Madam, - Daniel McLaughlin's Letter from Belgrade ( The Irish Times, March 7th) describes an admirable Irish-aided project to help educate Roma children in Belgrade. I would be very interested to know if Roma children in Dublin are similarly helped.
They seem to be all from Romania and a few years ago some of them started calling to my door begging for money, purportedly for rent or medicine. At first I was sympathetic, thinking, perhaps naively, they should be given a chance in life, to be educated, get work and settle down. But now they have become a nuisance and appear to be inveterate and incorrigible beggars.
Without exception, friends take a hostile attitude and say I should never open the door to them.
On a lighter note, when I explained that I had been brought up to believe that the beggar was Christ in disguise, one friend said: "I suppose the next time one of them rings your bell you'll open the door and say, 'Christ, it's you again'".
But seriously, what should be the attitude to them, Christian or otherwise? Is anything being done to help them by Irish Aid (which is probably only for other countries) or any other organisation? - Yours, etc,
JAMES EVANS, Lower Churchtown Road, Dublin 14.