Asking the right questions

Sir, - I am sick and tired of seeing opinion polls about Government satisfaction getting huge headlines in our media

Sir, - I am sick and tired of seeing opinion polls about Government satisfaction getting huge headlines in our media. It smacks of propoganda. Don't get me wrong. I am not denying the results of the MRBI poll (The Irish Times, January 26th). However, if you ask people the right questions in the right way, you will get the right answers. Who decides what questions should be asked in MRBI polls? Is it corporate Ireland?

I would love to see an MRBI poll carried out along the following lines:

1. There are many children and teenagers sleeping cold and hungry on our streets in doorways overnight. Do you think that the Government has shown any moral responsibility and done anything to address this problem over the past four years?

2. There are more people sleeping on trolleys in hospital corridors in public hospitals tonight than there were 10 years ago. Do you think the Government has addressed the problems in our health system satisfactorily, or do you think that we are a first-world country with a third-world medical system?

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3. Over the past number of years elderly people in private nursing homes were denied by this Government basic nursing aids such as incontinence sheets. This insanity was brought to the Government's attention many times, but it refused to do anything about it. Do you think that the Government behaved in a just and caring manner towards our elderly?

4. Do you think that people with disabilities and their carers are marginalised in our society? Are you satisfied with the Government's efforts to ensure that these people are getting adequate care, education and integration into society? Are you satisfied with the help and support that carers, who give up their own careers and live in poverty, are getting from the Government?

5. Drug and alcohol addictions are the biggest problems facing our young people today. Do you think the Government has set up enough hostels, refuge centres and treatment centres for our addicts and their victims? What efforts do you think the Government is making to reintegrate these people into our society?

6. Unemployment has dropped to 3 per cent yet housing lists have trebled in the past few years. Why are over 40,000 families on waiting lists for public housing in our booming economy? Do you think this is a bizarre situation and there is a lack of political will to address this problem?

7. Government members recently granted themselves a huge pay increase. Do you think that, taking into account their record on creating a just, equitable, caring society over recent years, they deserved this?

8. Are you satisfied with the society that this government is shaping? Do you think that it is a caring society that your children will be proud to live in, do you think that a two tier system is being created within this country, where if you fall off mainstream middle-class voting Ireland, you can be dammed, as far as this Goverment is concerned.

This is not actually an antiFianna Fail/PD letter; the Opposition might as well have spent the last few years in the Fariones Hotel in Lanzarote for all the good they are here.

It is up to the media to expose injustice within our society. Primetime's programme last Thursday night about St Theresa's Gardens is the type of journalism and reporting we should be seeing, not acres of newspaper wasted on Government press releases. - Yours, etc.,

Kate O'Connor, Dingle, Co Kerry.