Madam, - In the not-too-distant past, former Tánaiste Mary Harney encouraged us to "shop around" to find the best value and encourage price competition among retailers. More recently the current Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan, admonished people for cross-border shopping, telling us to "shop locally" to protect our economy.
Perhaps if the Government found itself able to reduce VAT at Budget time, instead of increasing it, more people would find it easier to "shop locally". To adopt a phrase used in another debate recently, trying to stop people getting value crossing the Border is like trying to stop the weather. - Yours, etc,