Sir, – The HSE’s failed effort to curtail homecare hours for people living in the east of the country reminded me of the Germanic folk tale of the Foolish Labourer. In that fable, the labourer’s right hand is shovelling earth out of a hole and piling it on the side; his left hand wields a rake which he uses to pull the piled earth back into the hole. When asked why he is behaving so foolishly, he says that the right hand is paid by the hour to dig, and the left hand is paid by the hour to backfill. Regrettably, the same contradiction exists between our country’s commitment to Sláintecare, and the attempted cuts to community services by the organisation charged with delivering healthcare.Sláintecare reforms are specifically aimed at shifting towards a community-centred approach. These reforms rely on an expansion of staff numbers in community services. However, clinical staff numbers in the community have grown by only 13 per cent since 2016. The inability to expand the supply of the healthcare workforce to meet policy aims that were agreed almost a decade ago, highlights the lack of planning in the healthcare system. The shortfalls in staffing levels in the community are so significant that they will delay the implementation of Sláintecare. Restricting homecare hours to those who are receiving palliative care or have critical needs feels like a further act of self-sabotage on an already struggling system.Contrast this with the 35 per cent increase in HSE management and administrative staff. The expansion in non-clinical staff has been so out of line with the growth in frontline staff, that one in every five employees in healthcare is now a manager.Most people want to remain at home and receive care locally if they possibly can. With our expanding population of older people, staying at home is desirable for a host of reasons, including choice and cost. But by cutting community services, we increase the chance that a person who has lost homecare hours will require admission to an acute hospital or a residential facility. Restricting community services is the opposite of what Sláintecare is meant to achieve. Community-based care provided by regionally funded and managed services is government policy. Every euro spent ought to be congruent with this policy; otherwise, we foolishly continue to dig with one hand, toiling endlessly, while raking against ourselves with the opposite hand. – Yours, etc, DR SUZANNE CROWE, Consultant in paediatric intensive care,Ranelagh, Dublin 6.Levy on parcels below €150Sir, – Today I received my first demand for the EU levy on parcels below €150. It was a small, standard flat envelope of no additional weight from the UK worth €7. I resigned myself to paying the new €3 levy. But not the additional ¤6.95 An Post is adding as its agency fee for collecting the levy on behalf of the Revenue Commissioners. In effect, An Post is now raising a layered tax of its own (which it surely should not be entitled to do) and charging citizens and the State for the honour. On parcels it is handling anyway and running past a scanner.Which Minister signed off at Cabinet on this multilayered extortion or tendered it out to a commercial State body for implementation? Who devolved Revenue powers in this arbitrary fashion? It will badly hit SMEs here and in the UK who are not dumping shoddy goods but providing bona fide service. Moreover, the levy applies not to each parcel but each item within it, compounding An Post’s opportunism. This goes far beyond the €3 mandated by EU regulation.A €7 item now costs €16.95, most of which is swallowed up by An Post acting on behalf of Revenue and the EU. Go figure. – Yours, etc,RICHARD FALLON,Malahide,Dublin.Enoch Burke walks freeSir, – Without purging his contempt, the High Court is allowing Enoch Burke to walk free from prison. So, justice ignored is no justice at all it would seem? Perhaps I will invoke this precedent the next time I neglect a parking ticket for almost 700 days? – Yours, etc,DES DORIS,Dún Laoghaire,Co Dublin.Ireland and EU presidencySir, – Ireland currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. You would think, given the frequency with which we remind ourselves of what the EU has done for this country, that we might manage to get its name right.Instead, in the space of a few weeks, I have seen government department publications, Irish Embassy social media accounts, journalists and politicians variously refer to Ireland presiding over the “Presidency of the European Council”, the “Presidency of the European Union Council”, “the Council of Europe”, and my personal favourite the “Presidency of Europe”. A few months ago, an Oireachtas member even went as far to ask a Minister, during a Parliamentary committee session, if Ireland would be putting forward a candidate to contest the Presidency. If we are going to hold ourselves up as model EU citizens, the least we could do is know which institution we are presiding over. – Yours, etc,IAN FAHEY,Glasnevin,Dublin 9.EU spending on armsSir, – As Ireland assumes the EU Presidency, the air is filled with talk of the threat from Russia and the need for Europe to spend eye-watering amounts of money buying arms. We are told this is necessary to create a deterrent without which Vladimir Putin will invade. One has to wonder: do the leaders of Europe ever leave their air-conditioned domes and walk among the mortals? If they did, they would surely see that a huge portion of the citizenry is struggling to get by. Most are now unable to access basic social goods and utilities such as affordable housing, prompt healthcare, etc. To add to these many woes, a crisis is quickly emerging as the number of people unable to afford electricity is rising alarmingly. Surely, spending the proposed amounts of money on arms will only exacerbate these problems. As disaffection and unease rise within communities as a consequence, all Putin will have to do is don a cozy cardigan and a pair of slippers, settle into a comfortable chair, light his favourite pipe, and simply wait as Europe falls apart under the weight of growing disaffection and discontent. – Yours, etc,JIM O’SULLIVAN,Rathedmond,Sligo.Price point Sir, – I bought a small bottle of sparkling water in a hostelry in Dublin yesterday for €3.80. I remember when we used to give out whenever a pint of the “black stuff” increased by a penny, a cent, or