Readers' Best comments

The number of babies born with a drug addiction in Edinburgh has soared by almost 75 per cent in three years. You were outraged.

This is an indication of the total failure of social policy over a number of decades. Years of too much carrot, not enough stick. There needs to be a prevention strategy, with harsh consequences to back it up. Otherwise we'll continue to bring children into the world whose future will just perpetuate this tragic failure of an excessively liberal policy.

Klaus Dubois

I'm afraid when it comes to drugs, NOTHING matters to addicts but their next fix, even the heartbreak of watching these poor babies in pain through withdrawal. They are probably producing the next generation of addicts.

Xena – Warrior Princess

These women do not deserve to be even called mothers! Junkies and women whose kids are already in care should be sterilised so no more poor babies arrive into the world in that state!

Bertoid

But you do realise that the usual guff about "human rights" and comparison to Nazi Germany will be trotted out by the do-gooders in our society if that was seriously suggested. Everyone seems to forget about the rights of the unborn children who are born into very often squalid conditions and little hope of successful lives.

Liz

Everybody seems to have sympathy for the babies, fine. The mothers were also babies once, also born to chav mothers. When does a chav child, worthy of sympathy, become a chav adult, worthy of far-right, Nazi-inspired vitriol like "sterilise them"?

Rob Hadnum

And so on … the cost to the taxpayer of appealing against a decision to send blind Ciara McGearey, 13, to a specialist school will run to almost 20k – the same it would cost to pay her fees for half a year. Oh the irony.

Are we sure it's not TIE behind this ? Spending 19k to save 20k sounds like their kind of maths !

JulesF

I think it is about time council employees involved in decision-making are drug tested.

Davy

This kid's dad raised a fair sum to pay for the first year, so why can't he be helped by the city chiefs?

The Real Alfonsa Pedrosa

If it was one of their children the money would be found.

Nitpicking

Stubborn and pathetic. These councillors seek the opinion of expert bodies. The expert advice they received in this case was to send the girl to the blind school, so why not just do it? Early on in this protracted farce, they had the option to say "okay, we got it wrong", however in a misguided attempt to save face all they are doing is alienating the people they are supposed to serve.

digestive biscuits V

If city politics seems like a weird fantasy, you'll know how city teenager Jenny Douglas feels – she's in the final 11 to be Andrew Lloyd Webber's Dorothy …

How about a new reality show to find a singer to replace that annoying bloke off the Go Compare ads?

The Gonk

Is this young lady related in any way to a member of staff on the EEN?

Douglas

Er, we're not the one called Douglas!