GROSSLY MISDIRECTED

Dear Editor,

Mr Barry Walsh’s anger at Mrs Mairead Scannell’s expose of the dangers associated with the Gardasil vaccine is grossly misdirected (Avondhu 23/4/09).

He accuses her of scaremongering the parents of young girls. He states that her claim that young women have died and thousands of others have suffered side effects are “false”.

Mr Walsh would be well advised to do his homework, before rubbishing Mrs Scannell’s factual claims.

I have before me documents released by the American Food and Drugs Administration. The FDA is a US Government body of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2007 these document were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It gives a detailed account of those who suffered adverse reactions to the Gardasil vaccine. Some of those side effects include serious permanent disability, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and paralysis, among others.

The above details released by the US. government department only relate to the period up to 2007, no doubt many more have since been documented.

Mairead Scannell is to be commended for continuing to expose the sex industry, in all its guises, as it exploits the vulnerabilities of young people and their parents.

Mr Walsh was also wrong to claim that this vaccine is against cervical cancer. It is not. It is a vaccine against HPV which is a sexually transmitted disease.

Mr Walsh’s anger would be better directed at Fine Gael for their folly in supporting the administration of the Gardasil vaccine to young girls and women, with the aid of ‘businessmen’.

Mary Harney has her ear to the ground on this vaccine. She is astute enough to know that with thousands of side effects and thirty two deaths, possibly more; the court cases for compensation will come pouring in.

Fianna Fail dropped a ‘hot potato’ and Fine Gael foolishly picked it up! Is it any wonder then, that Barry Walsh is feeling the heat and letting off steam?

Yours sincerely,
Theresa Heaney,
Deodatus,
Maryboro,
Timoleague,
Co. Cork.

TOP HEAVY

Dear Editor,

Most of your readers will agree that we are top heavy in bureaucracy and I am sure that quite a number of you expected to see our Finance Minister making more positive efforts to reduce the cost of this burden before he connived on the soft option of increasing taxation.

It was not the taxpayers fault that we got into this mess.

Unfortunately he lacks both the courage and the ability to handle the problem which requires a drastic overhaul of our political system. He and his conies like to compare us with other countries when the balance is in our favour but he neglects to compare the number of constituents represented by MPs in other countries with the paltry few represented by each of ours.

I often write critically hoping to start a debate on the topic. The expression of people’s opinion is vital if we are to be successful in eliminating a continuation of the present woes. We need an intelligent analysis of our present constitution and its approach to the composition of an efficient government.

The old rules took into consideration the rural population and the difficulty a TD would experience in representing a large area which may be sparsely populated. This is why most of our TDs only represent an average between 13 and 16,000 voters.

There are roughly 40 constituencies which divided into 4 million of a population should be 100,000 per constituence and if we allot 2 TDs each representing 50,000 of the population to each constituency we could eliminate 80+ TDs and all their baggage. We have to be more selective in whom we elect to represent us and who may have to manage the country.

Our previous lackadaisical approach has got us into this mess which has cost jobs and if you are still working it will cost a whole lot of taxation in the future years paying for toxic assets over which you have no control.

Lots of those toxic assets are located in foreign countries under the control of their respective governments and worse still under the control of local government and their bye-laws. You can see the difficulty it is even to get someone who has committed a serious crime repatriated.

The mess looks more massive the closer you examine it. It is bad enough being lumbered with paying rental and storage fees for obsolete voting machines and the cost of the failed decentralisation plan and ministers flitting around in expensive airspace without lumbering a decreasing number of taxpayers with a burden that could last for years.

Now that certain professions in the public sector are getting restless over pay demands and levies, is it any wonder when the head teacher is on 60,000 euro per annum and a completely non-descript TD is on 100,000 plus expenses and a longevity bonus which they are presently refusing to forfeit.

I mentioned earlier how we should forfeit 60 plus TDs who are in reality as obsolete as the voting machines and way too surplus to our requirements, so please give your opinions on the necessity of having so many TDs and why our ministers are so useless that they require an army of quangoes to assist them.

What is wrong with our civil service?

Thank you,
Richard Prendergast,
Mondaniel,
Rathcormac,
Co Cork.

SHIPTON

Dear Sir,

I would find the present discourse about the Shipton proposal entertaining if it were not so serious for the town. I am amused at the rush to explanation and confession on the part of the locally elected representatives.

In all of this, one fact is obvious to me, and I can surmise, many of the citizens of this lovely place - Fermoy is a very fast declining town.

While I do not wish to launch any attack on any one person or group in the council, it is obvious that it has failed.

The evidence is all around - a derelict commercial site on the Dublin road, the demise of Quinn and other major operations in the town, and all it seems to me, epitomised by the abandoned site at the mart.

I note once again the prostration of Cllr Hanley in confession in your last edition. While he admits to making observations on the Shipton application (and this is his right), I find it interesting to note his proposed alternative.

I suggest that this is exactly the kind of patrician politics that has bedevilled the town in the past - i.e. that one person, or a small group of persons, know what is in the best interest of the citizens as a whole.

What, in this context is the preoccupation with a hotel where the developer insists on constructing residential units on a flood plain? How inconsistent is the support for such a scheme when one considers the ground on which the Shipton development failed and the oversupply of houses in the town.

I firmly believe that any person seeking election to the new council should be aware that the people of this town deserve better.

As a citizen, I choose to believe that anything is possible - traffic control, flood control - once the established mindset is abandoned. Creativity is the ability to let go of certainties, as someone once said.

While I accept the role of the planners and that of the local representatives in the development process, I also believe that they can get things wrong. Our planning process is supposed to be open and democratic. Through our elected representatives we express our wishes in relation to the development of our communities.

It is obvious to me, that this is where the representatives failed us most - they failed to exercise their reserved function in a representative manner in relation to the planning application by the Shipton group.

Maybe the forthcoming election will be the real test of our collective will as citizens to let go of the old certainties and give a new generation a chance.

Can it be any worse?

Yours sincerely,
Yours sincerely,
Peter Brady,
Woodlands Park,
Fermoy.