Madam, - Mr John O'Donoghue's recent comments on "Rip-off Ireland" clearly show he is a stranger to the marketplace and should play no further part in this very serious problem. Mary Harney wants "some radical new thinking", so she forms a committee which will eventually (2006?) confirm what every member of the public already knows.
Mary Raftery writes in The Irish Times: "If ever there was a time for the consumer to rise up, it is now." Yes indeed, but how? Any proposal to be effective must indeed be radical and perhaps somewhat militant. Here is my contribution.
In "Rip-off Ireland", the ICTU rightly looks for increases for its members so as to pay for the exorbitant cost of living, thereby increasing labour costs to uncompetitive levels. The flip-side of this coin is a reduction of consumer prices.
In relation to the food basket, let the various unions determine those products which are totally out of line with their equivalents in the North and demand price reductions. Remember the Dunnes Stores heroines and how effective was their protest? Remember Arthur Scargill's "flying pickets" (finally faced down by Thatcher, but I doubt if our leader has that lady's stomach for such a fight)?
Let the unions play power politics. They have the ability to take action - but have they got the bottle?
Kevin Myers, please comment. - Yours, etc.,
ALAN COOK, The Coppins, Dublin 18.