Sir, - Eamonn Brehony's letter (December 30th) really stirred me, having already read some of your late December articles on "the shape of '99". For some time now, and especially during the past year, I have been appalled at the extent to which double standards are being applied in Ireland. It seems that we are rapidly jettisoning traditional Christian values and greedily embracing the ideology of Mammon.
Our use of language is revealing. What for centuries we called the nation is now "the economy". The people, of whom John Lonergan wrote so impressively (December 31st), have become "human resources", mere cogs at the mercy of economic forces dictated by the all-powerful markets.
What I find particularly sickening is the contrast between what our Government seeks for Ireland and the way we treat some outsiders. Mr. McCreevy, famed for his "dirty dozen" social welfare cuts of the early 1990s, has notched up number 13, at the expense of some of the world's poorest, by effectively cutting overseas aid. This happened as his Finance Department was resorting to extraordinary measures to try to maintain the highest possible level of EU aid to Ireland!
Even less defensible is our treatment of asylum seekers. We who for so long have sought "green cards" and US visas for our economic migrants are particularly two-faced in our approach to those seeking refuge here. Does our Government not recognise the inconsistency in the application of draconian measures by our Department of Justice to those we so readily label "illegals"? How myopic can we be? Those of us who have been welcomed in countries from which some of our present immigrants had to flee have a duty to protest at their harsh treatment here. - Yours, etc., Colm Roddy
Bayside Walk, Dublin 13.