Letters to the Editor, July 29th: On the HSE's lost millions and funding services, the All-Ireland and women, and Gaza

Irish Times

29-07-2025

Sir, – Is it not galling for the thousands of parents who rely on service for their children and adults with an intellectual disability to read; 'Ten of millions in HSE money lost, say auditors,' (July 26th) when those who provide these services are subject to a punitive 'value for money' penalty annually and are starved of the necessary funding to provide the services that are so obviously needed?
The hope of a residential places for my 41-year old daughter was just this week ended by a letter from the chief of the service provider she attends stating that; '[it has] paused acceptance of new referrals to the residential wait list…we continuously seek funding for new premises from the relevant departments, but applications to date have not transferred to appropriate housing'.
Today, there are hundreds of parents like myself and wife in their 70s and 80s providing full-time care for their adult children with an intellectual disability.
With no certainty as to what will happen to our daughter when we are no longer able to provide the care she needs, we live in dread for her future.
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In the context of the auditor's report is it not an indictment of the political system that no one can answer my simple question; 'what will happen my daughter when I die?'
The wanton waste and lack of accountability by the HSE and our politicians, while not surprising, is nonetheless, staggering. – Yours, etc,
TONY MURRAY,
Chairman,
Before I Die,
Fairview,
Dublin 3.
Air drops, Gaza, and protests
Sir, – Air drops are costly, inefficient and dangerous. Crucially, they do not address the significant risks of refeeding syndrome.
When a population has been starved or malnourished for a period of time, they require careful reintroduction of appropriate specialised foods to avoid overwhelming the metabolic processes.
Failure to firstly provide appropriate electrolytes to the starved, instead giving random quantities of non-specialised food through air drops, can lead to cardiac abnormalities, delirium and death.
This is known as refeeding syndrome and is well known in the humanitarian and medical spheres.
This is another example of the damage that removing humanitarian access from Gaza has done, and makes the cynical performance of air drops even starker. – Yours, etc,
DR LISA McNAMEE,
Dartry,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – I wish to support the proposal for a national day of protest (Letters, July 24th and 26th) over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Words are inadequate when faced with the starvation of men, women and children, regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, creed or religion.
I force myself to watch the news and read the reports and feel ashamed because I have done nothing to stop these terrible atrocities or help the poor victims who continue to suffer, day after day.
There is pain on both sides of any conflict but the civilians in Gaza are bearing the brunt of the war.
A national day of protest, a demonstration condemning the atrocities inflicted upon the civilians in Gaza, would garner support from all corners of our society. – Yours, etc,
HELEN MURRAY,
Church Street,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Liz O'Donnell proposes a national day of protest over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza (Letters, July 26th). Has she missed the 16 national demonstrations held in Dublin calling for an end to the genocide organized by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign since October 2023?
Or the thousands of locally organised solidarity actions and events that have taken place across the island these past 21 months?
Ms O'Donnell praises the 'courageous stance taken by the Irish Government' on Gaza so she clearly has no issue with the US military using Shannon Airport to transport arms and personnel or Israeli war planes flying through Irish airspace, or the Central Bank facilitating the sale of Israeli war bonds.
Or Ireland's export of more than €97 million worth of dual-use products to Israel since October 2023.
If protests were enough to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, then it would have happened by now.
What is needed is immediate Government action that ends all complicity with Israel's genocide in Palestine. – Yours etc.,
STEPHEN McCLOSKEY,
Director
Centre for Global Education,
Belfast.
Sir, – Two letters published in The Irish Times (July 28th) on Gaza have shredded any illusion that there does not exist in Ireland a strong feeling that Jews, everywhere are to be blamed collectively for the actions in Gaza of the Israeli government.
Chris Fitzpatrick, announcing himself as a Christian, quotes the Bible to provide evidence of how Jewish teaching is being eschewed by Israelis and then demands that 'Jewish people need to raise their voices in protest'.
Angela Currie informs us that Israeli and diaspora Jews are not aware of the suffering in Gaza. She, too, demands that Jews stand up and 'shout your disgust'.
The one-sided media narrative in Ireland has created unprecedented anti-Jewish sentiment, increasingly isolating the Jewish community here.
Would the letter writers not have considered the same call to Muslims, to condemn the indescribable cruelty and moral corruption of Hamas?
Does Mr Fitzpatrick's christianity not motivate him to urge Christians everywhere to stand up against Russian aggression in Ukraine where every single one of the ten commandments has been turned on its head?
There are millions of Jews in Israel, in the diaspora, secular and religious who are protesting against the Israeli action in Gaza. You may have to wander outside the Irish media bubble to find them.
To quote Matthew 7:5 'Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.' – Yours, etc,
CATHERINE PUNCH,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
EU-US trade agreement
Sir, – The trade agreement just agreed between the US and EU provides for a 15 per cent tariff on EU goods entering the US, but I can find no reference to a reciprocal tariff on US goods entering the EU.
Is it the same as the 15 per cent applying in the other direction or some other figure ?
Can we assume the EU will apply an identical or at least similar tariff ? If not we are entitled to know why there is no such tariff is being applied.
The EU has agreed to buy large amounts of US goods.
Has the US in turn agreed to buy a similarly large amount of EU goods. If not why not ? – Yours, etc,
NIALL LOMBARD,
Mount Merrion
Co Dublin.
Phone alone
Sir, – We visited our son in the Gaeltacht at the weekend.
He looked healthy and happy and not at all suffering from withdrawal symptoms from only being allowed access to his phone for 15 minutes a day. Sounds like a route back to full health and happiness for us all! – Yours, etc,
