A chara, – President Donald Trump’s new tariff regime is more performance than policy – an audacious gamble that now resembles a house of cards.
Every assumption underpinning it – consumer endurance, corporate agility, diplomatic restraint, market confidence – is both fragile and interdependent. If even one falters, the structure risks collapse.
American households are absorbing price hikes on food, fuel, and essentials. Firms aren’t reshoring; they’re pausing exports and idling plants. Allies are not folding; China has retaliated; Europe is preparing its own countermeasures, and others are redrawing trade ties without the US.
Yet despite the fragility of these conditions, President Trump remains defiantly bullish. This signals either a calculated spectacle –performance politics engineered to overwhelm opposition – or a profound misreading of the systemic forces now mobilising in response. Either way, the White House is not recalibrating; it is doubling down. In chasing leverage, it risks forfeiting leadership.
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Financial markets have shed trillions. Fed rate cuts may now be off the table. Congressional support is splintering. And, as Ireland knows well, what jolts Wall Street today ripples through Dublin’s economy tomorrow.
Still, an exit remains possible. If Mr Trump seeks recalibration without retreat, the world must offer him an off-ramp that looks like victory. Europe’s offer to eliminate car tariffs is one such gesture – symbolic enough to save face, substantive enough to de-escalate.
The alternative is a collapse not just of confidence, but of credibility.
Ireland has a unique interest in the outcome. With deep transatlantic ties and a front-row seat to Europe’s response, we must advocate for stability, not spectacle. This began as economic brinkmanship. It now teeters on systemic fracture. – Is mise,
MÍCHEÁL Ó SÍOCHÁIN,
Los Angeles,
California.
Sir – When will Elon Musk’s DOGE be disbanding Congress? It would appear to be surplus to requirements in the current climate. And think of the savings! – Yours, etc,
ANNE M O’CONNOR,
Ashbourne,
Co Meath.
Spinal surgery implants
Sir, –The growing scandal over the use of unapproved implantable springs in spinal surgery at Temple Street Children’s Hospital once again highlights the non-existent level of oversight of permanent health service management in Ireland. Doctors and nurses face public fitness to practise hearings for failings yet zero independent oversight exists to deal with management failings.
Given this, it is disappointing that a number of Government politicians have moved quickly to shut down talk of a public inquiry. Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were previously ministers for health and as such they must both be fully aware of the discriminatory two-tier system of oversight that exists for dealing with failings in the Irish health service.
Perhaps, therefore, before shutting down talk of a public inquiry they might outline what other means there are for dealing with management failings in the Irish health services ? The parents of the children affected as well as frontline staff (who are always at risk of a public fitness to practise hearings) are entitled to an explanation of the alternative. Complaining about the cost of public inquiries while doing nothing for years to set up a functioning alternative is not a credible position.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill now needs to do what successive previous health ministers have consistently failed to do: introduce a proper system for oversight and accountability to deal with management failings.
The current situation whereby permanent health service managers are moved to alternative roles or even promoted for failings while a doctor or nurse can lose their licence to practise for their failings needs to end. – Yours, etc,
RUARY MARTIN,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – Taoiseach Michéal Martin, said in the Dáil that “The consultant concerned did use springs that were not CE marked. And that’s the fundamental issue here” and “you do not use unauthorised devices on any child, that is at the heart of it” (“Taoiseach says use of unauthorised springs ‘beyond comprehension’”, News, April 8th).
However, the Medical Device Regulations (MDR, Article 2, section 3 of The European Regulation 2017/745), specifically describes that that a custom-made device “means any device specifically made in accordance with a written prescription of any person authorised by national law by virtue of that person’s professional qualifications which gives, under that person’s responsibility, specific design characteristics, and is intended for the sole use of a particular patient exclusively to meet their individual conditions and needs”.
Such custom-made devices are never CE marked and are not “authorised” by a competent authority with responsibility for medical devices, such as the Health Products Regulatory Agency (HPRA) here in Ireland, as would be the case for mass-produced medical devices.
Custom-made devices must satisfy a number of conditions including safety and performance characteristics, as detailed in Annex XIII of the MDR. However, custom-made devices are distinct from medical device research, or clinical investigations designed to test the safety and performance of a medical device that is in development. Therefore, while custom-made devices are by definition non-CE marked, non-authorised, and not designed for clinical investigation or medical research, they are permitted by the EU-wide medical device regulations. –Yours etc,
NIAMH NOWLAN,
Full Professor of Biomedical Engineering,
University College Dublin,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – The spinal surgery report points to striking failures, which is that familiar conclusion found in many reports down through the years into failings in our health system. The Taoiseach described what happened in the hospital in relation to an unapproved metal spring implant as “fundamentally wrong” and “beyond comprehension”.
But what is truly fundamentally wrong is that children in pain, requiring surgery, are forced to wait an intolerable and prolonged time. Let further reports and public inquiries stand aside and wait until these precious children received the surgeries they urgently need now. –Yours, etc,
AIDAN RODDY,
Dublin 18.
