Sir, - I agree with your editorial (August 17th) about DIRT tax and the Irish Banks. I would go one step further.
We all now know the large institutional banks, including the State-run banks, were systematically robbing the public of DIRT tax during the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time as this was happening the health service endured drastic cuts which were deemed necessary by the Government because of the lack of money. We now know that this was not true and money which should have been available was being taken out of the public exchequer by banks and their customers.
People should remember that in 1986 the Department of Health, with the full agreement of St James's Hospital, was quite happy to close down the only bone marrow transplant centre in the country at that time, and thereby withdraw curative therapy to patients with leukaemia.
Following a protest by myself and colleagues (Prof Ian Temperley and Prof Peter Daly), protests by patients and by the Bone Marrow for Leukaemia Trust (with the help of Ben Briscoe, TD, a member of the Trust), the Department of Health and the board of St James's Hospital reversed their decision and decided that we should still be allowed to cure leukaemia. A tiny fraction of the money which was systematically taken out of the Exchequer by the banks would of course have prevented this potential tragedy.
I agree with your editorial that the banks should stop quibbling with Revenue and pay their debts smartly. I would also suggest that all of the large institutional banks take a full page advertisement in all of the daily newspapers in Ireland and issue an abject and profuse apology to people in Ireland who suffered from the health cuts in the 1980s, part of which could have been alleviated by the banks behaving in an honest fashion. - Yours, etc.,
Shaun R. McCann, FRCPI, FRCPath., FRCP (Edin), Head of the National Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (Adults), St James's Hospital, Dublin 8.