Madam, - I am sure that many others beside myself find that the constant talk of economists and others about the probable shortage in tax revenues is a predictable attempt to prepare for a brutal Budget from this incompetent Government in December.
A Minister of Finance who can reduce capital gains tax on land by 20 per cent because it "looks tidy" (his own words) compounds this foolishness with reductions in the top rate of income tax and concludes with the ultimate folly by forgoing €1.2 billion in corporation tax in the preposterous cut to 12.5 per cent.
Let me remind him that, as Lenin once said, "Politics is the highest form of economics". If we want proper health care, education, transport and housing, for example, we will have to raise and allocate the money for them.
Unlike a two-bit magician or a four-flush punter at Galway Races, the economy of this State and its 3.9 million people cannot rely on rabbits out of a hat. - Yours, etc.,
KEITH CARGILL, Drinagh, Ennistymon, Co Clare.