Sir, - The family of Mrs Margaret Malone of Co Carlow are not alone in being hurt by unnecessarily upsetting bureaucratic letters being sent to them following the death of a member of the family (The Irish Times, November 17th).
When my wife died I applied for her Children's Allowance to be transferred to my name. Shortly afterwards I opened a letter addressed to my late wife which asked her if she knew that an application had been made to transfer the allowance from her name.
This threw me, to say the least of it, and I never ever want to plumb the depths of anger and despair that hit me that morning. Suddenly I realised that rack, hot irons, hanging, drawing and quartering of the sender would hardly assuage my hurt! I was able to write a strong letter of complaint but I felt sorry for all those who might receive a similar letter and who would not feel able to complain about the devastating hurt it caused them.
I can see that the Department of Social Welfare was afraid of fraudulent transfer taking place, but all it had to do, where death was the cause of transfer, was to ask me to furnish a death certificate and a lot of anguish would have been avoided. Bureaucracy must be human when dealing with death. - Yours, etc., Canon Brian Lougheed,
St Mary's Rectory, Ballycasheen, Co Kerry.