Madam, - Manxmen will be bitterly disappointed that, in your map of "The State of Europe" (The Irish Times, May 9th), you colour the Isle of Man blue - the colour of "EU member-states".
The Isle of Man is neither part of the United Kingdowm nor part of the European Union; and, after Iceland, it has the next oldest independent parliament in Europe, Tynswalk, dating from the 970s.
The Isle of Man is a model low- tax, no-death-duties economy, in relation to earnings or property held by Manx residents within the island; and one of the disgraces of current EU policy is the attempt by the profligate and corrupt EU to bludgeon the Isle of Man into line.
If the EU were run as tidily and economically as the Isle of Man, citizens of the various EU states would be ever so much better off. - Yours, etc,
Dr MARTIN PULBROOK, Enniscoffey, Co Westmeath.