Madam, - At the time of writing I am one of about 50 people in the A&E department of the Mater Hospital. We are sleeping on chairs, sharing two toilets and one shower. Many of us have spent more than 40 hours waiting for a bed. We are blessed with a caring, professional if somewhat overstretched staff who are working in deplorable conditions.
From this vantage point it seems wholly appropriate that we should choose a turkey to represent us on the international scene. After all it has been turkeys who have been responsible for the lack of forward planning, a paucity of strategic management and the lack of adequate funding in our health system since the early 1980s.
However, like "Dustin", these are clever old birds and have carefully feathered their own nests while the needs of the old, the sick and the handicapped have been almost forgotten.
I suppose there is no chance of our political turkeys voting for an early Christmas and giving us all something to chew on? - Yours, etc,
DECLAN MORIARTY,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.