Letters to the Editor, May 31st: On President D Higgins, housing czars and Air Corps funding

Sir, – I have just read the report on the crisis in Air traffic Control, Baldonnell, which will ultimately reduce the Air Corps flying hours to a five day, daytime only operation. (
'Irish military flight operations to move to part-time and may soon cease at Air Corps base
.' May 29th).
I joined the Air Corps in 1975 as an apprentice. At that time a hugely competent SAR operation covered the whole of the Republic with the Allouette 111 helicopter.
The cracks began to show over the years with successive governments refusing to grasp the nettle of retention of Air Corps personnel at all levels in the force due to the high levels of training they received, which made them very marketable in the aviation world in particular.
Politicians took the easy way out and contracted out SAR operations to a civilian contractor. The last contract was signed with Bristow Helicopters in 2013 and was valid until 2023 with an option of a further three years.
READ MORE
The annual cost of this contract was €50 million a year or €500 million over the 10 years. In May 2023 a new contract was signed to the value of €670 million.
The new model of helicopter providing this service is the Leonardo AW189 which has a purchase price of approximately €15 million.
In the meantime, a fully capable Air Corps is left twiddling its thumbs while the service disintegrates around them. This also affects the Garda Air support wing which operates out of Baldonnell.
Around ¤670 million would sort out every problem that exists today. Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Simon Harris announced that the government has plans to form a fighter wing in the future. Will this wing be limited to daytime operations?
Meanwhile, every drug smuggling operation will be able to operate under cover of darkness or weekends due to the disgraceful neglect by successive governments –Yours, etc,
PATRICK KEATING.
Co Dublin.
Israel and President Higgins
Sir, – President Michael D Higgins spoke the unvarnished truth at Bloom when he condemned Israeli prime minister Netanyahu's slander of Ireland – its people and its President ('
Branding those opposed to Netanyahu policies as anti-Semitic is 'slander',
says Michael D Higgins, May 29th).
Netanyahu's repeated use of smear tactics against those who criticise his government's actions in Gaza is a transparent attempt to deflect attention from what the majority view as a calculated and ongoing campaign of genocide – deliberate and intentional.
History has shown that aggressors often distort narratives to cast themselves as the aggrieved – a timeworn strategy that does not fool the people of Ireland or its political representatives.
President Higgins has devoted his life to standing against injustice, consistently speaking out with moral courage when others remain silent. His intellect, integrity, and unwavering advocacy for the oppressed are needed now more than ever.
Please continue, President Higgins. Though you need no encouragement from me, your voice matters. – Yours, etc,
ENDA KILGALLEN,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – The President, Michael D Higgins, has said that the General Assembly must speak and act if the Security Council refuses to deal with the prospect of a terrible famine in Gaza.
He has referenced special powers that the UN General Assembly can use to get food and aid to the people in Gaza
Prof Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, has also called for the UN Assembly to act. He has highlighted the 'Uniting for Peace' provision whereby the UN General Assembly could pass a resolution calling for UN peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys and deliver the necessary aid into Gaza.
This 'Uniting for Peace' provision can be used when the UN Security Council fails to act to maintain international peace and security.
He has pointed to Ireland's unique record on the issues of peacekeeping and famine, and how Ireland could lead the way and propose a resolution at the UN General Assembly to initiate the 'Uniting for Peace' Provision for UN intervention to prevent starvation of the people in Gaza.
It just so happens that peace broke out momentarily in the Dáil this week when a Labour Party motion that aimed to mandate the Government to initiate the 'Uniting for Peace' provision at the UN General Assembly was accepted by the Government and adopted unanimously by the Dáil.
The Tánaiste, Simon Harris, said that the Government would not just not oppose the motion, but would work constructively with the Labour Party and the Dáil to see how it could be advanced. Such unity of purpose in the Dáil does not make for news headlines but it was a significant moment.
Ireland has a collective memory of famine and its long-lasting impact on a nation. The Government should take up the baton it has been passed by the Dáil to get the UN General Assembly to act to prevent famine in Gaza. – Yours, etc,
CLLR JOANNA TUFFY,
Labour Party,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.
