Sir, – In Ireland, we display an extraordinary tolerance for antisocial behaviour when it is expressed through cars and driving. Communities across the country are routinely subjected to excessively loud, illegally modified exhausts that can be heard from a mile away, deliberate high revving through quiet residential streets and village centres, aggressive tailgating, and late-night handbrake turns to burn tyre rubber. For some reason, as long as antisocial behaviour takes place behind a steering wheel, it is treated as a minor nuisance rather than a threat to public quality of life.Other nations take a vastly different approach. For example, France strictly enforces article R318-3 of the Code de la Route which states “motor vehicles must not emit noises that are likely to cause annoyance to road users or local residents”. Singapore’s Road Traffic Act prohibits the use of any appliance or the commission of any act which is likely to cause annoyance or danger. Similar provisions are widespread across Europe.It is time we stopped viewing noisy, aggressive driving as an inevitable feature of Irish life. Until our traffic regulations and enforcement priorities treat motoring antisocial behaviour with the seriousness it deserves, a small but aggressive cohort will continue to annoy, intimidate and even frighten the majority with impunity. – Yours, etc, KEVIN LALOR,Caragh, Co Kildare.Sir, – Today I took the M4 with my two children. I am not a confident motorway driver, I stuck to the left lane, going at a steady 80 to 100km. Traffic was quite heavy at the time. A truck driver drove very close to the rear of my vehicle and started flashing its lights at me. I refused to budge. When the truck did pass me, it beeped as it passed. Given the terrifying events of the past weeks, this is particularly unacceptable behaviour. In fact, I passed this truck later so it wasn’t a time issue. The driver believed it owned the left lane. – Yours, etc,JANE BOURKE,Drumcondra,Dublin 3.Social media needs to change Sir, – Life drifts along and occasionally it takes a tragedy to jolt us out of our slumber. Is the collision on the M7 the moment when the corrosive influence of social media is finally brought into sharp focus?It is now clear for everyone to see that social media companies are unable (or unwilling, as that would require enormous costs that would deflate supernormal profits) to prevent content showing criminal behaviour being posted, never mind material that is legally questionable or plain false and misleading. Layer on top the deluge of AI generated slop and human impersonation and the breakdown of trust and any distinction between reality and fiction will soon disappear. The refusal of TikTok to publicly account for its activities confirms that the legal basis for social media is tilted towards maintaining tech profits and not the greater societal good. Politicians exist to protect current and future generations but under this watch a steady drift to lawlessness online continues. A change of course is urgently needed. – Yours, etc,DAVID JOHNSON,Terenure,Dublin 6W.Keeping patients out of hospitalSir, – Harry McGee reports Cork University Hospital’s CEO Jennifer Kearney as saying that demand at CUH was increasing faster than the available workforce, creating “sustained pressure” on emergency care capacity and patient flow as winter approaches (August 20th).Admissions among patients aged over 75 were running at twice the national average in CUH, while a spokesman for the HSE nationally said that health services had unprecedented growth in the last five years of more than 23 per cent. As a rural GP for 45 years I am not at all surprised that our A & E departments and hospital wards are “chock a block” with age 75-plus older people. That situation is flagged to get worse with our ageing demographic. Adequately supporting communities and rural GPs to allow ageing in place will facilitate a shift towards more complete care in the community. Using a continuum of home supports, extending to a “housing with care” approach, and to the use of GP step-up and step -down subacute community beds, will help ensure a viable alternative to the present fiasco. Mayo Social, which includes representatives of Mayo County Council, the HSE, Sage Advocacy and local community services, as well as approved housing bodies and St Vincent de Paul is an inter-agency initiative which is working towards such a community alternative. Spending some more millions of euro in facilitating ageing in place, including enticing GPs to look after more of our older population locally, makes a lot more sense than spending even more billions of euro sending so many older people for treatment to an acute hospital unit – where they don’t want to be sent to in the first place were there any viable local alternative for them. – Yours, etc,DR JERRY COWLEY,Mulranny,Co Mayo. A rise is a rise in property valuesSir, – Should we not acknowledge the rather obvious fact that when we are regularly presented with headlines such as “Irish house price growth hits two-year low as market cools”, house prices have, in fact, still gone up?“Growth easing” sounds wonderfully reassuring, as though prices have somehow become less expensive. They have not. They are simply increasing at a slightly slower rate than before.Perhaps it sounds foolishly simple to have to say it, but a slower rise is still a rise. If house prices are increasing by 5.6 per cent year-on-year, then for anyone trying to buy one, that distinction is more than semantics.Perhaps we could dispense with the euphemisms and say what the figures actually mean: house prices are still rising by 5.6 per cent. It would be refreshing if headlines occasionally acknowledged the perspective of the person who has to find the money, rather than the statistician who gets to describe the rate at which it is disappearing. – Yours, etc.GLENN FITZPATRICK,Drimnagh,Dublin 12.Healy-Rae and gunsSir, – Your newspaper had a front-page article this morning concerning the confiscation by gardaí of a firearm from Michael Healy-Rae. (“Garda, gardaí confiscated gun from Michael Healy-Rae,” August 21st). This took place in 2013 and the firearm was returned as it was legally held. A slow news day indeed. – Yours, etc,MICHAEL CAREY,Blarney, Co Cork.Sir, – I am alarmed to read that Independent Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, who lives in Kerry, believes that he would have guns in his possession at all times. Perhaps he might be so good to highlight those locations in Kerry where carrying a gun is the right thing to do – does it include primary schools, institutes of education, coffee shops, public libraries, bars, pottery shops, barbers, hotels, tourist offices and constituency offices of local representatives?If so I will avoid all those locations on my next trip to Kerry and just provide drive-through tourism on my way to Cork. – Yours, etc, DERMOT O’ROURKE, Lucan,Dublin.Going loopySir, – Rather than reaching out or touching base with your recent correspondents can I simply ask to be kept in the loop please? – Yours, etc,KIERAN MCHUGH, Howth, Co Dublin.Sir, – Many thanks to Vincent Walsh (Letters, August 21st) for “stepping up to the plate” and “calling out” the profusion of irritating (and mostly transatlantic) terminology. There has been a definite “uptick” of this lately, and I feel “negatively impacted” by it all. – Yours, etc,DON O’GRADY, Lucan,Dublin.A proposal on school patronageSir, – Your editorial (August 20th) highlights the mismatch between the stated wishes of parents regarding school patronage and the existing situation. More than 90 per cent of primary schools are currently under church control even though 40 per cent of parents would prefer multi-denominational schools. The policy of transfer of patronage from religious to multi-denominational patronage (divestment) has been Department of Education policy since 2012. But fewer than one school annually has transferred in the past 15 years. It is difficult to see why the Department expects a different result this time.The current cost to the Government of national school education (ie. teachers’ salaries and capitation grant) will be the same whether children attend denominational or multi-denominational schools. The issue which needs to be resolved now is the issue of accommodation (physical buildings). Surely it is not beyond the resources of the state to provide a solution to the accommodation issue? For example, where there are a number of schools under religious control in an area where there is no multi-denominational school, could the school buildings in that area not be reconfigured (for example by the amalgamation of some of the schools) to make at least one building available for a school under multi-denominational patronage? Since the foundation of the State, an average of 90 per cent of the capital cost of building national schools was provided by the State on condition that they would be used as national schools for 99 years. National school leases (to which the Minister for Education is a party) never specified that the schools should be denominational. Minister – it is time for action – not for sitting on the fence. – Yours, etc, ÁINE HYLAND,Emeritus Professor of Education,University College Cork.Women and the Catholic ChurchSir, – As an octogenarian and a woman I continue to be amazed at the misogyny within the Church. The hierarchy it would appear prefer to recruit men from abroad to fill the shoes of our burnt-out and overworked elderly priests rather than stand together and demand the recognition of women and the impact they would bring to bear in so many ways. But then why am I surprised as the church refuses to move into the 21st century despite the hard work, compassion and understanding of so many priests for which I am grateful for? – Yours, etc,DEL Ó’ SULLIVAN,Listowel,Co Kerry.Playing AfghanistanSir, – Brian O’Brien (Letters, August 20th) says “Whatever we think about Afghanistan’s rulers, we should keep sport and politics separate” speaks about “harming our national pride and profile”.The harm that the regime in Afghanistan is causing women is greaterthan “our national pride” as he puts it.Let us not forget the impact that the sporting boycott of South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s had on bringing down apartheid.Moral conviction should be to the fore. – Yours, etc,ROSS GARVEY,Sandymount,Dublin 4.Online taxes and small businessesSir, – Conor Pope’s report on the new €2 charge on non-EU goods (“Online shoppers face new €2 charge for non-EU goods from November”, Business, August 18th) details yet another blow delivered directly to small businesses in this country.That makes three big financial and regulatory obstacles in very quick succession. First came the €3 per item charge on purchases outside the EU, followed closely by the red tape and bureaucracy of the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. Now we are hit with yet another fee.As the owner of a small, handmade jewellery business, I find myself asking a fundamental question: how on earth are small, independent creators expected to survive this endless succession of charges?After slogging away for almost three years, I am finally seeing some hard-earned success and traction. Yet, in a hyper-competitive market where consumers are already watching every cent, raising my prices simply is not an option. So what am I – and hundreds of small sole traders like me across Ireland – supposed to do?If the state and the EU continue to pile fees on to the vital supply chains and operations of small enterprises, they will end up snuffing out the very local businesses they claim to support. – Yours, etc,ELEANOR JORDAN O’FARRELL,RainbowRegalia,Greystones, Co Wicklow.Jangling jinglesSir,– I couldn’t agree more with Greg Scanlon’s reaction to the inane jingle which plays in the background during the weather forecast on RTÉ Radio 1 (Letters, August 21st). Unfortunately it is just one example of the vacuous, auditory “fluff” which precedes many programmes throughout the day. Another puzzle is why it is deemed necessary for us to be reminded, repeatedly, and with loud fanfare, that we are, indeed, still listening to RTÉ Radio 1, along with all the ways we can listen to it.However, I would like to congratulate John Bowman, as he alone seems to have managed to hold on to the original signature tune for his excellent programme, Bowman: Sunday: 8.30, where the beautiful music of the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G big effectively erases all memory of the obligatory jingle which precedes it.If RTÉ Radio 1 insist on including background music with the weather forecast, maybe, instead of an anonymous jingle, they would consider using a selection of music which reflects the expected weather conditions. How about a bit of Berlioz’s Royal Hunt and Storm or the Thunderstorm from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, when the next bit of windy weather is on the cards? It might make it difficult to hear the actual forecast, but I’m sure we would all get the message. – Yours, etc,KATHERINE QUIRKE,Dún Laoghaire,Co Dublin.