HUGO BRADY BROWN,
Madam, - The late delivery of 1 per cent of largely trivial Christmas post in the Dublin area has become a major news item.
Summoning the management of An Post to his Department for a semi-public wigging and then emerging briefly from the long meeting to speak in sombre and headmasterly tones to the RTÉ lunchtime news programme, the Minister for Communications, Mr Ahern, gives the appearance of grandstanding on the matter.
During much of 2002 we in rural Ireland endured extended delays in the delivery of important business and personal post, but over the months of these serious delays we saw no sign of Mr Ahern. Does a minor inconvenience to Dublin matter more to the Minister than the crippling of rural communications for months?
Or is it simply that the Minister's sense of public accountability has become too finely honed as a result of last month's debacle at the Brussels fisheries negotiations? - Yours, etc.,
HUGO BRADY BROWN, Stratford on Slaney, Co Wicklow.