Getting serious on climate change
Sir, – Larry Dunne's letter (May 30th) refers: he suggests that it is time for the 'environmental lobby' to 'get real' about the need to build houses and infrastructure and apparently, that we continue our lifestyles as if there is no climate emergency to deal with – or, that Ireland is so small that any emissions emanating from this island are so minuscule as to have no significance.
But 'getting real' surely means facing the reality of what inaction will do, to the homes that we are building, to food security and to the habitability of large parts of the planet.
Yes, building homes is essential. So is farming, transport and industry. But none of this absolves us from the need to plan and act responsibly to reduce emissions. Sensible people are not calling for retreat, they are calling for sustainability, innovation and foresight. They are calling for government policy and action that is not influenced by lobbies, but led by our politicians with a serious eye on long term planetary interests.
To take but one example: David Attenborough observes in his book 'A life on our Planet' that more than 60 per cent of habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture, mostly for grazing livestock or growing their feed – chiefly beef production.
Yet, beef provides only a small share of the world's calories and is consumed regularly by only a minority of the global population.
This is an enormous inefficiency – and one with a devastating environmental cost.
If we are serious about climate targets we need land use reform –including support for farmers to shift to lower emission practices, rewilding of marginal land and restoration of degraded peatlands – these changes are not optional, they are part of a liveable future.
Fines for non-compliance are the least of it. The real cost is ecological breakdown, irreversible warming and a world increasingly subject to drought, fire, displacement and loss.
What's unrealistic is to keep pretending we can find our way out of this emergency without systemic change. – Yours,etc,
PAUL O'SHEA,
Dublin 18.
Food for thought
Sir, – I write to protest most strongly – with a mixture of righteous indignation and a whiff of despair at the inclusion in today's Irish Times of that diabolically tempting Summer Food & Drink Magazine.
You see, I had made a solemn and noble promise – both to my wife and to myself – that a long-postponed diet would commence this Saturday.
We had planned it like a military operation: fridge purged of all sins, cupboards stocked with kale and quinoa, jogging shoes lined up at the door like obedient soldiers.
And then – wham! Your mouth-watering recipes and sunlit spreads of Pavlova, Chocolate Fudge Cake, and cocktails with little umbrellas, ambushed me like an elite food squad. My willpower, already fragile, was no match for your glossy pages of culinary seduction.
As a result, I have been forced, with the reluctance of a man dragged back into battle, to postpone my diet yet again – this time to a date I promise I'll keep, next summer without fail. – Yours,etc,
GEOFF SCARGILL,
Co Wicklow.
Czar role
Sir, – With the statement from the Department of Housing as reported by Hugh Dooley and Cormac McQuinn, ('
Housing czar not needed says top civil servant'
, May 30th), that their secretary general, Graham Doyle, was objecting to the term ' tsar ' rather than to the role of the Government's new Housing Activation Office', it looks very much as if Mr Doyle is saying something quite different.
What he appears to be objecting to is not the term ' tsar ' but the unnecessary duplication of yet another entity within the Department, a 'Housing Activation Office' when we already have a Department charged with this exact remit. And as Doyle quaintly puts it, the role is 'to remove obstacles to construction efforts.'
Reading the comments from the Department spokesman I'm not sure the public is likely to be taken in.
The political question is now whether the explanation from the spokesman is to be taken as a reprimand to the secretary general ?
Watch this space but please don't hold your breath if as a young person you're still looking for a house or an apartment ! – Yours, etc,
ALASTAIR CONAN,
Coulsdon,
England.
The principle of principals
Sir , – Mike Bottery, the educationalist, stated that 'teachers are the capital of learning organisations'. No one knows this more than school principals who live the recruitment crisis every day. Sean Keavney is not wrong about the crisis in teacher recruitment (Letters, May 28th) but seems to consider this is in opposition to John McHugh's opinion piece ('It is a great honour to be school principal – but the role is no longer sustainable', Education, May 26th).
Over the past number of years principals and many others have been relentlessly drawing attention to the teacher recruitment crisis.
As principals, we apply for additional allocations, try to create attractive job advertisements and continuously timetable and re-timetable to try to ensure that qualified teachers stand in our classrooms.
