Sir, – Today’s article on M50 congestion claims the solution to Dublin’s traffic is to extend the motorway into Dublin Bay (“M50 congestion can only be fixed through Government policy change, says TII,” December 3rd).
Earlier this year, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary made a similar suggestion, proposing a motorway extension from Clontarf to Blackrock.
Dublin has spent four decades trying to build its way out of traffic. It hasn’t worked. Repeating the same failed approach won’t change this.
The article avoids mentioning any societal or environmental impact where an eastern-bypass (M50 extension) would require a sea bridge or tunnel in Dublin Bay.
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The proposal would see Dublin Bay turned into a motorway corridor, where its UNESCO biosphere status exists precisely to prevent this kind of damage.
But to the supposed benefit of improving efficiency: Every major European city we admire, Paris, Vienna, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Madrid, is expanding rail, tram and rapid transit buses, because they know it is the only way to move large numbers of people efficiently in a modern city.
Dublin remains an international laggard. Just this week, Government dropped multiple ready-to-go rail projects in Dublin while allocating fresh funds to new road schemes.
That is not solving congestion; it is removing choice and locking people into their cars.
If we keep repeating old mistakes, congestion will continue to worsen. Dublin can choose to follow global best practice and give people transport options that work, or we can choose to keep sitting in our cars. – Yours, etc,
CLLR CONOR DOWLING,
Blackrock Ward,
Green Party,
Dublin.
Sir, – I was travelling on the M50 at during the morning rush hour recently and noticed every second or third vehicle was a transport truck, usually taking up the space of two to three cars.
To ease the current traffic congestion, why not restrict access to these vehicles during the rush hours of 7am to 9am and 4pm to 6pm?
Also, why not think outside the box a little bit more and run all commercial transport on the motorway during the night when it is less busy.
Judging by the length of time the MetroLink is taking, we’ll be a long time waiting for any new motorway to be built around Dublin. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN WADE,
Dublin 13.
Sir, – The short answer to the M50 problem is remote work, and public transport. The long answer involves conversations with commercial-property investors and car companies. – Yours, etc,
NICK DORAN.
Sligo.
Dysfunctional departments
Sir – It is perhaps unfair to tar the entire Department of Finance with the same brush of negativity, as Ian d’Alton and Michael Flynn do (Letters, December 3rd).
A division of the department, now located in the new Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, was indeed charged with keeping the public purse tightly shut. The Department of Finance was, however, a house with many other rooms.
Its essential function – a wholly positive one – was to shape taxation policy and otherwise raise money to fund the apparatus of the State. Public expenditure division could not authorise spending money that the State did not have.
It is worth noting that the efforts of the department to secure the tax base in the face of unrelenting pressure from special interest groups and also to borrow money for the State often in adverse circumstances were heroic. Remember too that it was the Department of Finance that produced the so-called “Grey Book” in 1958 which is credited with kick-starting the modernisation of the Irish economy. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Challenging historical record
Sir, – In his defence of Israel, Alan O’Sullivan (Letters, December 2nd) relies on a highly selective and dubious narrative which does not reflect the historical record and needs to be challenged.
First, the history of the conflict in the Middle East does not begin in 1947. For decades before the creation of Israel, Palestinian Arabs, the vast majority population, were denied self-rule under the British mandate while large-scale settlement, land purchase and political privileging of one community over another transformed the demographic and political landscape.
Palestinian opposition to the 1947 UN partition plan came after years of dispossession and after proposals that allocated the majority of the land to a minority population.
Second, the claim that Palestinians “fled at the encouragement of Arab states” has long been contradicted by Israeli, British, and international archival records.
These document expulsions, forced marches, village clearances, killings, and the systematic destruction of over 400 Palestinian towns and villages during the 1947-49 war. The scale and speed of this process cannot be explained by voluntary flight. It created one of the world’s longest-standing refugee populations.
