Madam, - Carl O'Brien's heart-rending a ccount of a 14-year-old boys's encounter with Judge Angela Ní Chondúin in the Children's Court gave me a feeling of total despair and aching helplessness (The Irish Times, February 9th).
What is going on when this State cannot give the most vulnerable, the least able and the most deprived a secure place in which to be looked after and rehabilitated?
Politicians strut around boasting about how well off we have become. We have become brainwashed with notions of economic growth, new sports stadiums, bigger roads, larger cars and all the pathetic appendages of the worst class of nouveau riche. The Government spends millions of euro on useless projects. And all the while, children such as this are treated as the dregs of an obese, bloated, uncaring society.
The only glimmer of hope in your report was the gentle way in which Judge Ní Chondúin treated the helpless child before her. Long may her sympathies lie with the downtrodden who appear in her court; they have at least one champion. - Yours, etc.,
IAN LEE, Collins Lane, Tullamore, Co Offaly.