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Letters to the Editor: Alcohol industry must own up to harm — Be Should To By John Alcohol Higgins Picture: By Public Made Portrayed The Istock Decisions Representatives ' Our The By Positive Just Image 'any Relation Swayed Industry In Not Writes:

Wed, 27 Sep, 2023 - 00:45

With Budget 2024 due to be announced shortly, the alcohol industry will no doubt have indulged in its usual frenzy of lobbying, calling for reduced taxes and singing the praises of the industry and all that it brings to communities and the employment it provides.

Any decisions made in relation to alcohol by our public representatives should not be swayed just by the positive image portrayed by the industry. The harm associated with alcohol cannot be ignored. It’s not enough for our legislators to just nod their heads in acknowledgement and throw the odd bun to the elephant in the room. Laws have to be enacted and policed and loopholes have to be addressed as in the case of zero-alcohol advertising.

Half of all suicides in Ireland have alcohol as a contributing factor. These figures are ignored by the alcohol industry except to tell us to drink responsibly.

It’s time for a polluter pays policy to be levied on the alcohol industry and the provision of a dedicated office of alcohol harm reduction.

We know more about alcohol now than we ever did. The fact that it’s a known carcinogen seems to be lost on so many people. The cost of the damage caused by alcohol far exceeds the amount raised in taxes by government. Then there is the damage that no amount of money can repair or replace.

There are horror stories in abundance in our country relating to alcohol: It’s not always about happy smiley faces we see on the catchy TV advertisements — far from it.

Twelve years ago we lost our 19-year-old son to suicide, with alcohol a contributing factor. We spent two weeks searching the river for his body, two weeks we will never forget. Such is the reality of living with the fallout of alcohol abuse.

John Higgins, Ballina, Co Mayo

Catherine Conlon: Lobbyists continue to deny the reality of alcohol harm in Ireland

Garda roster plan rings hollow

I recognise that politicians and senior gardaí feel the need to reassure business owners and the public that the change of roster due in early November for gardaí will be beneficial. Here’s a simple example to show the opposite to be true. If 20 gardaí are attached to a station, split over four units, as things are, that means five gardaí per unit.

Under the Westmanstown roster, there will still be 20 gardaí but split over five units, meaning four gardaí per unit.

The stated overlap of shifts emphasises evening shifts, with a resulting deficiency of personnel, most acutely felt on early Friday and Saturday shifts. Busy town and city centre stations will require gardaí on rest days to work overtime to cover the deficit on those early Fridays and Saturdays. The Westmanstown roster didn’t work before; it won’t work now with a drop in garda numbers since it was last utilised. That station that had 20 gardaí pre-covid might have 16 or less now.

The public especially deserve the truth: These efforts to sugar coat the reality ring hollow

Shea O’Ceallaigh, Carrick-on-Shannon

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Tax benefits for the squeezed middle

In the run-up to the budget, it is clear that there is a pressing and urgent need for the Government to legislate for tax fairness for the squeezed middle of Irish taxpayers.

In circumstances where the Revenue is reporting that 1.07m workers, nearly one third of all taxpayers, are paying the higher 40% income tax rate, it is time to ensure tax fairness by substantially increasing the upper limit of the standard income tax rate band.

While it was welcome that the standard rate cut-off point was increased from €36,800 to €40,000 for single people in the last budget, this is still substantially lower than the equivalent cut-off point across the border in the North, where the 40% income tax rate currently kicks in at £50,271, or approximately €57,759. Giving hardworking taxpayers more of their own money to spend or save is not only a moral good, but bringing the rate closer to the British rate is also a step that helps bring about closer economic harmonisation on a north-south basis.

Anyone who aspires to a United Ireland must surely realise the relatively high personal income tax burden in the Republic is a major deterrent to any economically rational voter in the North voting for unity in any border poll.

It is therefore clearly in Sinn Féin’s interests to support tax equity for the squeezed middle, by supporting any increase in the standard rate cut-off point to as close to the British rate as possible.

It is also unarguably the case that the current high marginal personal tax rate negatively impacts Ireland’s attractiveness as a destination for talent and foreign direct investment.

The Government should therefore take the opportunity to bring about substantial tax equity in the budget in October by increasing the standard rate cut-off point in this jurisdiction to at least €50,000, as an important first step on the way to further much-needed tax fairness measures.

Joseph G O’Hanlon, Clontarf, Dublin

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Farmers key to climate future

It is always easy to be philosophical about someone else’s problem. The climate crisis is everyone’s problem. It isn’t an urban thing. It is isn’t a rural thing. It is an ‘everywhere all all at once’ thing.

In the 1840s, phytophthora infestans (an ostensibly harmless fungus) hopped on a boat in Canada or Virginia and crossed the Atlantic. Big deal. Fungi and other pathogens cross the Atlantic on airplanes every day of the week nowadays.

However, in the 1840s that fungus caused a famine in this country. One million people starved. Two million people emigrated in dire straits.

That changed Ireland forever.

In 2020 a coronavirus (not unlike the common cold) hopped on an airplane in Wuhan and went to Northern Italy. It then went to a rugby match in Dublin and also went to the races at Cheltenham. We shut down the country entirely on three separate occasions as a result.

The microbial world is obviously neutral on whether humans deserve to survive. Not out to ‘get us’. Just neutral. The climate change crisis is going to shake up all of that latent docile microbial soup of nervous truce we have unwittingly enjoyed.

Farmers are the climate crisis canaries in the coalmine. They notice ‘changes’ before we do. New patterns of rainfall. Floods where flooding never happened before. A flower on the ditch appearing earlier. New parasites and pests. Ears to the ground. In our universities, farmers and microbiologists need to be working more closely together. Farmers have serious game and serious brains. Abstract, pragmatic, and current.

Michael Deasy, Bandon, Co Cork

Health a lesson to be taught in school

We have not had a health service for decades. We have an illness industry. Ask the relevant minister what percentage of his department’s time and budget — our tax money — is spent in schools explaining to students/teenagers how to stay healthy for their lives.

Richard Barton, Maynooth, Co Kildare

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Nurses and doctors deserve better pay

It has been rumoured in the media that the Government intends to use surplus cash to facilitate tax cuts, to gain votes in the next general election. The Government really needs to get its priorities right. This surplus, in the first instance, should be used to pay our nurses and doctors a decent wage which reflects their value to society. It reflects very badly on society when nurses and doctors have to go on strike to get a decent wage.

Politicians in Ireland seem to have absolutely no problem in awarding themselves decent wage rises. When you fall ill, you don’t go to a politician to heal you, do you? A brand new TD here in Ireland with no qualifications, no experience, and knuckles dragging on the ground starts off at €107,376. A newly qualified nurse, after four-and-a-half years’ hard slog qualifying, starts at about €39,030 pa.

By no stretch of the imagination is any politician worth three times the worth of a nurse.

We should all show our appreciation and support for our valiant doctors and nurses by having a one way conversation with our politicians telling them to sort out the nurses and doctors wages before the next general election. We are losing too many of our medics because they emigrate to countries who pay them what they are worth.

John Fair, Castlebar, Co Mayo

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Practical way to get rid of dog poo

It really frustrates me beyond all belief when I regularly see how so many very responsible dog lovers and owners go to the trouble of picking up and bagging their dogs’ poo and then dumping the same bag of poo right on the spot on the footpath where the event occurred which is plain and simply outrageous to say the least.

I have found a much simpler and more responsible solution to all of this, a very efficient poop scoop for less than €25 on Amazon or elsewhere in all good pet stores.

It can be used instead of a bag to pick up dog poo and safely dispose of it more efficiently discreetly and away more responsibly elsewhere — or, even better, by bringing it back home and disposing of in the loo whilst at the same time using the loo flusher to wash and clean the soiled scooper for use again next time around.

This simple little hand-held poo collector grab will immediately get rid of the need for purchasing poo bags forever and in no time at all will fully recoup the initial tiny expense of acquiring it. I rest my case.

Con O’Donovan, Grange, Douglas, Cork City

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