It is always encouraging to receive a reaction to articles one has written, and e-mail has greatly facilitated this process: in particular, the Irish Times web-site has encouraged people overseas to offer their views.
Even before I had an e-mail address, I sometimes received letters from overseas Irish Times readers - including, I recall, communications in the mid-1990s from an Irish couple in Brazil and from an Irish businessman in Saudi Arabia, both of whom responded to my early warning of rapid economic growth in the middle of the 1990s by announcing their intention of returning to Ireland to take advantage of this development.
But occasionally when I write about positive things happening here, I receive instead furious e-mails from Irish emigrants who are deeply upset by any suggestion that anything good can happen here. Thus, whilst last week's column about the way in which past political policies contributed to the extraordinary economic growth of recent years evoked two positive reactions - from Australia and China - it also produced three very cross comments from emigrants to the United States and Germany.
The e-mail from China, from an exchange student who is teaching English to Chinese, recorded that many of his students commented to him that "You must be very proud of your leaders who have done this great thing for your people" - to which our Irish student, (who says he hadn't thought much about the role of politicians in economic growth), says he responded: "I suppose we are".
Having lectured on the Irish economy in the past couple of years in Bulgaria several times and also in Macedonia, Croatia, Estonia and Sri Lanka, as well as in the US, I can testify that the positive reaction of the Chinese students to Irish political decision-making and its economic effects is widely shared abroad.
But, sadly, that is not how some recent Irish emigrants react. My Irish correspondent from Germany announced he had been "fuming" over the contents of last week's column, claiming that the main factor in our success since 1993 has not been anything we did here, but simply low interest rates (although this factor is the result of our joining the EMU only in 1999), and the flow of funds from the EU for infrastructural investment. But that investment is a factor to which Irish economists do not attribute a role as a significant stimulus to growth - although of course it has facilitated the growth that has been generated by domestic policies.
An American correspondent starts rather discouragingly by saying that because he and his wife had been caught in the "uniquely Irish middle class poverty trap", they had left Ireland a few years ago "hopefully never to return". His bitterness reflects a "pervasive feeling" that the successful, in collusion with the political elite, have ridden to their position on the backs of the taxpayer. This has left his "family in Ireland and many like them desperately disillusioned".
Whilst the negative element that runs through these messages is saddening, it is nevertheless encouraging that these emigrants still read The Irish Times on the Internet.
And, in truth, although their reluctance to recognise positive political achievements is misplaced, their anger at persistent abuses of political influence, failure to prosecute white collar criminals and particularly tax-evaders, neglect of the health system, of schools and roads, and, above all, the element of corruption that crept into our political system - these are the issues they have raised - is, of course, well-founded. For we know that the wise political decisions on economic policy that have enabled us belatedly to catch up with the rest of Europe have been matched not only by unedifying political behaviour but also by an absence of any visible concern on the part of many politicians about the extent of the growing gap between rich and poor that has accompanied our rapid economic growth.
It is equally distressing that so few Irish politicians have shown sensitivity to the adverse consequences of changes in the role of the family in Irish life that have taken place under their noses during the past one-third of a century. These issues are the subject of Finola Kennedy's recent book Cottage to Creche - Family Change in Ireland, which traces the evolution of aspects of our society that have transformed human relationships in this country - both for the better in some respects but for the worse in others.
What emerges very clearly from this valuable book is just how radical has been the shift from a situation in which a mere generation ago the individual was subordinate to the family, sometimes to a stifling extent, to a society in which the interests of the individual take precedence over the interests of the family.
In a healthy democracy the impact of these changes on the health and happiness of citizens would be of serious concern to politicians - but that has not been the case here. There has been no serious political debate, for example, about the long-term social implications of a situation in which over half of all first pregnancies are non-marital, or about the social and economic pressures that are pushing women to postpone the birth of their children until their 30s.
On this latter issue we have in fact seen the introduction two years ago of a tax measure specifically designed to increase these pressures, by discriminating against spouses - mainly women - who make a financial sacrifice by choosing to look after their children at home instead of engaging in paid work. It took a considerable popular backlash last year to divert State action instead towards increases in child benefit that at least marginally assist couples to make their own free choices in these matters.
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie