Sir, – Dublin is now the 11th most-congested city in the world. This is a damning indictment of decades of car-centric policies. This is not an accident. Our policies have led us here.
In fact, Dublin is described as one of the “big movers” in 2025, having risen four places from 15th in the global congestion rankings. “Big movers.” The irony is not lost on us.
On the other side of the country, Galway, a tiny city on a global scale, is the 71st most-congested city in the world.
We often talk about the economic or personal costs of congestion. These should, of course, not be ignored, but we rarely talk about the enormous negative health impacts.
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Air pollution, stress, and sedentary habits that private car use fosters all increase our risk of cardiac, respiratory and chronic illness, as well as cancer.
A recent Climate and Health Alliance report, The Magic Pill, found that most people in Ireland lack safe places to be physically active.
This is not a personal failure, but a planning one. We have consistently failed to design places where people can walk and cycle, supporting healthier lifestyles while cutting transport emissions.
As we move into 2026, we need to see an emergency-type response to address congestion and the negative health impacts.
The previous government commitments of a 2:1 investment ratio in public transport over private cars must immediately be restored and, ideally, increased.
Reversing this shift and prioritising public and active transport must be an immediate focus. The time of the private car must end in 2025. Public transport projects must be fast-tracked, and we also urge the Government to roll out fast-to-build, world-class active transport infrastructure across Ireland’s urban centres, similar to what other cities around the world delivered during Covid-19.
Our congestion is a threat to public health and should be treated as such. – Yours, etc,
DR OLA LØKKEN NORDRUM,
ORLAGH GAYNOR,
DR SEAN OWENS
Irish Doctors for the Environment
Climate and Health Alliance,
Dublin.
Sir, – Your editorial about Dublin’s worsening congestion rightly highlights the limits of our road network and the need for better public transport (“Dublin remains stuck in a jam”, December 23rd).
However, it frames congestion largely as a problem of delay to motorists, rather than as a symptom of a system that still makes car use the default for too many journeys.
International evidence shows that congestion cannot be solved by accommodating rising traffic volumes alone. Progress has been made by cities that have combined reliable public transport with political decisions to reduce car dependency, including road-space reallocation, pricing of car use, robust support for walking and cycling, and sustained investment in behaviour change programmes such as workplace travel planning, car-sharing schemes, e-bike networks and demand-responsive minibuses.
By focusing on hours lost in traffic, your editorial ignores the wider costs of car-dominated transport: worse air quality, increased emissions, road danger and decreased quality of life, especially for those without access to a car.
The growth of Dublin needs to be matched by far greater ambition in scale and quality of our public transport system. Currently, we have some of the lowest number of bus, tram and metro routes of any EU capital city.
And our investment in public transport must be matched by political leadership that actively enables people to drive less, and prioritises all the users of our public spaces, not just motorists.
The challenge facing Dublin is not just to move the cars more efficiently, but to create a city where sustainable travel is easiest and the most normal choice. – Yours, etc,
HANS ZOMER,
Chief Executive,
Global Action Plan,
Dublin.
Sir, – Your leader today (December 23rd), and journalist Olivia Kelly, focus on traffic congestion in some detail, but neither offer relief options for the immediate term.
This city, and all other large conurbations, were not designed for the thousands of private cars streaming in and out daily, and no permutations of one ways, time metered parking, tolls, or even congestion charges will solve this physical limitation.
The only effective solution is to stop on street parking, 24/7, everywhere.
People needing to use private cars will require off street parking when the car is not in use. Promote taxi sharing, expanded public and private bus services especially EV vehicles, with drop off pickup facilities. All goods retailers already have delivery options. Employers be encouraged to provide travel cards, tax free.
Restore the road spaces for travel and access, not for the storage of private property.
This will solve the congestion issue without more taxes, signage, and reduce noise and exhaust pollution, car related crime and accidents.
Like the tobacco and plastic bag measures, this is an immediately achievable solution, that would be the norm very quickly.
Just like losing a tooth, we will get over it. – Yours, etc,
WILLIAM KELLY,
Dublin 5.
Electronic tagging
Sir, – The timely article on the decision to contract a private company to electronically tag and monitor prisoners highlights a worrying initiative by the Department of Justice (“Prisoner electronic tagging first part of criminal justice system to be privatised,” December 22nd).
Moreover, the decision to electronically tag prisoners as an alternative to imprisonment marks a new departure in the Irish penal system.
Prison is the ultimate sanction so, in principle, a sanction that avoids imprisonment has merits.
Tagging of prisoners is not new in other jurisdictions, but has received a mixed response where it operates.
In Ireland, there has been no public or political discussion on the merits or parameters of the decision by the Department of Justice.
The very decision to pilot the new system through a private company is in itself a significant and unusual departure as the entire criminal justice system to date has operated exclusively in the public domain.
The Garda Síochána, the Courts Service, the Probation Service and the prison system constitute the central structures of the criminal justice system in Ireland.
To add a new and private system to the equation can only increase the bureaucracy, complexity, and confusion. Moreover, it would lack the ethical and human rights standards that are required by law to permeate these public systems at present.
The reason for the introduction of the electronic tagging scheme is due to the gross overcrowding in all the prisons at present.
Unfortunately, it is not due in any part to a coherent approach to prison reform.
This month we have seen the introduction of Tasers, which are classified as firearms, on a pilot basis for frontline gardaí without any debate in the Oireachtas, although their introduction is the most serious single initiative for the Garda since the decision to create an unarmed police force in 1922.
In the same vein, the decision to tag and monitor prisoners electronically by means of a private company warrants a Cabinet decision and a full debate in the Dáil and Seanad. – Yours, etc,
JOE COSTELLO,
Dublin 7.
