We all pay taxes, so we should all have a proper public transport system

We do pay taxes at the same rate as the rest of the country.

Paul McElroy

Smithborough, Co Monaghan

Who would believe a man who said he takes the pill?

Here we are with more than 50 years of scientific research and untold amounts of money spent trying to perfect the male contraceptive. But still one question remains – what woman in her right mind would believe a man if he said he was on the pill?

Terry Cole

Co Wicklow

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Criticising Covid response was as easy then as it is now

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly says that it is easy to criticise his and the Government’s Covid response “in hindsight”.

Surely he must realise that it was also easy at the time?

Killian Foley-Walsh

Kilkenny city

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We pay taxes, so we should have proper public transport

In Caroline O’Doherty’s article (‘New plans to step up climate action will focus on less car use’ – Irish Independent, March 6) it is stated that plans being placed before the Cabinet are expected to focus on improved public transport, as a way of reducing car dependency in the fight to reduce our emissions.

One can only wonder, yet again, whether the absence of rail transport in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal will be addressed on this occasion, or whether it is being saved up to use as a “sweetener” in any future negotiations regarding a united Ireland.

We do pay taxes at the same rate as the rest of the country.

Paul McElroy

Smithborough, Co Monaghan

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Scots and Welsh look on with envy at Sunak’s deal for Northern Ireland

Hugh Duffy’s letter (‘Our EU membership should end if an army is ever formed’, Irish Independent, Letters, March 7) tells us that the EEC should have remained economic as opposed to spawning into the EU.

However, the terms of the 1957 Rome
Treaty which created the EEC specifically stated that steps towards closer political and economic integration were a primary aim of the EEC. He also complains that politicians who failed to get elected at home accumulated in Brussels (Nigel Farage springs to mind in this instance).

The main reason Britain left the EU was because the Tory government asked its electorate a question to which it did not know the correct answer. The £350m a week that allegedly went to the EU was, in truth, £150m – not a bad deal considering the entire population benefited from free movement of goods, capital, people and services.

Rishi Sunak, the Brexiteer UK prime minister, is over the moon with Northern Ireland now having exactly the same economic status that it had prior to Brexit.

Mr Sunak had better brace himself as Scotland and Wales are looking on enviously.

Kieran O’Regan

Santry, Dublin 9

Our opera community should take a well-deserved bow

Irish National Opera (INO), a merger of Opera Theatre Company and Wide Open Opera, was officially launched in January 2018, bookending an inauspicious period for the performing arts in this country since the demise of our first permanent national company, Opera Ireland, in 2010.

During its “birthing process” there was concern that INO might not get the sustained support of either the Government or audiences to successfully revitalise and develop this demandingly expensive art form for the Irish public.

Five years on, however, despite the calamity of the Covid pandemic hitting us all just as it was beginning to sprout its wings, INO is this week presenting Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss) – an opera with a long cast list, a full orchestra, extravagant vocal demands and a running time of close to four hours.

Little wonder that this work hasn’t been seen here since 1984.

As the cast and “company”, brimming with wonderful Irish talent, took a bow at the end of last Sunday night’s outstanding performance, I felt it would not have been at all out of place had the audience genuflected in acknowledgement of INO’s ambition and achievement in such a remarkably short timeframe.

Michael Gannon

St Thomas’ Square, Kilkenny

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Let’s tip our hats to women of Ireland on this special day

Today being International Women’s Day, I’d really like to thank all the mothers, wives, partners, sisters, aunts and grandmothers who not only brought us into this world, but did so much to make it a wonderful place to be.

And this must also include the ones who now only live in our hearts.

Maureen O’Brien

Dalkey, Co Dublin