EDITOR -  The Lie of the Land by John Gibbons should be compulsory reading for Leaving Cert students, together with a study on climate and pollution, because our lives are under threat from the Irish agribusiness sector with the connivance of  successive agriculture ministers.

Foreign visitors beware: driving through some areas where there are massive herds of cattle in the industrial dairylands of Ireland smells like driving through open sewer country, with the mega nitrate-soaked cattle and pig slurry spread onto phosphorescent green fields.

This saturated pollution soaks into our ground water supply and is washed into the streams and rivers of our once great countryside.

Many people are giving up on tough, mainly factory-processed overpriced Irish beef. Ireland consumes only 9% of the agri product yet the industry emits 38% of the Irish Greenhouse Gas Emissions pollution.

This dairy-beef industry only survives with massive state subsidies, some €2bn last year. Obviously the industry is presently an unsustainable business model. They must cull the massive herds to reduce the 38% methane pollution.

Our elected leader goes to China in an effort to promote Irish industry and refuses to support an EU trade deal with South American countries.

Case of the agritail wagging the Dáil?

Don Teegan,

Castlefarm,  Monkstown.

Our reader believes that a cull is necessary for environmental security.

Women suffer while HSE pauses surgery

EDITOR - New research from the Continence Foundation of Ireland confirms what many Irish women already know: urinary incontinence is widespread.

Two-thirds of Irish women live with urinary incontinence, most commonly stress urinary incontinence which is the leakage of urine with coughing, laughing or exercise, yet only half of those affected ever speak to a healthcare professional.

Stress incontinence occurs when weakened pelvic floor muscles and connective tissues fail to support the bladder and bladder neck properly. It can often be improved with physiotherapy or lifestyle measures, but for some women, surgery is the most effective treatment.

Mesh mid-urethral sling (MUS) surgery is a minimally invasive procedure developed in Europe in the 1990s. MUS surgery has become the gold standard surgical treatment for stress urinary incontinence worldwide, due to its high success rates, short operating time, quicker recovery, and lower complication rates compared with more invasive traditional surgeries.

In Ireland, however, MUS surgeries have been paused since 2018. Although all 18 recommendations of the Chief Medical Officer were completed in October 2023, the HSE has yet to act. This ongoing delay restricts women’s choice and denies access to evidence-based care, and affects their quality of life.

Irish women must choose between putting up with distressing daily continence struggles or flying overseas to undergo the procedure, as Ireland has yet to lift the pause despite there being the surgical expertise amongst Irish surgeons to safely carry out the procedure here in Ireland.

Women deserve informed options, not indefinite inaction. For more information, please visit continence.ie.

Dr Breffini Anglim O’Regan,

President, Continence Foundation of Ireland.

Anaerobic digestion needs to be supported

EDITOR - ReNure, and the use of anaerobic digestion, is an essential requirement for Irish dairy farmers to be able to retain their nitrates derogation long into the future.

AD is a proven technology that turns farm slurry into non-organic fertiliser which will not impact a farm’s emissions profile.

In addition, it will produce biogas, a mix of methane and carbon dioxide which can be used to replace our gas imports. At present, the rules penalise farmers who spread digestate produced using AD back on their farms. ReNure will fix this anomaly and, I believe, spur the development of the technology in Irish agriculture.

What is now critically needed are guidelines, from national government, for local authorities so that planning applications can be processed as efficiently as possible. In addition, the Department of Finance and Revenue Commission must review the system of capital allowances and reliefs to incentivise both farmers and industry to invest in local AD facilities.

The co-ops must also play their role in driving forward AD and the opportunities that will come from ReNure.

Billy Kelleher,

Fianna Fáil MEP Ireland South.

Children should have access to technology

EDITOR -  Hats off to the Cork Lord Mayor for his honesty in admitting to using AI to write his speeches.

Turn the clock back to 2017, when the then-health minister Simon Harris was reported in a newspaper article as saying that ‘children today are nearly being born with an iPad in their hand’.

In a follow-up letter, I argued that in order to acquire a rounded and unbiased education from a variety of sources, children should have access to information technology from an early age.

Fast forward to last week, and Tánaiste Simon Harris, having returned from a trip to San Francisco, declared that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ‘no longer a concept’ and is ‘here to stay’.

What a transformational u-turn in his thinking over the course of almost a decade, from fearing iPads to embracing AI with the enthusiasm of an Information Technology technocrat.

Mea culpa, Editor. Yes — I have used AI to help compose this letter to you.

Joe Terry

Blarney.