Madam, - Your edition of March 10th reports on the OECD survey of tax and social insurance, showing that Irish workers pay much lower rates of deductions than workers elsewhere. It seems to me that surveys such as this are extremely misleading. To take an example: as far as I can see, the figures for Germany include pension contributions ("Rentenversicherung") and also health insurance ("Krankenversicherung"). The Irish figures do not include these substantial payments, apart from PRSI, of course. A case of apples and oranges, I'm afraid. - Yours, etc.,
NORMAN STEWART, Seapark, Malahide, Co Dublin