Madam, - The think-tank Tasc thinks that there is evidence of strong public support for a more "just society" over the primacy of the free market alone. The evidence is an opinion poll they have published (June 20th).
However, in the same poll over 70 per cent of respondents said that the Celtic Tiger was a "net good thing" and over 80 per cent said that the increase in women at work was also a "net good thing". I'm sure an even higher percentage would have said that the decline in unemployment over the last 20 years was also a net good thing. All of these "net good things" are consequences of Ireland and Irish people embracing free markets.
The consequence has been a huge increase in prosperity, with further gains to be made from even more liberal economic policies. Are the polls now showing that Irish people want to move away from free markets in the name of a "just society"?
Tasc seeks to influence public policy by reliance not on ideas but opinion polls. Tasc seeks to rely on the fact that when asked what was the most important feature of democracy, 38 per cent of respondents said "a more equal society" and only 5 per cent said a "free market economy". This, they said, was "evidence of strong public support for a more just society". Really?
The Tasc report is open to an entirely different interpretation: Irish people strongly embrace the consequences of free market policies and the social consequences, like more women in the workplace, of those policies.
If Tasc wants to convince me that Irish people support a more "just society", whatever that means, over the primacy of free markets alone let them ask the following question: "Do you support policies that will result in what Tasc thinks is a more just society (and may not be what you think is a just society) even though these policies are likely to make you poorer, possibly very poor?" - Yours etc
AIDAN WALSH Ranelagh Dublin 6.