We are held accountable to the inspectorate and to our school community when there are no teachers to fill vacancies for advertised positions that go unanswered.
We are asked to fill in endless surveys on the lack of interest in vacancies, which derive no tangible help.
The lack of support for principals and deputy principals does mean that the job is becoming unsustainable. If we don't speak up for
Principals, teachers and schools may not get the leaders they deserve and they do deserve the best. – Yours, etc,
DR EDEL GREENE,
Principal,
St. Mary's Secondary School,
Dublin 13.
Dart attack
Sir, Another busy bank holiday ahead – Women's Mini-marathon, Aviva rugby match, concerts in St Anne's Park Raheny, to name a few events and no Dart service from Bray to Connolly! – Yours, etc
Ingrid Browne,
Sandymount,
Dublin.
Arts Council reforms
Sir, – Your front page report on the Arts Council (
(
'Minister refused to give Arts Council chief a second term'
,
May 30th) quotes the director, Maureen Kennelly, as saying that she was disappointed at not being offered a second contract and that 'there were a number of reforms that I brought in'.
Clearly, these ' reforms' did not extend to governance controls in relation to capital projects and the potential risk to taxpayers' money. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN MC DONALD,
Dublin 12.
Tomb with a view
Sir, – Justine McCarthy writes ('
Overgrown tomb is a metaphor for our attitude to women,'
May 30th) of Mary O'Connell being left to 'the vagaries of Atlantic storms' buried on Abbey Island, as if this is something to regret.
Given a choice of being interred in Glasnevin or the most beautiful graveyard on the planet, I know which I would choose.
Mrs O'Connell got the better end of this eternal bargain. – Yours, etc,
DR DAVID VAUGHAN,
Meath.
Beavers and Donnybrook
Sir, – Frank McNally's
Irishman's Diary (May 30th)
provides interesting snippets on the possibility that beavers may have been native to Ireland.
My sometime acquaintance, AI, discounts that there was any reliable evidence of beavers existing in Ireland in the post-glacial period.
The intriguingly named Beaver Row in Donnybrook, Dublin, was due to earlier – Wright Brothers setting up a beaver industry on the Dodder, in response to a huge demand for beaver felt hats in the 18th/19th centuries. The pelts used were said to have been imported from America or Continental Europe.
A terrace of 20 cottages was built for the hat makers, 16 of which exist to this day.
Perhaps the sturdy felt hats could be made here once again, as part of a revival of the ancient Donnybrook Fair, where clashing D4 heads could be protected during the course of inevitable robust confrontations. - Yours etc,
PATRICK JUDGE,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
A marriage of convenience
Sir, –Áine Kenny's article (
'Women keep changing their surnames to match their husbands'. Why are we normalising this symbolic control?',
May 28th) brought to the fore the overt yet plainly visible way that the patriarchy renders women invisible, and, symbolically, her children no longer hers.
I believe that the practice originated to facilitate, with ease, male succession rights through the male line.
This facilitated the transfer of property, money, land, and power through the male line for male benefit.
Women who surrender their name on marriage symbolically perpetuates men's societal legacy, and it shows how embedded gender expectations are in our consciousness.
Male privilege and access to power is built on their legacy of discrimination against and exploitation of women and children. – Yours, etc,
YVONNE PATTERSON,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.
Sir, – In the late 1980s, the registrar of births in the maternity hospital where my first child was born, told me that in order to give the baby my surname with my husband's I needed to add it to the child's forenames.
It would then in time become legal through 'custom and practice.'
Mervyn Taylor, former Labour minister for equality and law reform in the mid -1990s began the process of allowing a child to legally bear the surnames of both parents .
This began the process of breaking the patriarchal tradition of only allowing the child bear the father's name. – Yours, etc,
CARMEL WHITE,
Castleknock.
Dublin.
Sir, – I met an American lady one time who had solved the problem of which male surname she should use. She used neither.
She took her mother's given name as her second name thus becoming known as something like 'Lois Kirsty'. (Not the lady's real name) – Yours , etc,
P. N. CORISH,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.

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

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. 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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.