Mála Poist

Floods caused by government policy

THE severity of the recent floods throughout many parts of this country can be linked directly to the unbridled greed of property developers, planners and most of all the political leaders who allowed and encouraged them to build houses that were not needed in areas  that were clearly unsuited over the past 10 to 15 years. A child could tell that many of these were built on what were clearly flood plains. The government and the developers should be made pay reparations for the misery they have wreaked on so many families.
CIARA Ní FHEARGHAIL,
An Longfort.

RTÉ distortions

RTÉ coverage of Tuesday’s public service workers’ strike has been an utter disgrace. The so-called national broadcaster has reverted to the type of  despicable distortions that we witnessed during the worst of the armed conflict. RTÉ seems now to have targeted public sector workers as Public Enemy Number 1 and any sort of vilification and demonisation is allowed. Taxpayers are funding this government/ IBEC propaganda through the licence fee. It is time we demanded a thoroughgoing review of practices at what is supposed to be a public service and which we now know beyond doubt was manipulated for years by a small, bizarre and unrepresentative political faction.
TIM O’LEARY,
Cork.

Get over it!

PLEASE. Enough already. Would people please stop embarrassing themselves and the rest of us by this childish pursuit of a replay of the World Cup qualifier with France? Wailing like babies about Thierry Henry ‘cheating’ is just so much self-serving drivel, especially when spouted by media commentators who know little or nothing about soccer and who have never graced the inside of a League of Ireland ground.
PAUL MURRAY,
Dublin 11.

WHEN will all these moaning minnies in the FAI and the groups of beer-bellied, green shirt-wearing weirdos who have been mounting protests get their heads around the fact that the Irish soccer team is not going to the World Cup Finals because it is not good enough. Why didn’t the Irish team kill off the game in France by scoring another goal? Why does the team not have an efficient striker who can capitalise on the opportunities created by other players? It’s time to stop blaming other people for our own shortcomings. It’s also time to recognise that sport, like politics and life, isn’t always fair, especially when it is a multi-million euro industry such as international soccer. Get over it!
FEILIM McHUGH,
Co. Cavan.

Celtic Tiger delusions

IT seems that Irish pubic life has yet to rid itself of the vulgarity, arrogance and shallowness that were the hallmarks of the so-caled ‘Celtic Tiger era’. This is the only explanation for the examples of collective delusion evidenced in the embarrassing shows of public angst over two poppy-wearing nitwits on a British reality TV show and the infantile whingeing over the result of an international soccer match.
That grown adults should display the characteristics of spoiled brats because a mediocre Irish football team did not get to the World Cup finals and that two other mediocrities didn’t win a talent competition demonstrates that it wasn’t just bankers and property speculators who lost the run of themselves over the past decade-and-a-half. It’s time such people quit the whinging and grew up. Maybe then we can start to focus on the real issues that bedevil this country at present. It is time to wake up from the Government-induced stupor and unreality of ‘Celtic Tiger Ireland’.
SEOSAIMH
Ó TUATHAIL,
Baile Átha Cliath 3.