1) There are no treadmills or any other form of exercise equipment patients can use.

Occupational therapy . . . in an Irish context anyway . . . is not adequate to cater for patients' holistic needs.

2) A small minority of the doctors from foreign countries do not command a great knowledge of the English language.

Instead of leaving the above two issues to the HSE to sort out, perhaps Mary Harney could intervene directly?

Darren S Mac an Phriora, Corran Chaislean Cnucha, Caislean Cnucha, Baile Atha Cliath.

Eating Greens is good for us all From Shaun Gavigan OVER the last week, political analysts have been straining themselves to stress the massive gamble that the Green Party has taken in entering government alongside Fianna Fail and the PDs. The decision to take up the position of the junior partners in coalition is a massive gamble but one that had to be taken at this juncture.

It is true that the Greens' imprint on the programme for government may not be immediately evident but anyone with a cursory understanding of Ireland's record on climate change and the energy crisis the country faces in the forthcoming years will understand why they had to take the risk of entering the coalition. Despite their protestations to the contrary, the previous government's record on these two key areas was awful. There are less noble reasons for the Greens taking hold of the levers of power but essentially these two issues were rightly viewed as of too much immediate importance to be ignored.

There is no consensus about the best way to practice Green politics within conventional party systems, never mind the political framework here with a predominance of centrist parties. What is understood within the discourses of Green politics is, however, that real success is measured not only in electoral success. If the programme for government is achieved over the next five years, a true indicator of the Greens' success may in fact be the cannibalisation of their policies by the centre parties.

Were an all-party consensus to be reached on ambitious energy and climate change targets, the Greens may well have to be happy to see these implemented while they themselves become politically sidelined.

In the forthcoming weeks and months, I hope the questions of the M3 and Shannon will be redirected to the party that implemented these policies and that the two Green ministers take up what might be their only opportunity to implement long term environmental and economically sustainable policies. It is, therefore, likely that the Greens may have engaged in an act of political suicide in joining with FF in government but in the long term it may, in hindsight, be seen by many as a sacrifice worth making.

Shaun Gavigan, Lurganboy, Ardara, Co Donegal.

The story of the PDs' washed-up integrity. . .

From Anthony Sheridan MARY HARNEY and joint honorary treasurer of the PDs Paul Mackay were taking a stroll on the beach. They were discussing Paul's worry that perhaps the PDs were getting too close to Fianna Fail.

Suddenly, Paul spotted a bright and shiny object on the sand.

"Wow, I've never seen anything like it before, what is it Mary?"

"You have seen it before, Paul; it's a lump of integrity."

"Integrity? But it couldn't be Mary, it's bright and clean, nothing like the lacklustre integrity we have back at party headquarters."

"That's because our integrity is not real, it's made from recycled brown paper envelopes."

"But, but why, Mary? Why?"

"Well, Paul, it's simple. When we decided to board the Fianna Fail boat 10 years ago it was already overloaded with developers' contracts, jobs for the boys, promises to 'friends' etc. Our heavy integrity would have sunk the whole operation so we dumped the lot overboard; I suppose that's one of the pieces that washed up.

"Anyway, we could hardly go public on what we had done so we created a new lightweight type of integrity, specifically designed to keep the boat afloat. It was made up of an endless supply of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fail headquarters. You have to admit, it fooled you for 10 years and, until recently, most other Irish citizens."

"Oh Mary, Mary, how could you? You mean it's all true?

Haughey was really corrupt and not a patriot to his fingertips? Bertie really does have questions to answer? Dick Roche is not leaving office to work on the streets of Calcutta?

Oh Mary, please, don't tell me Martin Cullen is not really my fairy godmother. How could you betray me like this?"

"Pull yourself together Paul . . .

the Great One is pleased with our performance, that's why we're back in power. And the really good news is that from now on we don't have to bother with all that integrity stuff.

"The Greens have arrived with truckloads of it. I think they made it from a combination of recycled Green policy papers, muck from the Tara/Skryne valley and the tears of all those eejits who voted for change.

"C'mon, I have a health business, er, health department to runf."

Anthony Sheridan, Carraig Eoin, Cobh, Co Cork.

Ireland's trade not as Fair as it seems From Colin Roche ONE of the more unsung elements of the new programme for government is a commitment to purchasing Fairtrade goods. Oxfam welcomes that commitment, which backs up that of towns and cities across the country to support workers and farmers in the developing world.

However, these achievements should not overshadow the silence regarding Ireland's unfair trade policies with the developing world. Ireland, as a member of the EU, is currently pressing many of the poorest countries in the world into hugely unfair trade agreements.

These so-called Economic Partnership Agreements threaten livelihoods, government services and the ability of poor countries to manage their economy into the future.

Purchasing fairtrade goods needs to be backed up by a commitment to trade fairly.

Colin Roche, Oxfam Ireland, 9 Burgh Quay, Dublin 2