Third, any account of peace efforts that ignores the consequences of the Oslo Accords is profoundly misleading. Rather than paving the way for a potential Palestinian state, Oslo fragmented Palestinian territory into isolated enclaves, entrenched Israeli military control, and oversaw a dramatic expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The Palestinians were left with administrative responsibility but without sovereignty, borders, or control over natural resources.
The outcome was not state-building but the consolidation of an unequal system that persists today.
Fourth, the letter cites the 2001 Camp David summit as a “generous offer”, a narrative widely rejected by diplomats, negotiators and later scholarly assessments.
The proposed Palestinian “state” would have been carved into disconnected islands surrounded by Israeli-controlled corridors, with Israel retaining control of borders, water, airspace and large settlement blocs.
East Jerusalem would not have been a sovereign Palestinian capital but a fragmented arrangement under overriding Israeli authority.
Accepting such terms would have meant institutionalising permanent dependency and the loss of meaningful sovereignty. It was not the basis for a viable state.
Fifth, Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza did not end the occupation. Israel retained control of Gaza’s airspace, maritime access, population registry, imports, exports and the movement of people.
The immediate imposition of a land, sea and air blockade, and repeated large-scale military assaults, ensured that Gaza remained under effective Israeli control. Describing this as an opportunity for state-building is preposterous.
The letter also references later “offers” such as Ehud Olmert’s 2008 proposal and initiatives during the Obama presidency. Neither altered the underlying reality: both retained major settlement blocs, Israeli control of borders and airspace, and a non-contiguous Palestinian territory.
Crucial issues, including refugees, Jerusalem, water rights and security, were left unresolved or subject to overriding Israeli authority.
These were not pathways to genuine independence but attempts to formalise an arrangement in which Palestinians would remain without full sovereignty.
Finally, the suggestion that Irish concern about Israeli policy stems from “ignorance”, “wilful indifference” or even “darker forces” is both unfounded and revealing.
It dismisses legitimate criticism by implying prejudice rather than acknowledging the extensive documentation of occupation, dispossession, settlement expansion and systematic violations of international law.
Irish solidarity with Palestinians is rooted in evidence and principle, not bigotry. Equally unfounded is the claim that such criticism is “damaging our reputation”.
If anything, the stance of many in Ireland is widely respected across the global public, particularly in regions that have themselves experienced colonialism and military domination.
Any reputational discomfort exists largely among leaders of a small number of powerful states whose unwavering diplomatic and military support enables Israel to maintain ongoing injustices against the Palestinian people. – Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS WHITE,
Stoneybatter,
Dublin 7.
Santa letter
Dear Santa, – All I want for Christmas is that people stop using the words “I am obsessed with” when they mean “I really, really like”. – Yours, etc,
SIOBHÁN NÍ CHUANAIGH,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
Ultra-processed foods and diet
Sir, – Eileen Gibney’s depiction of ultra-processed foods ( as justifiable, safety enhancing and reasonable additions to a “balanced” diet contrasts with the reality that they are artificial, unrecognisable transformations of cheap ingredients into hyper-palatable edible “food-like” substances which are undeniably making people sick (“Is processed food bad for you?,” November 25th).
To conflate the important food processing that means we are spared “eating raw wheat in a field” with the ultra-processing that goes into soft drinks, snacks and kids’ chocolate breakfast cereals is distracting and misleading.
These UPFs are needed by no one and harmful to everyone. As a point of order, the Lancet series was about the harms of ultra-processed foods, not processed foods.
No one is suggesting that freezing peas is a bad idea.
Outside of the boardrooms of multinational food corporations, the view that “existing dietary guidelines provide adequate advice” is becoming ultra-problematic. – Yours, etc,
NORAH CAMPBELL,
Trinity College Dublin,
FRANCIS FINUCANE,
University of Galway.
Carrot topped?
Sir, – I was relieved and bemused to see that Kevin the Carrot is not dead, but alive and well and about to get married.
