Sir, - I note that your columnist, John Waters (January 16th), alludes to the fact that he is very proud to speak his own language. At the same time, he berates those who have a more pragmatic view about the way in which the language should be promoted. I would have thought the essential gist of journalism was objectivity. Of more immediate concern to myself, and many other people living in Ireland, is the disgraceful waste of money on the all Irish television channel. This is a country with a population of three million, cheek by jowl with a country which is alleged to produce the best television on the planet. Notwithstanding that, we have the luxury of two television channels to service three million people.
We are now going to have a third channel, with a potential audience of some few thousand. For this, the taxpayer is going to pay through the nose. I am all for providing funds for cultural activity. However, there should be some level of even handedness in that all money expended by any government should be planned to provide for the best use of funds to provide the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people.
doubt if the money expended in providing for the third television channel could fall into that category, judged by any criteria.
At the same time as the State plans to expend this money, it has cut back on the erection of a prison in Co Roscommon. Let us get our priorities right here. How could anybody believe that the expenditure on the television channel should proceed, when we have the ludicrous situation that a person on temporary release, just before Christmas, was sentenced to a further period of custody and arrived at the prison and was, effectively, turned away?
Government is a very difficult art to practice at the best of times. One of the fundamentals we require is to have the consent of the governed. The Irish television channel/prison scandal does not seem to smack of equality. It smacks of rank inequity, and I believe that I express the views voiced by most people in this society. - Yours, etc.,
Monkstown Road,
Co Dublin.