Sir, – The portents are not good. Like many people, I saw the appointment – though not the democratic election in any true sense – of a new Taoiseach as an opportunity for a fresh start, evidenced by a real commitment to the new politics that Enda Kenny spoke to us about some years ago, but it remained a mere chimera.
But no, more of the same. With a young Taoiseach not contaminated by the long grinding exposure to the smoke-filled party rooms, hadn’t we a right to expect new faces, new energy and new commitments to transformative changes about the real issues?
Instead, we get the same old same old. Appointments made in murky circumstances that just further damage people’s wafer-thin faith in the process. Super-juniors clogging up the Cabinet room simply to assuage their feelings.
Leo Varadkar has missed a massive opportunity and I do not see how he can retrieve that situation. The damage is done, and I, for one, have lowered my expectations to the usual level: zero. – Yours, etc,
DICK O’RAFFERTY,
Mount Merrion, Co Dublin.
Sir, – When all is said and done, lots has been said and little done. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD BARTON,
Tinahely,
Co Wicklow.