Letters to the Editor, June 21st: On public service, the cost of living and sunscreen

Irish Times

5 hours ago

Sir, – A stream of commentary in the columns of The Irish Times has crystalised a sobering truth, that '
Our administrative and legal procedures simply cannot unblock the logjam in time to prevent serious damage
', as Michael McDowell put it. ('There is a way to break the logjam in infrastructure', June 18th). Before last Christmas, Patrick Honohan, former governor of the Central Bank, wrote in an Irish Times article: 'The issue is not so much what the aims of public policy should be... the problem has been in delivery'; and recently an Irish Times editorial spoke of our 'sluggish' administrative processes.
A simple example illustrates the depth of this dysfunction: a friend of mine, an experienced property expert who spent much of his career in the public sector, repeatedly attempted to draw attention to suboptimal performance in a prominent State body (mirroring wider poor performance manifest in the ballooning housing crisis) and to offer solutions.
As a last resort, he wrote to Taoiseach Micheál Martin in January and, after several reminders in the meantime, he finally received a reply this week, six months on, saying that his letter had been forwarded to Jack Chambers, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation.
The Office of the Taoiseach publishes a national risk assessment annually which sets out the '24 strategic risks facing the country in the short, medium and long term'.
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Pandemics, war, housing and social cohesion are mentioned, for example, but never mentioned in this annual assessment is the overarching risk, which if not addressed, compounds all other risks, namely, administrative incompetence and inertia. The Civil Service is not up to the job.
Just for example, with 15 grades and associated sign-off authorities above the level of Executive Officer, and several more below EO, Civil Service structures are not fit for purpose in this day of digitisation and AI; reasonable public expectations of personal accountability, with consequences, are thwarted when things go wrong, be it in the national children's hospital, nursing homes, the Office of Public Works, policing or the degradation by nitrates of Our Lady's Island lagoon.
To achieve progress on his extensive portfolio of responsibilities, radical public service reform has to be front and centre for Mr Chambers. – Yours, etc,
EDDIE MOLLOY,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.
Rent pressure zones
Sir, – While most attention has focused on the likely impact of changes to rent pressure zones (RPZs) on future rents, little consideration seems to have been given to their consequences for house prices.
Firstly, housing and apartment development land prices will rise on the basis that building rental homes will be perceived as having become more profitable and this will lead to increased house prices, even if other building costs don't also increase.
Secondly, as long-term rental yield expectations will have been increased, they will lift the capital value of underlying assets and progressively influence the market for not-for-rent new and second-hand homes.
As always, it is not just rental income that's important in property investment but the 'total return' which includes capital appreciation determined by purchase-sale market conditions and timing. Thanks to the RPZ changes, these have suddenly become more favourable for landlords and builders and less so for buyers and renters. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
The high cost of living in Ireland
Sir, – Your front page article (
'Ireland second most expensive country in Europe
' June 20th), will come as no surprise to anyone holidaying or on business in mainland Europe this year.
We have just returned from Cyprus where a bottle of decent supermarket wine was €5.50 (€10 here), 20 cigarettes were €4.30 (€14.50 here) and a litre of unleaded diesel was €1.32 (€1.74 here in rural Donegal).
Against an average monthly rent of ¤2,000 in Ireland, €850 a month could get you a furnished two-bed apartment in Paphos with access to a pool and a five-minute drive from the beach and all shopping amenities.
Of course, wages are lower (minimum wage of €6.60 an hour there, €13.50 here) but that's irrelevant if you are working from home for a multinational – your salary is the same wherever you are, or like us, you are on a fixed pension income.
Around 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots speak English, all government documents are in both languages, they drive on the left and you can keep in touch with news in English from British Forces radio or the English edition of the Cyprus Mail. Annual sunshine hours are 3,000 against 1,500 in Dublin.
After 11 years in Ireland we've had enough and are planning a move. If it wasn't for the cat, we'd be there now. – Yours, etc,
KENNETH HARPER,
Burtonport,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Eurostat's finding that Ireland is the second most expensive country in Europe came as no surprise. Donegal friends of ours recently returned from Venice, and when I asked if it had been expensive, they replied: 'Not really – after living in Ireland, Venice seemed quite reasonable.'
When Venice starts to feel like a bargain, something has gone badly wrong. – Yours, etc,
ENDA CULLEN,
Armagh.
Sir, – Your recent reporting on Ireland being the second most expensive country in the EU is a timely reminder of the factors driving up costs for households and businesses.
Among these, fuel stands out: not because of global market volatility, but because of Irish taxes.
We believe Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe should establish an expert group to review how fuel for transport and home heating is taxed. Its remit should be clear: It should secure fair revenue for the State, support the shift to renewable energy and protect vulnerable consumers from punishing costs.
Current policy hits hardest those with no alternative. That's not sustainable – environmentally, economically, or politically. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN McPARTLAN,
Chief executive,
Fuels for Ireland,
Dublin 1.
Sir, – Your article ('
Ireland's grocery prices are still soaring. How can that be?
'June 16th) cites many reasons for the huge grocery price hikes which we've all seen in the past year or so. Aside from geopolitical events, there is one development that I have noticed in all our local supermarkets over the past year: there has been a huge change in the way supermarket food in particular has been displayed.
Now acres of plastic doors have been installed for refrigerated and frozen goods. Inside these cabinets every item of food is presented in plastic or aluminium containers and the food is then covered in literally kilometres of plastic wrap.
