Sir, – It was with real interest (if not quite with bated breath) that I opened this morning the payslip which contained details of my first monthly pension payment since the last budget. What I found was that I was richer by some €30 per month. On closer examination, it appeared that tax reductions of some €55 had been offset by a rise in my VHI subscriptions of almost half of that. Swings and roundabouts, then; or, as I prefer to think of it, a new and rather less exhilarating version of “slap and tickle”. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN COSGROVE,
Dublin 18.