A prize cut

Sir, – Not content with cutting funding for the health services, making life more difficult for the sick, the very young, the…

Sir, – Not content with cutting funding for the health services, making life more difficult for the sick, the very young, the elderly, disabled, halt and lame, our benighted leaders are busily cutting funds for the arts.

Grants to some publishers and magazine proprietors have been cut for 2013, thereby jeopardising the future of literary writing and the livelihoods of Irish writers.

The latest news on the literary front is that Limerick County Council’s Arts Office has been forced by lack of funding to cancel the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award for next year, as they informed this correspondent this week. Who voted these governmental philistines into office? – Yours, etc,

HUGH McFADDEN,

Harold’s Cross,

Dublin 6W.