Sir, – The €100 million subsidy for fee-paying schools represents an annual levy of roughly €60 on each and every one of the State’s 1.7 million workers, and reduces the annual cost of private education from around €25,000 to between €4,000 and €8,000. Over 12 years of education this amounts to a saving of around €250,000 per child (€50,000 versus €300,000). For those with solid incomes and small families who can afford the reduced fees, the subsidy is a wonderful cash gift.
This group obviously includes media commentators, as evidenced by their aggressive pro-subsidy stance whenever the issue is raised. However, for the majority on average wages or with large families who cannot hope to afford even the reduced fees, this massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich is a stinging inequity, and acts to preserve a trans-generational divide between rich and poor in Ireland. Natural justice demands that it end. – Yours, etc,