A chara, – One of the wry pleasures of growing old is to observe old ideas and practices returning, sometimes in new guises, but often totally undisguised, and yet greeted as amazingly new. So I read that the new Commission on Taxation and Welfare is to examine the possibility of moving to a more European-style social insurance system, one that would deliver unemployment payments as a percentage of recent earnings for a set period of time ("European-style social insurance model to be considered", News, June 4th). Funnily enough, that is exactly what PRSI used to do for many years after it was first set up. – Is mise,
MURT Ó SÉAGHDHA,
Dundalk,
Co Louth.