Sitting pretty: Batt O'Keeffe has rowed back and found more money

Very starkly and accurately (Sunday Tribune, 14 December), you list the inadequacies (euphemism) of what you call a zombie government. You underline (correctly) the absolute necessity from a national strategic view of getting back on the European bus through Lisbon II. But then you hesitate.

Within weeks of swearing blind that he could not budge an inch, the Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe has now rowed back and 'found' money which he previously said did not exist.

Dáil Éireann spent the better part of two days (and Seanad Éireann an entire day), processing the Health Bill 2008. This will enable Mary Harney to go after 20,000 over-70s to take their medical cards from them. For a relative pittance. Which could have been picked up by a tap on a keyboard, tweaking a tax or a levy. With little or no fuss. Politically the most frightening aspect of this measure: it targets the most politically dangerous socio-economic sub-group of all – the 60- to 80-year olds whose financial security is not huge and who have the time, residual energy and expertise to campaign. Westland Row is only a start.

Our government has rammed its collective fist into a hornets' nest. It is making this country ungovernable.

After seven or eight months of mind-numbing treaty fatigue and who knows what economic horrors, our voters will be presented with Lisbon II. In a rational world, they would of course put Europe and our future at its centre in one box; Messers (sic) Cowen and Co in another.

Lisbon II could well be the most important strategic decision to be tackled by the people in half a century. To engage with a very frightened and resentful electorate with Cowen and Co fronting the Yes campaign is to take a risk too far.

It is time for you to ask this zombie government to turn their heads around the right way – and say goodbye.

Maurice O'Connell,

Fenit Without, Fenit,

Tralee, Co Kerry.