Potatoes, carrots and even onions are in plastic bags, mushrooms, tomatoes and fruit are in plastic trays shrouded in film.
Are we all paying for these plastic doors, the food containers, the cling film? I would like to know how much the packaging contributes to the increased costs.
We are offered no choice on whether to accept it or not. I would also like to know whether there are any health risks to us from all the plastic.
Are we going to be able to recycle all this packaging? I weighed two washed and emptied trays: one plastic (27 grammes), the other aluminium (23 grammes).
Our waste company accepts no aluminium trays for recycling, which presents an additional problem, as one aluminium school lunch tray arrives into our house every weekday.
I share the outrage of Pricewatch's readers, but it's not just each individual family budget that's being affected. The cost to our climate is going to be heavy: the CO2 generated by manufacture of aluminium and plastic is only one part of it.
Washing the items to make them fit for recycling takes energy (which we pay for).
More CO2 is then needed to cart the stuff to a central recycling facility, where even more fossil fuel is needed to recycle it. As for the plastic doors, I reckon their lifespan would be 25 years at most, which gets us to 2050.
I wonder whether there is any plan to dispose of or repurpose them.
It doesn't appear that the supermarkets are taking climate change seriously. – Yours, etc,
MARY SIKORA,
Rosscarbery,
Co Cork.
Child poverty is not inevitable
Sir, – The latest child poverty monitor from the Children's Rights Alliance is not just a wake-up call, it's a national shame.
In one year, more than 45,000 more children in Ireland have been pushed into consistent poverty, bringing the total to nearly 103,000. This is not a statistic. It is a searing indictment of political choices, public apathy, and a system that continues to fail our most vulnerable: our children.
Poverty is not inevitable. It's the result of policy decisions that too often favour economic metrics over human dignity. Today, children account for nearly 40 per cent of those in consistent poverty.
Thousands go to bed hungry, live in insecure housing, and miss out on the most basic joys of childhood. This, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
The Government has made welcome commitments, free school books, hot meals, GP access, but these measures, while helpful, are broad strokes. They do not touch the core of the crisis.
The housing emergency is pushing nearly 4,800 children into homelessness, and 230,000 more live in material deprivation, families forced to choose between food and heat, rent and clothing. This is not just a policy gap. It is a moral failure.
After nearly four decades working in developing countries, I've seen poverty in its harshest forms, from the famine zones of Africa to the slums of Calcutta. I still remember a six-year-old boy abandoned to die in a sewer. He survived, but only just.
His story lives with me because poverty robs children of their worth and their future. While the context is different, children in Ireland are being let down in ways that should horrify us.
This isn't just about numbers, it's about values. Do we value children only in rhetoric? Or are we willing to invest in their futures?
We know what works: targeted child benefit, early intervention, proper housing, and dignified social protection. And yet two years after the ESRI called for a second-tier child benefit, we still wait.
Meanwhile, on the world stage, child suffering deepens. In 2024 the UN verified more than 41,000 grave violations against children in conflict zones.
More than 4,500 children were killed, many in Gaza, Congo, Ukraine, Ethiopia and beyond. Some 22,495 children endured multiple atrocities, recruited, raped, bombed, starved. It should haunt us.
We must stop looking away. Whether in Dublin or Gaza, Galway or Ethiopia, every child matters.
Let us be the generation that found its conscience, raised its voice, and acted. – Yours, etc,
RONAN SCULLY,
Knocknacarra,
Galway.
Roaming dogs on the beach
Sir. – Having visited Seapoint yesterday evening for a swim, I could not believe the number of dogs still roaming freely among swimmers' belongings and in the sea, in spite of signs everywhere saying ' No Dogs'.
Also, where we were changing there was a large abandoned dog poo for unaware swimmers to walk into... disgusting.
There were many children there yesterday who do not like dogs and I don't think it is fair for them to have to endure this.
Where are the dog wardens patrolling this area? They should be there constantly in the summer months. – Yours, etc,
EILEEN BANNAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Always wear sunscreen
Sir, – As an Australian, now happily resident in Ireland, your cover photo of sunbathers ('Hotting up', June 20th) prompts me to share the hard-earned wisdom of my people: slip, slop, slap.
More specifically, slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat.
There are things to envy about the Australian way of life, skin cancer is not one of them. – Yours, etc,
BEN AVELING,
Ranelagh,
Dublin.
Nuclear weapons and disarmament
Sir, – How can a country with nuclear weapons insist that another country should not have them?
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is signed up to by 191 countries, including five states that have nuclear arms.
This treaty, as well as aiming to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arms, looks to the disarmament of those weapons already in existence. As far as I am aware no such disarmament has taken place since the putting in place of the treaty in the 1970s.
Don't those with the power to disarm nuclear weapons not know of the utter devastation caused by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or of the still evident effects of Chernobyl?
No country should have nuclear weapons. The fact that some countries do have them causes others to develop these weapons.
Can the double standard be stopped and a serious effort made to comply with the aims of the NPT to stop both proliferation and disarm already existing weapons? The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable. – Yours, etc,
MARY FITZGERALD,
Terenure,
Dublin.
EuroMillions dejection
Sir, – Unlike Brian Cullen (Letters, June 20th) I had a longer period of excitement as I didn't check my tickets until I heard where the winning ticket was sold.
My wish always, if it's not me (we have to live in hope!), is the winner is someone who needs it, remains in good health, takes the best of advice and puts their winnings to good use and gives to worthy causes.
Again, unlike Brian, 'who just has to go and buy another ticket', I wonder is it some sort of post big jackpot Lotto dejection/ depression that I did not purchase a EuroMillions ticket in my local Centra this morning as the EuroMillions jackpot is ONLY ¤17 million tonight! – Yours, etc,
JOE WALSH,
Dublin.