Madam, – Most people in the Western world are deeply dismayed when they learn that rulers in some Third World countries have spent very scarce and precious resources on non-essentials while their own people go hungry and without proper medical care.
Has Ireland now slipped into that category when €400,000 can be found to buy a painting of Count John McCormack, yet a large number of people, such as Orla Tinsley and her fellow cystic fibrosis sufferers, cannot get the crucial treatment to save their lives?
The portrait of a long-dead singer has been chosen as a better use of public money than providing a single room for Ms Tinsley. What a shameful choice. – Yours, etc,