Sir, - Even if the money is available and even if it can be allocated without unleashing damaging inflation, it is surely deeply immoral to demand that it be given to already relatively well-paid public servants rather than towards improving the ramshackle public services they are charged with administering.
Senator Joe O'Toole has incessantly told us of the debilitating lack of resources available to the schools. Now, with an unequalled opportunity to argue that that deficiency be rectified, he shamelessly seeks to have the available funds diverted to his members, probably the best-paid teachers in Europe. How depressing but how predictable.
The health services, child care, drug rehabilitation, local sporting and general recreational facilities - indeed, the whole range of public services - are hobbled by inadequate resources. If money is now available, simple justice demands that the priority be poorly-funded public services rather than fairly-remunerated public servants. - Yours, etc., Sean Ward,
Sutton Park, Dublin 13.