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The Irish Times is pulling out all the stops in an effort to secure a Yes vote this time around.

There are no less than five articles in favour of the Yes side in today’s edition. Breda O’Brien completes the project with a sort of neutral article bordering on the Yes side of the argument.

Not a No view in sight.

Economic balance of advantage tends to a Yes

No vote would be an irrational act of self-injury

Yes campaign must sell treaty as a good thing in itself

If Yes side sticks to the big picture Lisbon can be won

Ireland had key role in framing uniquely democratic treaty

Sick of hearing half-truths in treaty debate

It was only last night, as I watched Ryan Tubridy’s first Late Late Show; that the full extent of the financial disaster facing the country was brought home to me.

I mean, where did they get that set – was it rented from a 1970s second hand furniture warehouse?

And that microphone cable carelessly strewn across the floor and up the leg of Tubridy’s table? For feck sake, it was a black cable on a black table leg crudely secured with white tape.

Throughout the show Tubridy’s head was silhouetted on the set – very shoddy lighting, very unprofessional.

Overall, the show was more like an amateur reproduction of Tubridy’s previous Saturday night gig rather than the latest version of RTEs flagship show.

Verdict: Could/must do better.

I see in last Sunday’s Irish Mail on Sunday a picture of the Last Supper with a difference in Michael Jackson’s bedroom.

Jackson takes the place of Jesus and Abraham Lincoln and Elvis are among his ‘apostles’.

Lucky for Jackson that he passed on before Dermot Ahern got to know about this outrageous blasphemy otherwise there would be a squad of Gardai on their way to break down Jackson’s door and arrest the miscreant

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

Bertie delusional about downturn

IT seems Bertie Ahern missed his true calling — he seems to live in the same sugar-sweet fictional world of his author daughter, Cecelia.

I suppose that with a huge pension and Dail salary for a seat he hardly seems to occupy these days, he can afford to live in a dream world, unlike the poor suckers who, until recently, bought his line that we could keep the country afloat with hot air.

Let’s be honest. The hard work of the IDA created and imported jobs, a boom that was real. The Fianna Fail government then sold off the gains of this boom, brick by brick, to the developers. The very real housing boom went from a boom to a bubble.

With no restraint or call for caution from the Government, housing prices and rents soared, meaning Irish wages needed to increase likewise.

We lost our competitive edge and companies started to look elsewhere.

The developers, flush with the profits stolen from hard- earned Irish wages, then continued to borrow from their mates, the bankers, to build even more ambitious projects, houses and hotels that were not needed.

When the time came to sell, even the most naive of Irish knew the prices were too high.

As companies left, the overstretched budgets of the average Irish family imploded. The irresponsible gambling of the developers exploded like a depth charge at the base of our banking system.

Not the global financial crisis, Mr Ahern — it was developer debts and overvalued housing market that brought down the Irish banks. If the banks had loaned only what the houses were actually worth, and the market wasn’t oversupplied, there would be no problem.

Pauline Bleach
Newtown,
New SOUTH WALES
, AUSTRALIA

Last week my biggest concern was getting back on line after a computer meltdown. That’s all forgotten now after the occurrence of a sorrowful life event. I guess we never know, from moment to moment, what life will bring.

Letter in Irish Independent.

Dail fat cats not worth your vote

Looking at the picture illustrating Lise Hand’s article (Irish Independent, May 15) of the Taoiseach and Bertie Ahern visiting the East Wall, I can see that the ‘Soldiers of Destiny’ still don’t realise the voters of Dublin Central are suffering in the recession.

I wonder did the sight of two men who earn more than €200,000 each, arriving in two separate €120,000 Mercs, accompanied by bodyguards in two €60,000 BMWs, make the voters of Dublin Central think twice about electing another member of the Ahern dynasty to a €100,000-plus per annum job?

This sight contrasts with the goings-on over in Westminster where MPs are scurrying to hand back money to save their political lives after being exposed with overinflated or false expense claims.

If I was a Dublin Central voter on reduced earnings I would try to continue the Tony Gregory tradition of independence from the big parties, and if I couldn’t find a suitable candidate I’d spoil my vote to show my disgust at the fat cats in Dail Eireann who are very unlikely to follow their UK counterparts’ example.

Brendan Lynch
Bray
Co Wicklow

Comment by Green Party member at annual convention.

“Yeah, I’d leave the morals to some of the other parties, the high falutin morals.”