Breastfeed or else not the message

This approach forms the basis of our “Every breastfeed makes a difference” campaign and HSE website breastfeeding.ie. I would like to thank The Sunday Times for including the article, as it is important that we all work together to create a culture in Ireland that supports mothers to breastfeed.
Siobhán Hourigan,National Breastfeeding Co-ordinator, HSE

Not driven to drink
Despite Danny Healy-Rae’s flawed anecdotes about the effect of eating “big meals”,
I believe a great number of caring people share his concerns about the further reduction of the blood-alcohol limit for motorists (“Healy-Rae lobbied by pub body before drink-drive figures rant”, News, May 21).

Most people have accepted the 80mg limit, and associated penalties for breaching it. Many are troubled at imposing the serious sanction of a driving suspension for exceeding the 50mg limit.

The key issue is proportionality, and this is what Healy-Rae is trying to express. Depending on metabolism, a person might find themselves banned from driving after a pint of beer or a glass of wine. This could have serious consequences — loss of a job, end of an important volunteer role, rise in insurance costs.

Decent people know they are more threatened on the roads by stupidity, ignorance of the rules of the road, use of mobile phones, fatigue and the natural disposition of youth, rather than by mature and caring people who have had a couple of pints. There are no observed effective sanctions for these other, more threatening, types of behaviour.

The current law is wise: a fine for dicing with the upper limit and suspension for exceeding it. Fairness and balance encourages respect for the law and ultimately leads to more compliance and better outcomes.
John Griffin, Kells, Co Meath

Nil by mouth
These rural TDs are locked in a 1970s time warp.

The whole country needs to be educated towards a zero limit on alcohol and driving.

This is not a “war on alcohol”, it is a war on the complacency that a couple of drinks are OK to have before getting behind the wheel.
J McGill, by email

Wrong target
The current limits do not allow for more than one drink. More investment in roadworks and more gardai are the answer.
Ruairi O’Neill Castleshane, Co Monaghan

Trump may be biggest threat
Niall Ferguson seems to be taking a rather reckless gamble with his reputation as a serious historian when he endorses the rhetoric of Donald Trump (“Trump’s ridiculed orb will light the global way out of Islamic terrorism”, Comment, last week).

The young man who blew himself up in Manchester and murdered 22 people was not the product of some medieval Middle Eastern religion. He was a product of 21st-century western Europe. Isis, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are as much 21st-century phenomena as Facebook and Snapchat. Trying to understand these people by looking at the Koran is like thinking you can understand American spree killers who shoot colleagues by studying US labour laws.

The Saudis do not sponsor Islamic fundamentalism out of religious piety. The original purpose was to check the growth of Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism, which it has succeeded in doing. The primary threat the Saudis face today is globalisation, instant communication, enlightenment and education. Fundamentalism is the kingdom’s primary defence against the threat of secularism, and its main insurance of dynastic survival. If Ferguson thinks the Saudis are sincere in their recent rhetoric, he is as politically naive as Trump. The autocracy in Riyadh
has as much interest in seeing an end to Islamic fundamentalism as China has in seeing the end of the North Korean state.

Trump did get one thing right, when he described the perpetrators of Islamist terrorism as losers. Just as American spree killers are. The big difference is that the agents of Saudi Arabia have found a way to harness the misery of these particular losers and deceive them into thinking they can have a meaningful end to their meaningless lives. To elevate these losers to a level that poses a threat to the West is to bestow a dignity on them they do not deserve.

An even sadder aspect of Trump’s rhetoric, and Ferguson’s endorsement of it, is to inflame the hysteria that promotes Islamophobia. The propagation of intolerance is the real threat to western values and an ultimate victory for the Saudi project. Of course, it could be argued the greatest threat to the West may be Trump himself, who never let lack of talent or ability stand in the way of his all-consuming ambition.
Donal Vaughan Glanmire, Co Cork

Following the herd
In her piece Pushy Trump is par for the coarse (Comment, last week) Brenda Power joins the bleatings of journalistic goats who are incapable of a positive take on the elected leader of our world’s most powerful nuclear nation.

What Power overlooked was the response, as distinct from the first reaction, from the non-affronted prime minister of Montenegro after he was pushed by Trump at the Brussels Nato summit. Dusko Markovic was quoted in the Montenegran press as saying he “didn’t even notice”, and describing the incident as “harmless”. He added: “It is natural that the president of the United States would be on the front row, it’s his right.”

Surely Power could have found something of greater interest to fill those four column inches with than an attempt to sandbag our ultimate guardian?
Chris Callaghan, Fermoy, Co Cork

Party leaders setting the tone
Vic-Ryn cafe in Lisburn raises a huge amount of money each year for charity, and is used by all walks of life for lunch (Atticus, Comment, May 21). Regarding its use by Arlene Foster, the DUP MLA, as a venue for an election interview, I believe it was far more fitting than the republican one used by Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein MLA, as she copper-fastened her credentials to her electorate.

It certainly is far more fitting than the use of the Felons Club in Belfast by Gerry Adams to hold press conferences and to harangue unionists every time he appears this side of the border.
Ruth Nash, Co Antrim

Hypocrisy at work
Gerry Adams’s comments after Enda Kenny announced his retirement as taoiseach were disgraceful. Kenny has been one of the best taoisigh Ireland ever had. By contrast, all the party of which Adams is president has done for Ireland is cause mayhem, misery and death. Noel Peers Graignamanagh, Co Kilkenny

Barber didn’t do refugee research
Had she done any research, Lynn Barber would have known she had no need to take in an asylum seeker: those claiming asylum in the UK are provided with basic accommodation until their case is decided, along with £36.95 (€42.25) a week (“I took in a refugee”, Magazine, last week).

