Madam, - Brian Cowen signalled recently that he intends to cut costs in the public sector. Approximately one in every six workers - 17 per cent - is employed in the public sector. This is simply too heavy a burden on the State's stretched financial resources. Perhaps Mr Cowen can explain why the Department of the Taoiseach needs to spend €45.4 million in 2008, as per the Budget estimate, in co-ordinating the activities of various Goverment Departments led by too many overpaid Ministers.
And if the HSE is responsible for providing health services to all citizens at a cost of €11.8 billion, why does the Department of Health and Children need to spend over €500 million in 2008, as per the Budget estimate, in either minding the HSE or or setting various policies?
Will he have the courage to implement cuts, starting with the Department of the Taoiseach, immediately? - Yours, etc,
VINOD BAJAJ, Casteltroy, Co Limerick.
Madam, - I write in the hope of restoring some balance to what I consider to be somewhat one-sided opinions regarding carbon taxes contained in The Irish Timesof December 7th.
You presented us with both an Editorial and an article from an environmentalist suggesting that a carbon tax should be implemented with effect from the next Budget. Such a tax would be levied on fossil fuels, including petrol and diesel. There was no consideration of the social and economic implications of such measures, let alone the inequality that would result.
Perhaps the writers, on completion of these articles, left their offices and walked the few yards to Tara Street station, before catching the "Dort" to Howth - one of the most sparsely populated suburbs of Dublin, yet privileged with the best public transport service in the country.
They most certainly didn't face a long drive home to their rural one-off house, the building of which was approved and perhaps even encouraged by Environment Ministers up to earlier this year. Neither, I suspect, do they have an elderly parent living in the west of Ireland, whose only public transport option is a bus once a week which stops a mile away.
If they did, perhaps they would consider it unfair to be forced to pay carbon taxes while being given no alternatives allowing them to reduce their carbon consumption from transport.
Several prerequisites are required before we can even consider a carbon levy on transport fuels. Integrated, high-capacity public transport in all urban areas is only one - and that is many years away.
Our large stock of one-off rural housing is a problem which will be much harder to solve. This is a settlement pattern that sets us apart from most of our European neigbours. It breeds car-dependence and it can only be blamed on previous governments.
I only hope that when the Minister for Finance is considering the introduction of such tax measures in the run-up to Budget 2009, he will expand his horizons beyond the privileged leafy suburbs along the Dart line. - Yours, etc,
JOHN JUDGE, Dublin Road, Longford.
Madam, - I haven't been more touched by anything since Elton John gave the Beckhams a free holiday in his Riviera Mansion than I was by Brian Cowen's stamp-duty hand-up to our misfortunate property developers, auctioneers, builders and speculators. - Yours, etc,
NOEL O'DONOVAN, Dunmanway Road, Bandon, Co Cork.
Madam, - Ian Kavanagh (December 8th) reminds us that the Budget's increase for old-age pensioners amounts to €728 a year, for which they are expected to be most grateful, whereas the Taoiseach's recent increase of €730 a week moved him to declare himself to be poverty-stricken.
Maybe it's time he acquainted himself with the lifestyles and living standards of some ordinary folk. - Yours, etc,
ANNE CAHILL, Laurel Park, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.