Madam, - As Dermot O'Shea reminds us (November 14th) Eamon de Valera declared before the 1932 election that no man was worth more than £1,000 a year to the State.
However, as a result no doubt of disinterested advisers like those who have so annoyed Mr Ahern, he actually accepted £1,500. This pushed his salary up from less than eight times the average industrial wage to nearly 12 times.
To be fair, this was still a considerable drop from what his predecessor William Cosgrave had been paid. - Yours, etc,
TONY FARMAR, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - De Valera's £1,000 ceiling on annual income would be roughly the equivalent of £50,000 sterling today. Even allowing for the differential between sterling and the euro, that is a good deal less than any TD - never mind minister - is picking up. Mind you, it has been said of de Valera that he took a vow of poverty that the rest of the people had to keep. - Yours, etc,
EOIN DILLON, Ceannt Fort, Mount Brown, Dublin 8.