Charities from London in the Naccom (No Accommodation Network) that I co-ordinate run hosting schemes that minimise the likelihood of a failed placement such as this. They have robust procedures, offer support and training for hosts and obtain reliable references for prospective guests.

I also work for the Boaz Trust in Manchester, which runs a hosting scheme for destitute asylum seekers. We have placed about 350 people in private homes since 2004 and though there can be cultural misunderstandings the vast majority of hosts report positive experiences.

Most asylum seekers in the UK have genuine reasons for fleeing their homeland and need our support.
Dave Smith, Co-ordinator, Naccom, Newcastle upon Tyne

Doing the right thing
Not many widows living alone would open their home to an unknown young man. Barber did not do it to seem good; she did it because she saw a need and had the means. It transpired he was a wealthy Sudanese man who had a drug habit and a dubious attitude towards women. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for Barber.
Stephanie Bennett, southwest London

Good deeds
Barber reflects the concerns of so many of us in our cosy western culture at the plight of innocents fleeing unspeakable abuse and atrocities, and she holds high the banner this country has flown for centuries — from the Huguenots to Jewish people escaping the Holocaust. Also admirable is her excoriating account of how she ended up being duped by a liar and cheat.
Paul Myles, London W14

Home thoughts
I have finally — too late — found the website I should have gone to in the first place. Refugeesathome.org puts people willing to offer places to refugees in touch with possible candidates.
Lynn Barber, north London

Points

Open for business
Yes indeed, Enda Kenny got it right. Ireland is “a great little country to do business in”, especially if you are a banker (“How Seanie beat the rap”, News Review, last week). Maybe post-Brexit we will see British banks flocking to Ireland when they realise financial institutions here are not controlled and bankers can flout the law.
Mike Mahon, Templeogue, Dublin 6W

Hornet’s nest
Reflecting on the fallout from the collapse of Seán FitzPatrick’s Anglo trial, a quote I learnt more than 40 years ago as a young detective in the Garda Siochana came to mind. “Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies but let wasps and hornets break through.” I think that sums it up.
Walter Kilcullen, Co Meath

Fatima facts
Further to Sheila Griffin’s letter about the Fatima children, of course they were not psychotic (“Unsaintly about Fatima children”, Letters, last week). However, they were illiterate, easily influenced by the Catholic church and desperately poor. Their diet would have contained bread made with mouldy corn, which in the young can cause delusions.
Richard Williams, Valentia Island, Co Kerry

Focus on violence
Well done to Justine McCarthy (“When did women’s lives stop mattering”, Comment, May 21) for highlighting the continuing violence against women. It seems to be a growing problem and journalists are in a good position to keep the issue at the forefront of people’s minds, which might change attitudes. It never seems to be high on Irish political agendas.
Liam McCloskey, Buncrana, Co Donegal

Plane nonsense
I am a British Airways IT-meltdown survivor, obliged to spend hundreds of dollars on alternative tickets home after the chaos at Heathrow and Gatwick airports (“British Airways flights meltdown traps thousands”, online, last week). I have spent my career in senior corporate IT, and BA’s power failure excuse makes no sense. All big companies have a back-up computer centre to which current active data supporting vital customer systems is reflected every few minutes or in real time. This enables fall-back to the computer centre to keep operations running. Was BA asleep at the switch?
Tim Cureton, Vancouver

Unhealthy climate
Donald Trump’s refusal at the G7 to co-operate over the Paris agreement was predictable as he has surrounded himself with climate change deniers
(“G7 ends in disarray as Trump fails to back climate deal”, World News, last week). The tragedy for America is that it will be forced to rely on fossil fuels. The failure of US car manufacturers to develop fuel-efficient engines led to foreign imports and the demise of the American motor industry.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones Help Rescue the Planet

Altar ego
I did enjoy Camilla Long’s column “A big hand for Melania: she’s got to grips with Donald’s power play” (Comment, last week).

Six years ago 23 members of my family flew from Manchester to Palm Beach in Florida to attend a wedding held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The man himself popped in halfway through the evening. We were all fascinated to see him but had no idea that we were looking at the future American president.
Carole Latter, by email

Really old masters
In his review of Hokusai — Beyond the Great Wave (Online, last week), Waldemar Januszczak writes: “Few great artists . . . live impressively long lives . . . Titian, Michelangelo, Picasso, Hokusai. That’s it.” Not quite: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Claude Monet got close to 90; and Louise Bourgeois and Georgia O’Keeffe nearly made 100.
James Norton, London W6

Correction
Our report “Abbott declared support for IRA defeat of Britain” (News, May 21) said Diane Abbott had “explicitly backed victory for the IRA” in an interview in 1984. Ms Abbott has not challenged this, but we would like to make clear that, while supporting a British defeat in Northern Ireland, she did not refer to the IRA by name.

Ciarán Fitzgerald is 65 years old today

Birthdays
Cecilia Bartoli,mezzo-soprano, 51
Russell Brand, comedian, 42
Bob Champion, jockey, 69
Oona Chaplin, actress (The Hour; Game of Thrones), 31
Ciarán Fitzgerald, former Irish and Lions rugby captain, 65 pictured
Angelina Jolie, actress (Girl, Interrupted; Maleficent), 42
Val McDermid, author, 62
Evan Spiegel, co-founder of Snapchat, 27
Alan Stanford, actor and theatre director, 68
John Treacy, Olympic silver medallist and world cross-country champion, 60