Creeping consumerism

Madam, - Is Mary McAleese (Nov 9th) trying to make me guilty about shopping?

Madam, - Is Mary McAleese (Nov 9th) trying to make me guilty about shopping?

Is the President really trying to tell me that all that is good and positive about Irish society could somehow be undermined by "designer clothes. . . iPods and whatever the latest must-have is"?

Let me remind her that many civilised, just and humane societies have managed to survive despite enjoying a spot of shopping on the Champs Élysées, Oxford Street, Fifth Avenue or wherever.

And while her sentiments about volunteerism are undoubtedly noble, surely Ireland has had enough of the perverse philosophy that equates pleasure with "sin" and hardship with virtue without her giving us another dose of it. - Yours, etc,

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COLMAN WALSH, Morehampton Square, Donnybrook, Dublin 4

Madam, - Unfortunately our venerable President is again too late in her recognition of ascendant social trends.

The malaise of complacent consumerism that she sees as "creeping" has in fact already crept. - Yours, etc,

MICHAEL SMITH, Ormond Quay Upr, Dublin 7.