Sir, - While I'm sure the Army is delighted to be getting swanky new uniforms, I was horrified to learn that these are being manufactured in Asia and Eastern Europe (The Irish Times, January 11th).
Practically every day we hear of the progressive demise of the textile and clothing industry in this country with hundreds of redundancies, but this all seems to get swept under the carpet with the announcement of yet another 500 (unfillable) jobs in the IT industry. Here we have a skilled Irish workforce, an Irish contract order they can fill, and the job goes east. Somehow that doesn't make sense to me.
Have we forgotten "Buy Irish" - a campaign we loyally supported in for so long, despite the strain on our pockets? Or have we all become profit-margin strumpets, where somebody gets screwed for the sake of an extra buck?
We're cash rich. We have the money. So do we really need to become part of the cheap labour exploitation in Asia and Eastern Europe? - Yours, etc.,
Teresa Bartley, Brunswick Street, Dublin 7.