Madam, - So Bertie Ahern is mortified because we have to rely on the humble pencil to mark our votes and we are apparently the laughing stock of Europe because of our refusal to embrace e-voting. I would have thought that the state of our health service, the water fiasco in Galway and the carnage on our roads would be perhaps more embarrassing, but perhaps my priorities are skewed. Obviously the Taoiseach has his finger on the electronic pulse of the electorate and knows the issues that concern us. - Yours, etc,
L CURTIN, Cabra, Dublin 7
Madam, - The Taoiseach fears that "we will be the laughing stock of Europe" because of our failure to embrace electronic voting. He also says he is "embarrassed" and that he had to apologise to the people of Meath.
Whatever about e-voting, this Taoiseach has made himself and the country a laughing stock and he should be embarrassed about his public dismissal of the importance of Tara and her history on more than one occasion. He certainly owes the people of Meath an abject apology - for deliberately misleading them by blaming protesters and legal challenges for delaying construction of the monstrous M3. Archaeological investigation of the enormous sites is not yet complete despite the indecent haste of the NRA as it ravages the Tara-Skryne Valley.
This Taoiseach also owes the people of Meath an apology for the delay in re-opening their railway line, for allowing the county to develop in a haphazard and unsustainable way and for planning to toll them twice for the privilege of driving over the dwellings and graves of our ancestors. - Yours, etc,
MUIREANN NÍ BHROLCHÁIN, Laurence Avenue, Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Madam, - There's everything sinister in Bertie Ahern's repeated call for electronic voting. Paper-and-pencil voting is by its nature more democratic, as every vote comes with evidence of its own existence. Numerous occasions of "hacked" security systems for voting polls have been recorded. So what if we wait longer for the result? It's surely a minuscule price to pay for a more transparent democracy. - Yours, etc,
ANTHONY DOYLE, Tuscany Downs, Raheny, Dublin 5.