Letters: If we can’t get a children’s hospital built, what hope for the Dublin MetroLink?

Bear in mind that this Metro-Link is more about getting tourists in to and out of the city centre faster than about providing a comprehensive rail-based transport system for all Dubliners.

It has often been said in years past that it was an embarrassment for Dublin to not have a rail link to the airport (hardly a good reason for spending potentially €18bn).

Given this Government has less than a year to run and has increasingly shown incompetence in planning for housing and health and the retention and recruitment of personnel in the public sector, I doubt there is anyone (except the Government itself) who believes that starting such an expensive project is a good idea.

David Doran, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow

Our shameful behaviour as humans has brought the planet to a dark place

We humans should be truly ashamed of ourselves. For around a quarter-of-a-million years we have evolved and invented many technological, mech­anical and basic survival practical realities.

But in terms of curbing our selfishness, tribal greed, addictions to the self, pursuit of power and willingness to violently subjugate others, we are little better than basic pre-human creatures.

Global powers dictate the pulse of ever-enduring animosities, distorted distribution of resources and contorted inequities across the planet. The countries that sow the seeds of strife and cultivate the notion of grotesque entitlement disparities are so totally bereft of any flavour of fully-fledged sharing and caring.

Lip-service and fake posturing will never mask their disingenuous treachery and blatant greed. Yes, there are many oases of supportive funding, honourable volunteerism and the like, but the engine of mischievous motivation roars on regardless.

Despite all the noble philosophies and spiritual expositions on the human condition through the ages, we have stagnated as humans. Modern-day colonialism offers paltry optimism for any protracted generosity of spirit to take root and flourish.

Now, with the planet itself under extreme duress due to our own wanton recklessness, we still somehow respond with war after war. We destroy and lay waste to one another, spending ill-gotten gains on weapons designed to obliterate and kill. What glory can be achieved by any of this? Shame on us all as a global collective. It seems we are doomed to a glut of destruction.

Jim Cosgrove, Lismore, Co Waterford

The 2 Johnnies weren’t the only ones ‘parish-pumping’ to win over the listeners

Ann Marie Hourihane tells us that The 2 Johnnies’ Parish Quiz on their radio show is an inspired idea (‘The 2 Johnnies is culchie-bloke heaven, but breakfast listeners deserve better’ – Irish Independent, May 30).

However, I recall a skit by D’Unbelievables called Where In The Parish Quiz, with mind-boggling questions such as: “In what year was the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising held?”

I must away now as I need to phone a friend who has a degree in maths.

Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9

Amid the horror of Gaza, state recognition by the Government offers hope

Nearly eight months into the relentless bombardment of Gaza, the ever-increasing death toll, which is in the tens of thousands, is staggering.

So inure have many become to the unprecedented scale of human suffering among the two million displaced people that the killing of around 40 human beings in a tented camp, set ablaze amid the rubble of the besieged city of Rafah, is now coldly and clinically dismissed as a “mistake”.

Without a pause, the barbarity then carries on regardless. History teaches us that when one group of people dehumanises another, all manner of horror is possible and justifiable.

Nothing justifies the scale of this collective punishment by a now arguably out-of-control Israeli state, which must be held to a higher standard than the unconscionable Hamas militants it so rightly rails against.

Seeking some sliver of optimism, the official recognition of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state by the Irish Government, together with Norway and Spain, must be welcomed. Perhaps the long-term effect of this will be to keep the two-state solution alive, nudging and embarrassing other European countries to follow.

It may already be having some effect, with French president Emm­anuel Macron now dangling the prospect of the future recognition of Palestine under a strengthened Palestinian Authority exercising power across Gaza and the West Bank.

Dr Bernard Guinan, Claremorris, Co Mayo

Working in a church rings a bell, but all of that noise just got to me in the end

I read in the Irish Independent (May 30) that Roslyn Dee enjoys the sound of bells (‘Church bells give us pause for thought in a fast-moving world’).

I gave up my job as a campanologist, as I found it too boring. It was the same old ding-dong everyday.

Noel Kelly, Doonbeg, Co Clare

PR campaign could do wonders for UK if Carol Vorderman has her way

It seems a retired female TV presenter, not a politician, could be the most influential person in the UK general election.

Carol Vorderman is on a crusade to introduce proportional representation (PR ) in a bid to get a fairer system for electing politicians. She is so fed up with the Tories that she has described them as “a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks”.

Having taken to social media, she is now on a mission to eviscerate the party to such an extent that it cannot even form an opposition.

Tactical strategic voting is the methodology used to achieve her goals. Voters are requested, in cases where their preferred candidate is unlikely to be elected, to switch their vote to one more likely to defeat the Conservative candidate.

She has asked any voter who agrees with her views to send in their postcode and her team will send them the name of the preferred switch.

I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what happens here.

Bobby Carty, Templeogue, Dublin 6W