Madam, - I read the headline "objectors robbing taxpayers" (The Irish Times, July 1st) regarding the opening of the final section of the M50 by Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, and decided that if Oscars are ever awarded for brass neck he'll sweep the board.
After a quiet period since his tenuous political survival earlier this year after the Monica Leech PR contract saga, it appears this verbose, grandiloquent little man has returned to form. The delay in delivering the motorway is apparently all down to selfish, unreasonable, tree-hugging types determined to stand in the way of "progress" and nothing to do with questionable planning and government decisions.
This is the same man whose Government colleagues wasted millions on white elephants such as the "Bertie Bowl", a leaky and creaky aquatic centre, nursing home charges, the ill-conceived free medical card scheme for over-70s, etc, and who personally flushed €50 million down the pan despite all the advice to the contrary. Cullen would, no doubt, claim this was all just "democracy". Not since the various ministries of Pádraig Flynn have we witnessed such a bombastic yet productively arid Minister as Cullen.
Come to think of it, this Minister is ideally suited to lecture the nation on "robbing taxpayers". He and his Government have had years of practice. - Yours, etc,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH, Kenilworth Park, Dublin 6W.