Sir, – Under the headline “President seeks a new vision for European Union” (October 16th), you report President Michael D Higgins as saying, among other things, the following in the course of an address to the Institute of International and European Affairs: “There is nothing wrong with technical efficiency, rather the contrary. The danger arises from a conception of economic policy and technocratic administration that are governed chiefly by the instrumental criteria of ‘efficiency’ and ‘success’ and are thus immune to moral-normative considerations ” .
Even allowing for the forum in which he was speaking, the second sentence must surely be in the running for a 2014 Fog Index prize. We simple folk also take an interest in what our President does and says. I, as one of them, can only guess at what immunity to “moral-normative considerations” entails. – Yours, etc,
JOE SINGLETON,
Arklow, Co Wicklow.