This family is suffering enough.

When your child is fighting an illness anything that can be done to provide assistance and support should come automatically.

Being the father of a child with a disability I know the girl’s family must feel as though the Government has abandoned them.

My daughter is visually impaired, a beautiful and well-balanced young woman who receives certain disability benefits, not all at the higher rate.

This is something with which we can live , but something with which we do not agree.

If people like my daughter, and little girl in the Tele’s story, had self-inflicted problems like drug addiction then they would automatically receive benefits at the higher rate.

The powers-that-be, as well as ignoring those is real need, also miss all the problems drug addicts bring to our society — threatening behaviour, theft, fighting, etc.

The history of drug abuse in Dundee just keeps on replicating from one era to the next. Why should decent people tolerate it much longer?

It’s about time our local and national politicians stopped papering over the cracks and did something positive.

Instead of trying for a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most photographed man in politics, one well known Lochee councillor should get his act together and clear out the druggies and get more help for those who genuinely need it. — Father.

I AM disgusted at the attitude of local authorities to the legislation the Scottish Executive brought in placing a duty on councils to provide carers the opportunity to access respite care, assessment of needs and direct payments.

It’s not a solution for every carer or disabled person but to delay and make excuses for not even assessing needs is unforgivable.

There are nearly 5.7 million carers in Great Britain. They come from all walks of life and have no training, no holidays, no fixed hours and no fixed salary.

At a meeting I attended in Angus with 40 other carers, the five social work managers who were there gave the usual excuses of no staff and no money. They did not even arrange care to allow the carers to attend.

Please phone or write to your councillor, MSP or MP and support carers’ rights. — Dougie Thain, Chairperson, Dundee Anti Poverty Forum.

Why then are the authorities changing to white lights, which have in our area created more vandalism, and crime? Also in adverse conditions such as fog, snow and heavy rain, they are inferior to the orange lighting.

According to Planning and Transportation Convener Fiona Grant, there has been a widespread consultation over this proposal.

I have not spoken to anyone in the Balgillo area who knows of this consultation.

Please give us back our orange lights. — Sparky.

Isn’t it high time there was a society for the protection of baby seals just as there is one for cats? It is also time Canada was publicly shamed and reprimanded. — Evelyn Kelly, Fund-Raising Officer, Cats’ Protection, Foundry Lane, Dundee.

WHAT’S THE address of the Canadian Prime Minister? I would like to write complaining about the baby seal cull. — Elizabeth Barrie, Lawton Terrace, Dundee.

[The Canadian government website invites comments to Prime Minister Paul Martin. Email pm@pm.qc.ca or write the PM’s office at Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, K1A OA2.]

Instead of trying to score cheap political points herself, perhaps the leader of the Labour administration of Dundee City Council would have been better trying to find a solution to the strike weeks ago.

Many parents that I have spoken to agree with SNP Councillor Fordyce’s comments and backed her and the nurses to the hilt.

It seems that this administration wishes to gag opposition councillors making legitimate complaints about the way the administration mismanaged the whole situation. — Angry Parent.

I NOTICE that Councillor Shimi is upset because another councillor has accused the administration of selling their souls.

I can understand why Councillor Shimi is upset. The truth always hurts. — Andy Hamilton, Lochee Road, Dundee.

I RESPOND to Dundee City Council administration leader Jill Shimi’s “censure” of me in the press over my views on the council’s handling of the nursery nurses’ strike.

Some people are of the opinion she severely rebuked me in public. She did not. In fact she cannot.

I am not of the same political persuasion as Mrs Shimi. She can censure members of her group or the administration for that matter.

I, on the other hand, am a member of the SNP group and as an opposition councillor it is my duty to scrutinise and, where necessary, criticise the administration. — Elizabeth Fordyce JP, Councillor for Baxter Park Ward.

I was walking along Bell Street in Dundee, just as the court was coming out for lunch, and witnessed what can only be described as a prescription-fuelled humiliation of a young man.

He was taking a bit of a beating from a girl sporting a Burberry cap, and matching shell suit.

The boy, who was also decked out in the latest Burberry gear, was getting booted, slapped, punched and spat on from this toothless girl. Cars and vans stopped to have a chortle.

Some even had words of encouragement for the young vagabonds. “Gie him a boot,” was one shout from the BT call centre. “Go on my son,” was one phrase I heard from a passing van.

Bell Street has it all — a court, a police station, a university and people who amuse . . .

I suggest Chewing The Fat writers get down to Bell Street to film what occurs there on a daily basis for their next TV series. It cheered me up no end I can tell you. — Duncan McCann, Solway Gardens, Monifieth.

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