Maybe I’m mistaken but I seem to recall in last year’s advertisement that he nobly sacrificed himself by voluntarily jumping into a casserole. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES DALY,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Refreshing RTÉ
Sir, – Hugh Linehan’s review and critique of RTÉ’s Morning Ireland was a fair look at the jaded format that continues to be Ireland’s flagship news programme ( “RTÉ’s Morning Ireland needs a refresh,” December 2nd). It could also be said to be a fair assessment of a wider malaise that seems to ooze like turgid dishwater from so much of RTÉ’s schedule.
The effect of RTÉ’s stubborn refusal to revolutionise Irish radio is little more than that of midwife for the decline in content and variation in our national broadcaster’s increasingly pointless schedule.
The problem remains that despite the latest rearranging of the weekday Newstalk-chasing schedule, what we are left with remains an inviable format that is 50 years old. From Gay Byrne/ Oliver Callan/ Brendan Courtney, the more elderly shows – to the baby of programmes, Liveline, which clocks in at 40 years of age – and David McCullagh, whose show it must be said has produced an improvement on Claire Byrne, but the origin of which is heading for its 50th birthday also.
The same three programmes every weekday, 51 weeks of the year, for 40 or 50 years.
Think about it. Such lack of ambition deserves to be punished by an increasingly disinterested listenership, whose numbers continue to decline in an age of internet radio, with access to all of the best radio stations that the world has to offer – right there in the palm of our hands, and that’s before we swipe on to podcasts, YouTube, Spotify and Netflix.
Home grown variations in daily, targeted, and dedicated programming appears to be the only responsible way forward.
These should include drama, science, history, consumer issues, the arts, politics; the list may well be endless.
Unfortunately, the timeline in which the future of public broadcasting can be rescued is not. – Yours, etc,
PHILIP CONNOLLY,
New Ross,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – Mike Moran (Letters, December 3rd) agrees with Hugh Linehan’s assertion that RTÉs Morning Ireland may need a “refresh”. I’m not sure.
Drivetime has just had exactly that, yet last Thursday (November 27th) I had to check the time, when Drivetime opened with the Irish women’s under-19 team having to sing the national anthem when God save the King was played in lieu.
However, when the presenter suggested listeners contact the programme with anthems, national anthems, soccer, rugby and other theme songs “that meant something to you”, I thought a lifestyle programme had been, like God Save the King, inserted in error.
That’s a “refresh” of sorts. – Yours, etc,
PETER DECLAN O’HALLORAN,
Belturbet,
Co Cavan.
Pyrite problems
Sir, – I read with concern the article which included the statement “Donegal is one of the counties worst affected by the defective concrete block scandal, where homes built with blocks made of pyrite or mica have cracked, crumbled and disintegrated while families live inside’’, (“More than 1,000 social homes in Donegal visibly cracked due to defective blocks,” November 26th).
I believe that this statement may give readers the impression that mica is a cause of defective blocks. Research has shown that this is not the case.
Recently published research at EMPA Switzerland and Ulster University demonstrated that oxidizing pyrrhotite present in phyllite aggregates leading to Internal Sulfate Attack (ISA) is the actual mechanism responsible for damage to concrete blocks.
Their research demonstrated that mica is not the cause of deterioration in concrete blocks.
Incorrectly naming mica as the cause of defective blocks has far-reaching and serious consequences. Imagine the distress caused to homeowners in Donegal and elsewhere whose properties are completely structurally sound, but contain mica?
At present, these properties cannot be bought or sold because of the incorrect perception among potential buyers and other stakeholders that mica is the cause of defective blocks.
Misinformation regarding “mica” prolongs the current impediment to the conveyancing of many perfectly sound properties.
Furthermore, owners of such houses are (wrongly) unable to switch mortgage for a better rate or sell for a mortgage backed price, leading to acute financial stress and difficulty in many instances.
In an era of acute housing shortage, this issue needs to be urgently addressed. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McCLELLAND,
SEAN McCABE,
SÉAMUS DEVENNEY,
PATRICK SHARKEY,
Members of Banking and
Insurance Defective Blocks
Focus Group,
Co Donegal.