Celibacy and Catholic Church
Sir, – I fully support William Reville’s letter (December 23rd) calling for the abolition of compulsory celibacy as a condition for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church.
It wouldn’t solve all the problems facing this beleaguered institution, but it would inject some badly needed new life and energy into it.
In the absence of any hope of a move towards women’s equality, this step would, albeit indirectly, introduce some female presence and influence into ministry.
There is little sign of the Vatican making a move on this, or indeed on anything else to do with ministry. They seem to be incapable of moving on anything that does not get support from the whole Church, and that means that all decisions are made by the most traditional and reactionary units in the Church.
The only way forward that I can see is for individual units to begin to take independent action.
It would be wonderful if the leadership of the Irish Church began to move on this, by first inviting those men who left the priesthood due to the celibacy rule, and who are willing, to come back into ministry.
There is no doubt that would be widely welcomed in the Irish Church as a whole. Then it would need to be followed by the ordination of married men.
It would be important for the Irish Church not to ask permission from the Vatican for this action, but to politely inform them.
What exactly could they do to us? And it would set a great headline for other units within the Church. – Yours, etc,
TONY FLANNERY,
Newport,
Co Tipperary.
Sir, – William Reville’s point with regard to the rule of celibacy as a considerable factor in the decline of ordinations in the Catholic Church is well made.
But there is also the issue of how the Catholic Church mournfully and frighteningly presents itself to young people in our modern world.
I recall bringing our four-year-old grandson into a church for the first time. His first response was to ask his grandmother why the pictures and people (statues) were all really sad in Holy God’s house.
Two years later, then in senior infants and learning about the true story of Christmas, he was really saddened that despite all the joy of Christmas, that a whole lot of ‘little babies were killed soon after baby Jesus was born’.
And so is sown the perception of a melancholy that might best be avoided.
Yours etc,
MICHAEL
GANNON,
Kilkenny.
Trump and the world
Sir, – Earlier this month, US president Donald Trump launched the US national security strategy (NSS) to much fanfare.
As reported, the most alarming item was the overt targeting of the EU as an entity to be destabilised, framing it, without any sense of irony, as a body that undermines national sovereignty and political liberty.
The EU is in the crosshairs and it didn’t take long for the first shot across its bow.
Mr Trump announced the appointment of Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland (“Trump names special envoy for Greenland,” December 22nd).
Responding, Mr Landy stated it was an honour to take up the role “to make Greenland part of the US”.
This immediately triggered a flurry of nervous reactions from Europe on the importance of respecting the sovereignty of borders.
In the year since his victory Mr Trump has completely undermined the concept of a rules-based international order, instead unleashing a chaotic foreign policy and economic agenda. He has strangled any dissent in the US through his control of an impotent Congress and a craven supreme court.
He has also, through his appointed lackeys, started dictating the editorial decisions of US news media as evidenced in the postponement of the potentially hard hitting CBS 60 Minutes documentary on his deportation regime.
With every passing week the premise of the US being “the world’s greatest democracy” becomes more untenable and the impact on global stability more worrying. The mid-term elections of 2026 feel a long way off from here. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.
Sir, – I note President Trump, having incorporated the Gulf of Mexico and Venezuela’s oil into his portfolio, now throws a friendly arm around Greenland’s resources: while announcing a new category of US gunboat is to be designated “Trump Class”.
Modesty, thy name is Donald.
It can only be a matter of weeks before he awards Alfred Nobel a posthumous Trump Peace Prize for his invention of dynamite. – Yours, etc,
DAMIEN FLINTER,
Headford,
Co Galway.
Strength and numbers
Sir, – Pat O’Reilly (Letters, December 22nd) correctly points out that the EU is economically and demographically larger than Russia, and calls for building a strong “defence” (ie military).
Given that the military spending of the EU is already three times that of Russia (almost four times if you add in UK and Norway), you must wonder by how much do we have to outspend Russia to be considered “strong” enough? – Yours, etc,
JONIVAR SKULLERUD,
Sandymount,
Dublin.
From the river to the sea
Sir, –Dr Karnie Roden (Letters, December 22nd) suggests that the slogan “From the river to the sea”, in the context of the debate about Palestine, indicates a desire for “the destruction of Israel and the Jews who live there”.
The slogan of course refers to the whole of historic Palestine. But it can mean different things to different people and is not necessarily an anti-Jewish slogan.
No doubt, there are those who wish it to signify an Islamic republic of Palestine. But it also refers for others to a united, democratic and secular republic wherein the seven million Jews and seven million Arabs can live together on the basis of freely practising their religions, or none, as they see fit.
One should also be aware that an equivalent slogan envisages an enlarged Jewish state without Arabs.
This is evident, among other statements, in the declaration by the Likud party in its 1977 manifesto that “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” – Yours, etc,
DALTÚN Ó CEALLAIGH,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
A close call at Christmas
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole’s article stirred a few Christmas ghosts of my own (“We are a people hopelessly in love with long distance,” December 23rd).
As a youngster in the 1970s, I had a second job at night in the pub trade, one of them in the Dame Tavern on Dame Court.
Across the road was the Post & Telegraphs (P&T) international telephone exchange, running 24 hours a day on shift work. Like myself, some of the operators were double-jobbing, and if memory serves there were even a few teachers on the night shift.
The night workers would regularly drop into the Dame Tavern during their breaks, and on Christmas Eve in particular a certain seasonal generosity prevailed.
A few lucky souls would be discreetly smuggled back into the exchange to make a free long-distance call, a small Christmas indulgence of its time.
WhatsApp has certainly changed the world, though it has removed the need for such small acts of Christmas generosity. – Yours, etc,
DAVID CASSIDY,
Griffith Avenue,
Dublin 9.
Sir, – While Christmas comes but once a year, it tends to hang around for quite a period. Bring on Twelfth Night. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dublin.
