EDITOR – The word ‘education’ comes from the Latin verb ‘educo’ which translates to ‘to read out’.
Education does not mean the soaking up of facts and figures. It is the leading out of the natural gifts and talents that is buried within every human being and nurturing those talents.
The education ministry in government has the most control of the future of the State. Youth is the future of the world. As a retired farmer, a fact that is atrocious is that 80% of farm owners are over the age of 50 years.
Contrary to popular belief, American pharma multinational companies flowed into and stayed in Ireland not primarily because of favourable corporation taxes but for its intelligent, well-educated workforce.
All that said, a postscript by Samuel Beckett:
‘Perhaps my best years are gone, but I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now.’
Michael Hallissey,
Mayfield,
Bandon.
We need more prisons to ease overcrowding
EDITOR – We need to build more prisons to alleviate overcrowding in our prisons, where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day, sometimes four to a cell.
All of this is against the Court of Human Rights and puts a terrible strain on prison officers who get injured breaking up fights with inmates on a regular basis. Some of these prisoners are on remand only and are innocent until proven guilty.
Noel Harrington,
Kinsale.
Foreign trips could pay for school resources
EDITOR – As government ministers/representatives, some accompanied by family members and civil servants, return from their annual St Patrick’s Day junket at taxpayers’ expense, let us spare a thought for the parents of children with special needs pleading for support, assessments, and school places for children with special needs, all of which we are told is their constitutional and basic human rights entitlement.
I have lived and worked in more than 20 countries, and not one of those countries sent representatives abroad for national day celebrations.
Personally, I do not believe these trips are in the interests of Ireland or of the Irish people. Shame on those involved.
Michael Moriarty,
Rochestown.
Pity to see rubbish in our ditches and drains
NOW that the hedges have been cut back – (some would say ‘butchered’) and the grass verges have been trimmed, the real extent of rural littering is evident.
It’s a shame to see that years of civics classes and education about the connection between littering and our tourism industry has gone to waste. Coffee cups, plastic bottles but most especially those darn vapes are now evident in every ditch, drain and border around West Cork.
We are reliant on the goodwill of local people and Tidy Towns groups to get to grips with it before the tourism season begins in earnest.
We can expect a lot of Americans this summer and many of them will be surveying our country as a possible relocation venue, given the chaos in their own country. It would be such a pity if we lost out on the opportunity to welcome these people on a more permanent basis, because they saw us as the ‘dirty Irish’.
Please educate your children, friends, families, that throwing rubbish out your car window or from the seat of a bike is not a good look.
Sue Crowe,
Ballincollig.
