LETTERS to the editor
Sunday, March 07, 2010 Need for better reporting
Tom McGurk makes a good point in his weekly rant (28/2/10).For the last month, Leinster House has resembled a circus, with media coverage focused on the four resignations. For the next two weeks, I suspect we will have to tolerate endless speculation about the forthcoming cabinet re-shuffle and rotating Greens.
But politics is no circus. In the week George Lee resigned, an all party committee agreed the wording of the constitutional amendment to protect children’s rights.
The following week, the confidence debate on Willie O’Dea took up 90 minutes of Dáil time, but we spent much more time finding the truth about Hangar 6.Trevor Sargent’s resignation took up ten minutes of Dáil time, but we spent three hours debating Fine Gael’s jobs plan.
The real work rarely gets media attention. When I complain about this to members of the media, they explain that the public is more interested in personalities and political soap opera than issues like jobs and children’s rights.
I disagree. We desperately need political reform and better politicians, but we need a better media, too, with commentators who are better informed and less opinionated, journalists who make complicated and important stories interesting, rather than ignoring them, and interviewers who question politicians before trying to catch them out.
Leo Varadkar TD Leinster House, Dublin 2
I couldn’t agree more with Tom McGurk. To think that politicians are important per se in the whole scheme of things is not borne out in the real world. For them to have an exalted view of this importance or relevance is a further distortion of reality.
I cannot think of one time in my whole business life, or that of my colleagues, where politics or politicians had any real effect - and that’s coming from someone who has an interest in politics.
The political system needs an enormous shake-up. There is far too much cronyism in the Dáil because of the lifer system. I would suggest a two-term maximum period for TDs to concentrate their minds.
Paul Quilligan, Quilligan Architects Camden Street Lower, Dublin 2
Media cheering is regrettable
Alan O’Maonaigh takes me to task for criticising Tom McGurk’s broadside at the opposition (Letters, 28/02/10). In doing so, O’Maonaigh categorises the role of the opposition as ‘‘sniping, sniggering, sneering and smirking’’, and taunts them for having ‘‘spent the vast majority of the past 25 years on the far side of the House’’.
It is precisely because we have had one party in government for the vast majority of the past 25 years that I make no apology for criticising McGurk’s anti-opposition rant.
It is easier to taunt the opposition for its lack of power than to hold the powerful to account. Those who are culpable for the present mess, however, are not among the opposition.
Like the government, bankers, builders and the Church, the media has failed the people of this country.
Many in the media are still in cheerleading mode and are failing in their duty to hold to account those culpable of causing so much misery.
A Leavy Sutton, Dublin 13
How can we trust leaders?
People are as genuinely sick to death of politics today as they have ever been, so it comes as no great surprise to learn from your poll that party support remains unaffected.
We are told we have to pull together and get the country moving again, while politicians languish in chauffeur-driven cars on ridiculously high salaries, imposing brutal pay cuts and levies on those who are, quite often, the neediest.
Nothing to stimulate the economy, just more and more tax money to bail out the banks for their negligence in lending billions on inflated land and property values.
Ann Illing Caher, Co Clare
Time for change is nigh
Your polls suggest a consistent (but tectonic) shift of some 15 per cent of former Fianna Fáil supporters, to Labour and Fine Gael equally. A third of intending voters will vote for the current government, two thirds not.
A cabinet re-shuffle of the same old dog-eared name cards - spiced up, maybe, by some newish names from the same gene-pool and the same culture - is simply a distraction.
A general election there will be, but maybe not till 2012, after another two years of risky dither. The Handbook of Political Etiquette for the Fastidious says the Greens must wait for the ‘right moment’. But that tomorrow is today.
Maurice O’Connell Tralee, Co Kerry
FF’s despicable values
Compare the dignified resignation of Trevor Sargent of the Green Party with that of Willie O’Dea who, when finally exposed, fled to Limerick, and that of John O’Donoghue, dragged red-faced and blustering from the Ceann Comhairle’s seat without paying back a cent of the taxpayers’ money he had squandered.
No surprise that the latter two are members of Fianna Fáil and join the party’s role of honour. The word ‘resign’ is not in the Fianna Fáil vocabulary.
Mike Mahon Templeogue, Dublin 6W
Setting airport record straight
John McDermott’s letter, ‘DAA is a disaster’( 28/2/10) claims the DAA spent €1 billion on Terminal Two. The cost of the Terminal Two project is actually €609million.
McDermott also claims that new levies and taxes are being applied to passengers to pay for Terminal Two, and these will ‘‘encumber’’ travellers for decades. This is also untrue.
The aviation regulator has sanctioned an increase in the existing passenger charge, in part to pay for T2.But even with this suggested increase, passenger charges at Dublin Airport will continue to be very low compared with the airport’s European peers.
The government’s travel tax is not a DAA charge and the DAA, which receives no state funding, derives no benefit from it.
T2 has been built not for this year, or even for next year. Infrastructure is designed and built for decades, and McDermott will see evidence of that any time he returns to Ireland via Dublin Airport.
Paul O’Kane, public affairs director Dublin Airport Authority
One-sided marriage piece
The article by Catherine O’Mahony, ‘Beyond the fairytale’( Agenda, 28/2/10), related to the opinions of four women and their actual experiences of marriage, versus their pre-marriage expectations.
Forgive my innocence, but I thought men were also involved in marriage. While I respect the views of the interviewees, I have to ask, why just the one-sided view? It read like these women were talking about their experiences of pet dogs they once had.
Can I assume, in the interest of balance, you plan a similar article which will give the opinions of four men?
Michael Fehily Churchtown, Dublin 14
Pension age should be raised
Why the big deal about raising the pension age? It should be 70 across the board, public and private - but who ever heard of Fianna Fáil doing anything visionary?
Previous generations left school at 15,worked until they were 65, and lived about five years in retirement if they were lucky. My generation can stay in education until about 25 and, if we can retire at 70 and live to 100, that still leaves 30 years to enjoy.
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