Sir, - Every spokesperson we hear, for whatever party, is adamant that, "with due process", Ansbacher renegades will be brought to book, paying in full, on several counts, for their thievery.
Does not this present a perfect opportunity, without any additional cost to the Exchequer, to meet the nurses' claims in full, together with the subsequent knock-on claims in the public sector of which the Government is so fearful? Surely the monies recovered from these Ansbacher accounts - the back-taxes, interest and fines - should be more than enough to meet the bill. And, instead of sending culprits to prison, where they will be a financial liability to the State, why not commit them to hours of community service in the public hospitals? There they could fulfil, probably for the first time in their lives, a really useful function; as nurses' aides, serving meals, emptying bed-pans and urinal bottles, and dressing beds.
A year of such work might well help enormously in their rehabilitation, deflating their arrogant egos, perhaps even effecting a few "Road to Damascus" conversions. More importantly, it would leave nurses free to get on with more important aspects of their nursing, relieving them of the menial tasks in which they have been traditionally engaged for so many years, while vastly underpaid and under-appreciated.
I, more than most, fully appreciate the heroic service of nurses, having been hospitalised so very often during the past 15 years with chronic heart disease. In my estimation they are worth more than they are asking, plus a bonus for their patience in the face of such Government intransigence. And no one should appreciate the value of the nurse in our society more than the head of that Government, Bertie Ahern, who for several years, in a pre-politics incarnation, worked in the administration department of Dublin's Mater Hospital.
While he has long since ceased to be the darling of the nursing staff there, he is still the darling of the (relatively) few nuns remaining, who view him fawningly as "their little boy who made good". But, for how long, if he doesn't do the decent thing: put the people's money where his mouth is and come up the cash? -Yours, etc.,
Bill Long, Bellevue Avenue, Glenageary, Co Dublin.