Sir, - I read with your reports on the failure of the Eastern Regional Health Authority to offer meaningful help to the victims of the recent case involving the rape, torture and mutilation of a teenager and her mother over a prolonged period.
If senior politicians had even average human decency this outrageous neglect would lead to the immediate dismissal of the Minister and other figures responsible. Here in Ireland, however, it has long been apparent that in the eyes of such people money spent on helping even those mortally injured by the State's own negligence is money wasted. Witness the tens of millions spent on litigation aimed at evading responsibility for the hundreds of women infected with Hepatitis C, not to mention the treatment meted out to haemophiliacs. If large groups like these have to go through fire and water to wring a fraction of their entitlements from the system, what chance does a homeless child have?
The answer, of course, is virtually none. Politicians have long been happy to let these tragic children endure appalling risks basis despite overflowing Government coffers. The occasional public plea by Father Peter McVerry and others is treated with casual disdain. Perhaps if the reverend father were able to persuade one of the many friendly and generous multi-millionaire friends of our political parties to plead the case for him things might be different. Surely by now it must be clear to any thinking person that we are governed by people to whom the concept of representing the wishes of those who voted them into office and pay their salaries is totally alien.
Thank God for the promised emergence of a new and hopefully less inhuman party. I honestly cannot see how any decent human being can remain associated with the present disgraceful crop, let alone vote for them. - Yours etc.,
Art Cremin, Templeogue, Dublin 6W.