BRIAN QUIGLEY,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
GAA women, and All-Ireland football finals
Sir, – Congratulations to Kerry for winning the Men's All-Ireland Football Final.
Note my addition of 'Men's' at the beginning of the sentence which all of the media insists on omitting. The omission of 'men's 'presupposes that the football final is the only one.
However, the Women's All-Ireland Football Final is on August 3rd.
The first women's GAA football final was played in 1974, 51 years ago! Why then presume Sunday's final was the only one? Words matter. – Yours, etc,
CARMEL WHITE,
Castleknock,
Dublin.
Sir, –The Kerry victory against Donegal arrived in the nick of time to save Gaelic football from extinction.
What a relief to see a return to high fielding, long distance kicking and a plethora of scores on a regular basis.
The data driven obsession, borrowed from soccer and American football, with its clichés about zonal defence, dominating the middle third, edge of the D, outside and inside the arc, and so on ad nauseam, had made this relatively simple and spontaneous game the world's most boring, and unwatchable, except for scoreless soccer games.
At last the new rules have liberated natural and skilful athletes like David Clifford and Michael Murphy to keep going forward toward goal and not sideways and backwards in a dreary process of endless handball, that former greats like Mick O'Connell would not recognise at all.
The two points from long distance and long kick outs from the goalie have also helped, but backward handpassing should be banned completely.
Gaelic football still has a long way to go to equal the wizardry and skill of hurling or rugby at its best, but at least it is finally going in the right direction. – Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CALLAGHAN,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – New rules, what new rules? Surely what we witnessed yesterday represented a step backwards for the once great game of Gaelic football. For 80 per cent of yesterday's game, what I witnessed was field basketball with flashes of real football thrown in to break the silence.
Back to the drawing board? – Yours, etc,
NIALL GINTY,
Killester,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – Ian O' Riordan's tribute to the great Con Houlihan ('T
he gospel of Kerry football according to Con Houlihan
,' July 26th) was beautiful and timely.
Con surely would have enjoyed Kerry's victory while being 'befuddled' by the July date.Rightly so.
If the GAA gets its hands on Christmas we will be celebrating it in October ! – Yours, etc,
JIM CAFFREY,
Dundrum,
Dublin.
East is West
Sir, – In Saturday's Irish Times, the Reuter's article 'Trump to mix golf with politics on Scottish visit', it was stated that Turnberry is on Scotland's east coast and Aberdeen on Scotland's west coast.
In fact, Turnberry is on Scotland's west coast and Aberdeen is on Scotland's east coast. – Yours, etc,
JOE KEARNEY,
Castleknock
Dublin 15.
Truth and reconciliation
Sir, – Edward M Neafsey is absolutely right in pointing out one of the key limitations that prevents many victims and survivors of the Troubles from engaging with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) to secure truth and, or justice for them, (Letters, July 23rd).
But in fairness to the ICRIR this is not the commission's fault, it is due to basic defects in the Legacy Act and implicit in its terms of reference, which the current British government is attempting to address now.
We also believe that the lack of any form of conditional amnesty for former combatants is a key factor in ensuring the full facts of many legacy cases never see the light of day and that former miscarriages of justice are not addressed.
Time to do so is rapidly slipping away, especially for the most violent years up to the end of 1976 when most people were killed or injured.
One major problem is the insistence by the authorities and by some victims groups that cases can only be addressed through the criminal justice system.
As one of the most distinguished and authoritative contributors to the debate, Tom Hadden has pointed out in the latest issue of Fortnight, 'In reality, the two objectives of truth recovery and reconciliation require very different skills and formal powers'.
The ICRIR may be salvageable as the investigatory body or one devoted the reconciliation, but it cannot be both. As currently constituted it is primarily an investigatory one, as required by the Act.
However, we believe that a narrow ground has emerged in the debate that suggests there is a path between protected disclosure and conditional amnesty that can provide for truth recovery and reconciliation through mediation as an alternative to the existing processes and procedures.
With this in mind, we are proposing to hold a conference on October 18th, at Queen's University, Belfast, at which we hope to address the realistic options for unshackling the present and the future from the perpetual legacy wars.
These include continuing access to the courts for all Troubles-related criminal and civil cases and continued
use of the ICRIR for those who seek to access its services.
We are also proposing the speedy conclusion of all outstanding public inquiries and access to a mediation process based on our conditional amnesty proposals.
In addition, we propose the establishment of a Joint British-Irish review body to monitor progress in all of these areas.
The conference should be taking place shortly after the UK Supreme Court has given its decision on the British government's appeal against the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal decisions upholding objections to the current legislation. – Yours, etc,
HARRY DONAGHY,
Northern Chair,
JOHN GREEN,
Southern Chair,
PADRAIG YEATES,
Secretary.
Portmarnock,
Dublin 13.
A good deal for religious bodies
Sir, – Liam Herrick ('I'm angry that my abuse as a child does not count – State must pay for school sexual abuse', July 28th) observes that, in relation to implementing national child protection measures, the State 'cannot outsource that responsibility to religious organisations, nor hide behind procedural defences'.
One might add: 'like it outsources education to religious organisations and hides behind procedural defences when it comes children's constitutional right not to attend religious instruction.'
What a deal religious organisations have in this country – education is outsourced to them, but funding and liability are not.
They remain with us taxpayers. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Human Rights Officer,
Education Equality,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin.
Handy tip for looking busy
Sir, – Ruby Eastwood ponders the nature of work: '
The greater part of any job is learning to look bus
y,' (July 26th).
I absolutely concur.
Walking the corridors or through an open plan office with a file under your arm seemed to work best. – Yours, etc,
MIKE MORAN,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.