Madam, - It is difficult not to be amused by the Government's publicity campaign detailing the Health Repayment Scheme which has been established in the wake of the nursing home charges scandal last year.
The website set up to inform the public about the scheme is adorned with pictures of elderly people enjoying a happy retirement with their grandchildren.
"It's your money", declares Marian Finucane on the ubiquitous radio ads.
The scheme is being magnificently portrayed as a unilateral act of generosity by a benevolent Government.
Fianna Fáil and the PDs must think that the people of this country have very short memories indeed.
Less than a year ago the two parties tried to introduce legislation which would have retrospectively legalised the systematic theft of money from elderly people over the course of 30 years.
Far from considering it "our money", the Government wanted its ill-gotten gains to remain in public coffers, until the Supreme Court slapped them down describing their position as an "unjust attack" on the rights of "the most vulnerable members of society".
So what has changed in the meantime?
We are now a lot closer to a general election than we were 12 months ago.
But I'm sure the Government would never engage in such an enormous U-turn in attitude purely for electoral gain, now would they? - Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH, Brookfield Hall, Castletroy, Limerick.