Madam, – Mary Hanafin is encouraging people to inform anonymously on "neighbours and acquaintances" about alleged welfare fraud ( The Irish Times, March 19th). Why not extend the call to include banking fraud, corruption within public bodies such as Fás, waste and cronyism in government expenditure, and fiddling by public representatives in claims for expenses?
Indeed, why not boost employment countrywide by introducing a Stasi policy of paid informants to give us all an opportunity to snitch on each other and settle old scores under the cover of state immunity?
This comes at a time when Ms Hanafin’s colleagues are piously promoting national solidarity and social cohesiveness. Has it not occurred to her that the principal cause of any welfare fraud is the failure of her department to properly screen and monitor applicants? This is yet another cynical example of the Government scapegoating the vulnerable.
Having colluded in and presided over an orgy of greed and corruption, the Government now wants the plain people of Ireland not only to pick up the tab but, if Ms Hanafin is to be heeded, to become a nation of informers. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – “Brian Lenihan, by his errors and inaction, bears much of the responsibility for what has become the worst budgetary disaster in the history of the OECD. His credibility is too seriously damaged to be repaired. He has become part of the problem.” Not my words but those of Dan O’Brien, a prominent member of the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the most respected international economic “think tanks”, writing in your edition of March 20th.
Mr Lenihan – who admits his ill-considered increase in VAT last October cost our already ailing economy almost three quarters of a billion euro in lost revenue – makes much of the virtue of patriotism. Perhaps he should demonstrate some of it by stepping aside from the finance portfolio, in which he is so manifestly out of his depth, to make way for someone even marginally less incompetent. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If proof were needed that the unions should have nothing to do with the running of the economy, the proposed “day of strikes” provides it in spades.
The idea that permanent and pensionable State employees would go on strike in the current climate is a slap in the face to the private-sector workers whose taxes keep them in their comfortable positions.
The reason for the strikes? Being asked to pay a tiny fraction of the cost of providing their own pensions. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Stephen Collins tells us that Mr Cowen did this country proud in the White House at the annual St Patrick’s Day bash (Inside Politics, March 21st). Maybe Mr Collins was, like Mr Cowen, reading from the wrong autocue. If the Taoiseach had acknowledged some remorse or regret, Obama-style, for his mistakes at the wheel, perhaps that accolade would have been somewhat deserved.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we Irish have to deal with the mess. Let’s put away the greenery and codology for another year. – Yours, etc,