Madam, - Both sides of the debate at EU level about the need to adjust to the increasing mobility of capital and labour seem unnecessarily polarised.
It is true that France and Germany, for example, have levels of social support for the healthy and well-educated which go beyond what is necessary and which act as a drag on business.
On the other hand, objective comparisons show that the countries at present producing the best economic figures have inadequate levels of social support for those that really need it.
Nowhere is this truer than in Ireland, where even in these prosperous days scandal after scandal emerges, indicating a contemptuous disregard for the vulnerable.
Those who urge the adherents of the European social model to change their ways should beware - they may get what they wish for.
France and Germany have experience of economic booms even more spectacular than our own.
They have invested the proceeds in creating superb infrastructure and high levels of social cohesion.
By contrast in Ireland prosperity has been accompanied by widespread maladministration and increasing social alienation. If the two core countries of the EU were to make some simple adjustments to their labour and taxation laws, where would investment most likely flow?
To the countries with massive infrastructural and social deficits, or the ones which have long experience of administration that really works?
The Europeans are right to be wary of the idea that social provision should be left to an under-regulated and under-supervised private sector.
This is the recipe for disenfranchising the general public and the erosion of general quality of life, in favour of the financial gain and power of the few who will resist being held to account. One need look no further than Ireland and Britain for proof that caution is justified. Providing a favourable climate for business is a necessary but essentially passive exercise of government.
Protection of the public interest and the wise use of tax revenues are its active roles, and this is where the continental European countries excel and the western Anglophone ones are failing. The UK and Ireland, as well as the USA, really need to raise their standards in this regard. The profit motive ensures that business will succeed wherever it is allowed to, but good governance requires commitment to higher ideals. - Yours, etc,
CHARLES BAGWELL, Straffan, Co Kildare.
Madam, - In the recent opinion poll on EU matters (June 14th), people were asked if Ireland should unite fully with the EU or should protect its independence from the EU. This question could have been drafted by Sinn Féin.
It implies a "them and us" situation in which Irish independence is threatened by the EU.
Given such an either/or choice, it is not surprising that 45 per cent of respondents supported independence, as against 36 per cent for integration.
The pollsters should devise a question which measures opinions on the degree of European integration which is considered desirable, such as: Do you think that the peoples and states of the European Union should become united ever more closely or that the process has gone far enough? - Yours, etc,
MYLES McSWINEY, Cricklewood Park, Belfast.