Sir, - Fintan O'Toole (March 11th) describes rail privatisation in Britain as a disaster.
In the first three years after privatisation in 1995 rail passenger kilometres increased by 19 per cent and freight by 30 per cent.
This 22 per cent increase in railway traffic units compares favourably with the 26 per cent increase in sales of The Irish Times over a six year period from 1993 to 1999.
In that good news story on your front page (March 13th) the word "disaster" rightly does not appear. - Yours, etc.,
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Dr S. Barrett, Department of Economics, Trinity College, Dublin 2.