion about our constitutional future must therefore be an island-wide conversation, one that welcomes all traditions and identities and respects the principle of consent.

What should a modern Irish republic look like? What values should it stand for? What rights should it protect? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we ensure that the institutional failures of our past are never repeated?

I would also suggest something a little more ambitious: that any new constitutional settlement include a requirement for a national constitutional review every 100 years. Each century, a new generation would have the opportunity to examine the Constitution, preserve what works and change what no longer serves the people. This would not mean automatically replacing the Constitution every century, but it would give future generations the opportunity to reconsider it.

Our present Constitution has served us for almost 90 years and changed considerably through referendums. But its approaching centenary offers us an opportunity to look beyond individual amendments and consider the bigger picture.

A Second Republic, should the people choose one, would not mean rejecting everything gone before. It would mean learning from our history and deciding together what kind of Ireland we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren.

We have 11 years until the centenary of our Constitution. Surely the time to begin this national conversation is now.

Eoghain Hamilton, cultural anthropologist, West Cork

Conversation helps learning

I read with interest the letter, 'Low competence in speaking Irish'. Although I live in the Philippines and have no experience of learning Irish, the letter reminded me of my own struggle to become confident speaking English.

Growing up, I admired people who could speak English fluently. They seemed able not only to express their ideas clearly, but also to connect with people and find better employment opportunities. I wanted to develop that ability myself, but learning to speak a language was not easy.

I began by reading books and pushing myself to learn new words and become more familiar with English. I also tried to find people with whom I could practise, but opportunities for regular conversation were limited.

Technology eventually changed that. With the internet, podcasts and smartphones, I could listen to English much more often and hear how people naturally expressed themselves. More recently, artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT have given learners another opportunity to practise, ask questions and receive immediate responses.

Today, I work in the BPO industry as a customer support representative serving clients in the United States. I regularly speak with customers and restaurant owners to help resolve issues. Those real conversations helped me enormously, gradually building my confidence.

My experience has taught me that reading, vocabulary, and grammar are important, but speaking a language requires opportunities to actually use it. Mistakes are part of that process.

Perhaps this is relevant to the discussion about spoken Irish. If people are expected to love and preserve a language, they also need opportunities to speak it naturally and without being afraid of making mistakes. Classrooms are important, but conversation turns knowledge into confidence.

A language becomes truly alive when people feel comfortable using it.

Alex T Blance, Philippines

Ireland’s selective outrage

As a lifelong supporter of the Republic of Ireland national football team and a regular consumer of the nations’ media, I was disappointed, if hardly surprised, at the lack of balance shown in the national media as regards the reportage of the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League encounter with the Israel football team. There have been no shortage of journalists, pundits and keyboard-warrior supporters damning and condemning the Irish players and management for taking part in this fixture. 

One wonders where these armchair exponents of the moral high ground were when the Ireland men’s cricket team played a fixture against Afghanistan recently?

Similarly, when the Irish soccer team fulfilled a friendly fixture against Qatar in May 2026, there was a notable lack of outrage in the print and television media. One of the most vocal critics of the Irish teams decision to take part in the fixture against Israel was former manager Brian Kerr. As a supporter of the Irish team during Kerr’s reign, I tried to erase memories of his lacklustre and largely forgetful tenure in Irish football’s top job.

However, I could not ignore the fact that under Brian Kerr the Irish team played Israel twice in the 2006 World Cup qualification campaign. I do not recall Kerr suggesting at that stage that his team should boycott the fixtures. Mr Kerr might also not like to be reminded that he was in charge of the Republic of Ireland for a friendly fixture against China PR, one of only two times the Irish senior mens team ever faced China in an international.

Similarly, I do not recall Kerr suggesting a boycott of the fixture might be necessary at the time to highlight China’s own appalling human rights record.

When looking at the controversy surrounding these fixtures, many commentators from abroad are surprised to see Irish people becoming so exercised about genocide in Gaza.

When there was a genocide in Europe in the middle of the last century some in Ireland turned a blind eye at the time and many were openly hostile to the notion of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in the European mainland coming to Ireland.

Daithí Levy, Cork

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