Sir, - The authors of the recent ISME report, which referred to some unemployed people as "social misfits", reveal a basic misconception all too common today. It suggests that those who have succeeded in the economic sense and gained respect for their endeavours, are in some way better citizens than those who do not enrich the fiscal economy.
It also suggests that because of their knowledge in this one - albeit a very important - sphere, they have the right to moralise as to the social status of those less "successful" in their narrow sense. Our constitutional republic, where all citizens are equal in law, is enriched in many ways other than financial by people in all sections of our society, including the unemployed "misfits" without whom, I believe, our country would be less, not more.
Our society should surely be grateful for the entrepreneurial drive and skills of members of ISME, but those same members should not misinterpret this respect as giving them the right to say who is, and who is not, a fit member of our society. Yours, etc.,
Kilmallock,
Co. Limerick.