Madam, - To paraphrase Fintan O'Toole's article (June 21st): Ireland is a capitalist country - Ireland is a terrible place - QED: capitalism has caused this terrible mess. I can think of one place worse than Ireland is right now - that would be Ireland in the 1980s. That was a place with no hope - the only sense of expectation we had back then was the expectation that to get ahead we would have to emigrate.
There are many reasons why this transformation occurred (success has many fathers), but there is no doubt that the personal freedom brought about by low taxes is a major contributory factor. This element runs contrary to Fintan's economic philosophy and must therefore be blamed for all the ill side-effects of our development over the past 20 years.
There is no doubt that Ireland is not perfect, but I'd have to believe that Fintan's anxiety is not so much caused by the calamities he sees around him as by the obvious defects in the brand of socialism to which he clings. - Yours, etc,
SEÁN DOWLING, Timoleague, Cork.