Mother and baby homes redress
Sir, – Your story on a religious contribution to redress for former residents of mother and baby institutions reports the Church of Ireland’s denial of involvement in three Protestant institutions (“Minister calls on churches to ‘do the right thing’ on redress”, News, April 8th).
In my case, Church of Ireland Social Services, which reported to annual synod, was at my mother’s bedside in 1964. She was not allowed to leave her hospital maternity ward before agreeing to send me to either the Bethany Home or Westbank Orphanage. As my mother refused point blank to consider the Bethany Home, I went to Westbank. I first consciously met her when I was eight years old.
In this way Church of Ireland Social Services and clergy facilitated the movement of mothers and children in and out of mother and baby and other institutions in the Republic and Northern Ireland. It was no different from the Catholic Church and should take equal responsibility for all the hurt, distress and abuse that took place.
The Church of Ireland’s only legitimate gripe is in being singled out among Protestant denominations. What about the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, as well as evangelical assemblies? They also separated mothers from their families and communities, as well as from their children.
I have not been invited to submit my experience to any investigation.
Former Westbank Orphanage residents are excluded from official inquiries and redress. That is despite the Mother & Baby Home Commission of Inquiry twice recommending to the Irish government that this injustice be rectified. –Yours etc,
SIDNEY HERDMAN,
Co Armagh.
Access to healthcare in EU
Sir, – Dr Maria Moy (Letters, April 7th) takes issue with “thousands of patients on public waiting lists (that) receive correspondence regarding referral to private hospitals in other jurisdictions to access treatments, funded by the State”.
The Cross Border Directive of the EU helps the people of Ireland access top-quality medical care across the EU in a timely fashion and avoid the misery of having to endure waiting lists. It also saves the State a lot of money into the bargain. It seems to me that the money spent by the HSE on “postage stamps” advising people of their right to access this facility is money very well spent. –Yours, etc,
BOBBY LAMBERT,
Crossabeg,
Co Wexford.
Disabilities and employment
Sir, – Regarding the very concise outlining of problems facing disabled people in Ireland entering the workplace article by Dr Eamonn Carroll and Prof Selina McCoy (“School-leavers with disabilities have lots to offer – we must do more to support them”, Education, April 7th), while the needs of school-leavers with disabilities may be complex, one of the solutions may not be complicated, and could provide a solution to an ongoing recruitments crisis for employers, public and private, as it might for those with special needs seeking employment.
If government departments and local authorities offered part-time, rather than almost exclusively full-time positions, those in receipt of a disability allowance could experiment with entering the workforce, without losing their disability allowance.
Sometimes it is not the job itself that someone with additional needs to be adapted, they are not just not able to do the work for 37 hours a week. As it can take years to get the allowance back if the job doesn’t work out, is it currently worth the risk?
Employers, including the Civil Service and local authorities, are also completely missing another available cohort of exceptional potential candidates by only offering full-time positions, ie carers. They are also allowed work enough hours for a part-time position without losing their carers’ allowance. Literally thousands of carers, many filling in gaps created due to the lack of home-help, care staff, residential care home facilities, could offer their often considerable professional work experience and qualifications, on a job-sharing or part-time basis, to an employer, and are far more likely to reward an employer with long and loyal service for providing them with 15 to 19 hours of work, than a newly qualified young person looking to progress their career as rapidly as possible.
If the Government is really serious about looking after the most vulnerable in society, and the people who look after them on its behalf, then in the category of “could do better”, perhaps they should look at their own recruitment policies and procedures first. – Yours, etc,
TERENCE COLM McQUINN,
Kildalkey,
Co Meath.
Reaching a tipping point
Sir, – Ed O’Neill (Letters, April 8th) is taken aback at being faced, in a Grafton Street café, with a screen suggesting tips and offering options of 12.5 per cent, 15 per cent or 20 per cent.
He should try New York where you are likely to be presented with options of 15 per cent, 20 per cent, 25 per cent and 30 per cent
And that is just in the grocery store. –Yours, etc,
FRANK E BANNISTER,
Dublin 4.
Fox news
Sir,– Regarding the sad demise of Sam the Trinity fox (News, April 9th), I once saw the vulpine creature on one of his nocturnal prowls stop briefly outside a spot on Dublin’s South Frederick Street, just moments away from Trinity College.
This was the very place where the once-celebrated Renards nightclub used to be. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Thurible trouble
Sir, –Your correspondent John Kelly is correct – the person who swings the thurible, usually an altar boy, is called a thurifer (Letters, April 9th).
I fondly remember, as an altar boy, lighting the block of incense, getting it to glow, and then swinging the thurible enthusiastically from side to side to maximise the smoke created.
When the priest had his back turned there was the excitement of closing the lid of the thurible and swinging it in a full circle, with the potential risk of sending the burning incense flying all over the church and the congregation. Fortunately that never happened, but the trick impressed my fellow altar boys greatly. – Yours, etc,
FINBAR KEARNS,
Piercestown,
Co Wexford.
