Madam, - No doubt there will be a chorus of disapproval about the increase in the price of The Irish Times. But at least the public has the choice of not paying the increase because the paper operates in the open market sector of the economy.
Things are different in the cossetted public sector, where we have no such choice, and witness constantly the exercise of powerful trade union interests representing doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, air traffic controllers and other well-paid workers, as well as Cabinet ministers, Dáil deputies, senior civil servants, judges, etc - all extracting more from the public purse without any visible gain to the public.
And I won't even mention vested interests such as property and land speculators! Is it any wonder we are a seriously overpriced economy when the Government, under our "mediator-in-chief" Taoiseach, is just not willing or able to take on the powerful vested interests?
- Yours, etc,
JOHN MURPHY, Monaloe Park Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin.