By Letters To The Editor

Copyright independent

Yes, we all took it in the past and were happy about it, but, really, it’s not getting to the source of the problem, is it? Some bodies are clearly not doing their jobs.

The Government tells us in other matters that it cannot get involved, yet it has no issue sending very profit-able utility companies free money (by subsidising “our” cost-of-living packages in the last few budgets). Of course, like us, the utility companies will not tell them to stop.

The Government “time lapse” in recognising the horrendous increase in the cost of living is somewhere like four to five months behind reality. It’s time we were given an “Ireland rate” of inflation, as opposed to the EU one we are being fed regularly.

Are there not regulators who are supposed to be “on the case” as far as this goes? Government appointees, one would imagine. As Roy Keane might say: “Do your job.”

There would be no need to even mention cost-of-living packages if the Government governed properly.

For starters, get the utility companies to pay 75pc tax on profits if they do not conform to EU prices – we are second- or third-most expensive in Europe, depending on what report you read.

I’d imagine that if the Government suggested or threatened this “tax”, we would see a reduction in prices overnight.

Many businesses will tell you that they are being crippled by utility prices and that if they had some sort of “normality”, prices of goods and services would stabilise or fall.

Gerry Conway, address with editor

Social media companies must not be allowed to make money from hatred

Oliver Callan is right to point out the absurdity: even when politicians become targets, the Government still refuses to confront the root cause – social media firms that profit from outrage (‘Government social media failures persist – even when one of its own is the target’, Irish Independent, September 18).

Ireland has become the custodian of Europe’s most powerful social media companies, yet it acts more like their concierge than their regulator.

We know that hatred online translates into danger offline, but successive governments have chosen to protect investment flows rather than public safety. That is not strategy; it is capitulation.

The economics are straightforward. Outrage generates engagement, engagement generates data and data is now more valuable than oil. Hatred has become the business model. Unless this cycle is broken, political violence will not remain a fear – it will become an inevitability.

Ireland can change course. Social media firms should be held to the same standards as broadcasters, legally responsible for the content they amplify.

Compliance should be a condition of the generous tax regime offered. Tie profitability to responsibility, and suddenly the technology to curb abuse will be switched on overnight.

The choice is clear: regulate the platforms now, or wait until regulation arrives only after blood has been spilled.

Enda Cullen, Tullysaran Road, Armagh

Trump’s crackdown on free speech is chilling – and could get much worse

With the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel for some truthful asides about Trump, we see another voice silenced.

There are some countries where criticism of the leadership will see the voice silenced and the speaker killed. So far in America it isn’t that bad – yet.

Some people – Kimmel and his fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert and their crews of hundreds – have lost their jobs and The New York Times faces losses of $15bn, and thus its existence, if Trump’s lawsuit against it is successful.

There is a need for a range of voi-ces, some from all areas, and most will be “lawful” without breaching laws of slander or offence.

Open your mouths and speak your own words while you still can.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia

It’s vital the next president understands importance of making Irish heard

In Thursday’s Irish Independent, Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh writes of the importance of the Irish language and desirability of the future president to be able to speak it.

She says Queen Elizabeth’s “a Uachtaráin agus a chairde” speech in Dublin Castle “carried indescribable weight and power”. She is 100pc correct in this.

For the head of state of a country that actively tried to suppress and kill the Irish language, to use it in her address was a momentous occasion. It gave it a new standing.

It’s all about visibility with An Ghaeilge. Because someone’s language is so intimately tied in with their sense of who they are, when you give recognition to that language it’s as if you are recognising that person in a fuller way.

A language isn’t simply a collection of different words to describe things. It’s so much more than that. That is why we have so many expressions in Hiberno-English that derive directly from Irish.

Whether the next president is fluent or not, it’s vital they use whatever Irish they have and give it visibility.

That way they recognise something that is intrinsically part of what it means to be Irish, even if many people don’t consciously feel this.

Tommy Roddy, Ballybane, Co Galway

Redford’s ‘The Candidate’ perfectly captured the absurdity of US politics

I remember with fondness Robert Redford’s role in The Candidate. He plays a young man who, after years of wheeling and dealing, finally gets himself elected to the US Senate.

In a classic closing scene, he sits down and asks: “What do we do now?”

Good question.

Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9

We must not understate the horror of what Israel is doing to people of Gaza

The Pope expresses empathy for the people in Gaza who “continue to live in fear and survive in unacceptable conditions, being forcibly displaced once again from their lands”.

However, the Palestinians are not merely living in fear; they are enduring a genocide. Palestinians are not under siege – they are being systematically ethnically cleansed under an Israeli reign of terror.

Eileen Seery, Gorey, Co Wexford