more.Surely there’s no justification for such a price on a small bottle of sparkling Irish water, when a pint of the “black stuff” can be bought in parts of west Cork for a “fiver”? – Yours, etc,PAT O’REILLY,Clonakilty,Co Cork.Traffic lights and trafficSir, – The simple reason for the proliferation of traffic lights is the proliferation of traffic. There’s only so much space to go around, and it takes far more of our precious space to move a person by car than it does by bike, bus, train, tram or on foot. Once a city reaches a certain density, the only way to keep things moving is to take space away from cars and reallocate it to more efficient ways of moving people. – Yours, etc,BEN AVELING,Ranelagh, Dublin.Sir, – Your recent correspondents come from all sides of this debate. As a pedestrian, cyclist and driver, I agree with nearly all of the comments, partisan though they may be. I think the problems stem from the fact that we are segregated and, with our own green (or red) lights we feel a sense of entitlement, to the exclusion of others. So, as a pedestrian, I get furious at cyclists who nearly run me down; as a cyclist, I get furious at cars that try to do the same; and as a driver, I get furious at the pedestrian who steps out in front of me,Of course, what we should be doing is recognising that we all share the same spaces and that we each have different needs and perspectives. We should encourage each other to be thoughtful and accommodating: mostly, we should respect each other and work with each other to safely and enjoyably share the surfaces we use in common. – Yours, etc,ROBIN MANDAL,Dublin 6.No bale outSir, – I attended Oklahoma at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre lately. It was a wonderful performance by all the cast members and the singing brought me back to my childhood when I performed the musical on stage while in second class. However, and to my greatest disappointment, there wasn’t a bale of hay in sight! – Yours, etc,CAITRÍONA Nic ÉINRÍ,Rathgar,Dublin 6.Developing oil and gasfieldsSir, – The Falkland Islands, population 3,500, are drilling for their own oil. Ireland, population 5.5 million, prefers importing it from the other side of the world.If that isn’t an example of Irish planning, I don’t know what is.Cork County Council deserves credit for recently backing Barryroe gas and oilfield. Producing some of our own oil and gas under Irish environmental standards surely makes more sense than paying other countries to drill it, then shipping it thousands of miles to our shores. We’re not reducing global demand by refusing to develop Barryroe; we’re simply creating jobs, tax revenue and energy security somewhere else.Yes, renewables are the future, but until we stop using oil and gas altogether, shouldn’t we at least ask whether importing it halfway around the globe is really the greener option? It’s time for a little less virtue signalling and a little more common sense. – Yours, etc,EDWARD BOYD,Co Louth.Coru and personal therapySir, – Rape Crisis Ireland’s recent publication, Learning from Survivors of Rape and Sexual Violence: Rape Crisis Statistics 2025, shows that nearly one-quarter (23.8 per cent) waited more than 10 years before telling anyone about their ordeal. Among clients in 2025 whose first incident occurred before age 13, that figure nearly doubles to 46.6 per cent. These figures show that survivors often carry undisclosed trauma for years, sometimes decades, before seeking help. When they do, the psychotherapists and counsellors they turn to need to be properly equipped to meet that complexity: that includes both personal therapy and close clinical supervision, not as optional extras but as the foundation for safe, competent practice, providing the structure and support that enables them to respond to the complex needs of survivors of rape. It is alarming then, that Coru, the State regulator of the psychotherapy profession, continues to press ahead with education standards that exclude mandatory personal therapy and supervision from the basic training of new psychotherapists. This deprives future graduates of the grounding needed to manage such complex cases, and leaves survivors of rape without the protection they deserve. Coru was established to protect the public. It is failing the very people it exists to protect. – Yours, etc,JACKY GRAINGER, Board director,(Irish Council for Psychotherapy)Board Chair – IAHIP, Dublin 12.Ireland and neutral statusSir, – The debate surrounding the triple lock affords us an opportunity to have a fundamental reappraisal of our neutral status. To date, the debate has always been presented as a binary choice between neutrality and membership of a military alliance. Recently, both Finland and Sweden joined Nato because of perceived threats but we do not face the same threats and accordingly there is no necessity to consider joining Nato. Seen from a binary point of view, the default position is neutrality.It may be preferable if we adopted a non-aligned status, instead of neutrality, as this would avoid the contortions we go through in facilitating our airports to be used by troops engaged in conflict, and also seeking to distinguish between military and non-military aid in providing support to Ukraine. We would retain our status as a non-belligerent nation and could continue our role as peacekeepers on the world stage. – Yours, etc,PAUL WALSH,Skerries,Co Dublin.Blessed Frank and beatitudesSir, – Some additions to Frank McNally’s “blesseds” (An Irishman’s Diary, July 2nd).Blessed are those who never stare at their phones; they shall marvel at the birds, bees and the skies above.Blessed are those who never eat a four-course meal in the cinema; they shall be surrounded by the grateful.Blessed are those who say “please” and “thank you” for they shall be among the unique.Blessed are those who never utter the words “your call is important to us” or “your call is being recorded for training purposes” for they shall never drive you to distraction. – Yours, etc,PATRICK O’BYRNE,Dublin 7.Sir, – Blessed are those husbands who refrain from rattling the newspaper while their wives watch reality TV, for peace shall be theirs during the rest of the World Cup. – Yours, etc,VAL FITZPATRICK,Raheny,Dublin 5.Sir, – Blessed be those who keep the immersion off for they shall inherit the savings. – Yours, etc,MARGARET LYONS,Dublin 16.