Sir, - With the Celtic Tiger on the rampage let us spare a thought for those whose income is so low that they pay no income tax, or very little, and so do not benefit from tax handouts.
I refer of course to the often-forgotten pensioners, unemployed, widows, disabled people, and all those outside the employment sector who seldom have anyone to fight their cause.
The top old-age pension rate is £78 a week (£4,056 a year). With our fundamentally unfair percentage increase system, which benefits higher-earners much more than lower-earners and so widens the gap, a rise of say 5 per cent (almost unheard of in modern times), would only bring that pension up to £81.90 a week.
That increase, £3.90, would hardly pay for a packet of cigarettes today. In the meantime, all around us, and despite Government statements to the contrary, prices of goods are rising steeply because of the devaluation of the pound, particularly against the pound sterling.
So, with hundreds of millions of pounds promised in income tax reductions, let us be realistic about what we give to our less well-off citizens and show them that they, too, are entitled to a fair share in our present booming economy. Remember, the vast majority of them have, in the past, done their share to bring about our present prosperity. - Yours, etc., Bernard McLeod,
Dublin 9.