Sir, - Two Saturdays ago, your TV reviewer, Eddie Holt, told us that the proper targets for satire were "the smug suits and snobs of the Celtic Tiger". Last Saturday, I opened your paper to a report that John Lonergan, Governor of Mountjoy Prison, believes we've become "self-centred and selfish, giving very little attention to the needs of others".
The last thing one expects, after working hard all week, is to sit down to these finger-wagging lectures, so reminiscent of your leftwing coverage of the 1980s. I wonder what the "smug suits" who buy your paper and fill up two business sections with valuable advertising think about all this hectoring. Perhaps, like me, they just groan when they see Dick Walsh, in the same paper, yet again moaning about the lack of a class issues in Irish politics, an argument sustained with the most sweeping of generalisations.
In such a context, a phrase like "yawning gaps between rich and poor" induces an even bigger yawn, and makes one wonder if Walsh is blind to the changes in Irish life. Or is he just annoyed by the quite understandable shift of Irish politics towards the centre? I enjoy your features and weekend coverage, but some of the social/ political coverage still leaves one with that old Sticky feeling. - Yours, etc., Eamon Delaney,
Pembroke Road,
Dublin 4.