Sir, – John FitzGerald points out that putting aside our tax bonanza for future use makes far more economic sense than spending it in an economy already operating at full capacity and thereby fuelling inflation (“Spending tax windfall on votes threatens our future”, Business, April 21st). He also acknowledges that doing the right thing may be challenging yet again for our politicians.
That would be true even if we were facing the traditional scenario of a Fianna Fáil government looking at a likely handover to Fine Gael or vice versa. But I think it will take political self-sacrifice on an heroic scale for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to do the responsible thing, take the usual abuse for doing so and then hand on overflowing coffers so that Sinn Féin can pay for some of its fantastic promises.
John FitzGerald also notes that if money could solve the housing crisis, the Government would have an easy task. The same applies to health, where we have year after year tried the approach of throwing money at the problem with results which are clear to all of us.
There are some constraints which are outside the Government’s control. As John FitzGerald points out, we can’t import houses and importing builders is more difficult than it used to be. But he also writes that some of the obstacles to dealing with housing and climate change (and he might have added the public health system) are caused by “sclerotic” regulatory and administrative systems. Removing these obstacles is within the Government’s control. It’s about time it did its job.– Yours, etc,
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PAT O’BRIEN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.