Sir, – In his reaction to the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Government’s information package on the children’s rights referendum, Pat Rabbitte says the Government’s action was based on “passionate conviction” (Front page, December 12th). One can only wonder at how quickly that “passionate conviction” disappeared when it came to the blanket removal of €10 from those very same children. – Yours, etc,
Sir , – In the Dáil Gerry Adams focused on the salaries paid to Enda Kenny and his associates, plus breaking the cap on his advisers. Enda Kenny responded by saying “Remember Jean McConville” (Dáil Report, December 12th).
The handicapped , the poor and the homeless will certainly remember her, she will be now associated with being the stock answer for Mr Kenny to defend the unanswerable . – Yours, etc,
Sir, – May I congratulate Noel Leahy (December 12th) for his point that the carer’s respite allowance cut (€26million) could be reversed by reallocating funding from sports clubs (€28million). Finally somebody gets it! Expenditure reversals must come from other expenditure not from more taxation. A point sadly not understood by most “analysis” in this paper in recent times. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Regarding Mae Sexton’s outburst (December 11th), it ill behoves any former Progressive Democrat to criticise anything done by other parties; after all, the PDs were major contributors to the mess the country is now in, but it is useful for them to forget that now. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Robin Hood and his Merry Men were portrayed as courteous robbers who robbed the rich to give to the poor. In Ireland we now have the reverse of Robin Hood – our Government has presented us with a new logic that claims that no one earning a salary over €100,000 can be expected to pay their fair share of our national debt. Instead it is the national intention to shelter these Untouchables – retired bankers, high-status professionals, the super-rich in addition to those who have been directly responsible for the light regulation that has got our country into this financial mess. The preferred argument is the unjustified fear of not attracting direct foreign investment. So instead the Government has opted to take the money from those who are doing invaluable caring work in our society and big families who are in most need of the children’s allowance. The Irish Robin Hood and his Merry Men have adopted a motto of robbing from the most vulnerable in order to pay our national debt and protect the wealthy. If this logic holds then we can truly say that we have merely become an economy and have lost all public commitment to being a caring, creative and civilised Celtic nation. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The Government’s insistence that the decision to significantly cut the respite care grant was necessary and unavoidable rings hollow when you consider that it has, in the same Budget, forked out a colossal €59.2 million to the horse and greyhound racing sector.
What a bizarre sense of priorities. The Fine Gael-Labour coalition must have a political death-wish if it persists in this worse than Scrooge-like behaviour, ravaging the lives of the most vulnerable people on this island while pouring precious funds into gambling-relating industries that deserve not one cent of taxpayers’ money.
These politicians should go down in history for having managed to reverse the Robin Hood principle: They have taken from those most in need and redistributed financial resources to . . .the bloodstock industry! Does gambling on horses and greyhounds rate higher with them than people whose lives depend so profoundly on the support and loving care of their fellow human beings? – Yours, etc,