Sir, - Many will agree with Vincent Browne (Opinion, April 22nd) that the Belfast Agreement has brought us closer to "according to all people on this island . . . recognition of their equal worth". I have left out Vincent's parenthetic "except the poor".
Yes indeed, except the poor. Fr Pat Griffin (April 23rd) described the plight of a frail and lonely widow expected to enjoy life on £70 a week. Is this just?, he asked. Well, it would be if everyone had to live on that, but they don't, and no, it is not just; it is obscenely unjust. Would any of the very many who live on £700 and upwards a week have the effrontery to tell this struggling widow, to her face, that she is of equal worth with them?
I think it was St Francis of Assisi who held it a discourtesy to stand in the presence of someone poorer than himself. If it is a discourtesy, it is also much more: it is a vicious kick in the teeth to someone you hypocritically declare to be of equal worth with yourself. And I do not know how to give practical recognition to the equal worth of all citizens except by giving all a similar standard of living.
Nor do I know exactly how long it took to put together the peace deal (and I do not belittle the achievement) but I do know that we have had 77 years of independence in which to create something approaching a just society, and what have we now? We have a society characterised by gross inequality, by Kevin Myers's unctuous rhetoric about the Irish people finally harvesting the rewards of their labours with pubs and restaurants alive with laughter and merriment (on £70 a week?), while a gaggle of smiling Fine Gael TDs embark on a grand crusade to keep duty-free sales at the airports. That will surely be a big step towards a just society and a great help to all those living on £70 a week.
Most of our politicians evidently do not want a just society or anything like it. If that great old principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" were invoked in Dail Eireann today, it would be greeted with howls of fear. Can it be that our representatives reflect accurately the feelings of an electorate that is either generally uncaring or politically naive, or both? And that consequently the poor, but especially the rich, we will have with us always? - Yours, etc.,
Ruarc Gahan
Knocknaboley, Hollywood, Co Wicklow.