Dear Sir,

Our beloved country is endeavouring, but fruitlessly, to fulfil its obligations to its citizens. Ireland claims to be a democratic state, a state which, if it was a true democracy, would formulate and enact its own laws and not suffer the burden of having someone else’s laws imposed on it.

We have been reduced from a democracy to being a dependency, existing on handouts and subsidies. Agriculture used to be the mainstay of our economy and it was very much intensive farming, proper rotation of crops and a balance between arable and pastureland. This was when we were our own masters and had qualified people in power to govern us and a constitution was formulated to suit our country’s needs at that particular time. It was also the time when there were civil service examinations to ensure that those unelected personnel attached to ministerial departments whose job it was to collect relevant data, analyse it and advise the sitting minister, were qualified to do so.

It is absolutely essential that the people who have to make decisions and those who advise them, are all ‘top of the range’ and not the second or third rater type that the late Mr Brian Lenihan inherited when he took over the portfolio of Minister of Finance. Finance was in a shambles and we will be paying the price for a long time to come. Remember this horrible mess is the product of the low standard of capability of both our previous Government ministers and their civil service advisers, some of whom are still there.

Through no fault of the people who compiled our present constitution in the 1930s, it has now become outdated and outmoded. Technology has seen to that. In 2010 when our present depression was well established, this horrible financial mess was compounded further by the geniuses who compiled Croke Park agreement No. 1 which was weighted heavily in favour of our bloated and overpaid public sector. Every week now we are getting information about impending impositions of more forms of taxation, taxation to provide revenue to pay the lavish pensions and salaries of the culprits who are responsible for the present mess. We have companies who are trying to expand and are advertising for more staff but unable to recruit enough qualified people from the local supply and are having to recruit from abroad.

At circa 6.45pm on Sunday 12/5/13 RTE informed listeners that of the 100 plus people who had been recently prosecuted for burglary, for alcohol related offences and traffic ones, over 60% could hardly read or write, not a good advertisement for the ability of many of our teachers, some of whom were probably the recipients of bonus points to fill the large hole in their academic ability. Sadly, the real world does not accept bonus points and our Minister for Education must take note and act.

Ireland has a lot of good capable people but not enough, and some are unemployed because the firm where they were employed closed down, the goods it had been producing could not compete for cost on the open market. Until the Government reduces the cost of our bureaucracy, we will remain an unattractive place to would-be investors.

Thank you,

Richard Prendergast,

Mondaniel,

Rathcormac.