Madam, - Robert Forman's unpleasant little attack on the Equality Authority and its chairperson (December 16th) was ignorant in both tone and content. In a way, though, it performed a service, by showing how necessary anti-discrimination legislation and regulatory agencies are.
Anyone who cares to look at the facts will be aware that discrimination is rife in Ireland - against older people, migrants, people with disabilities, Travellers, women and others.
Travellers, like other members of society, are not perfect, but his attacks on them show the usual "blame the victim" approach which explains why bodies like the Equality Authority were set up in the first place.
Only this week the MRCI report on migrant workers in the catering business showed that significant numbers are paid below the minimum wage, while a range of other illegal practices is rife in the industry. In fact, discrimination and exploitation, often cruel and systematic, are far commoner in the Irish-owned small business sector than in larger multinational corporations. If Mr Forman thinks this is due to the action of the "odd ignoramus", he should remove his blindfold.
As with the fine work done by the NCCRI, also being closed, it is clear that this is a Government which will brook no criticism of discrimination and malpractice, including its own. In neo-liberal Ireland, it is the poor and the marginalised who must look out for themselves.
It is particularly shabby that the Government should invoke the need for cost-cutting over small amounts of money, while throwing billions at the very people who have brought the country to the edge of ruin in the first place.
Fianna Fáil used to have a conscience. I hope those within its ranks who still have one will speak out against this intolerance. Niall Crowley and his colleagues made this a better country to live in for many people who would otherwise have continued to suffer the arbitrary abuse of power by the powerful, whether public or private. Are not such abuses a form of tyranny? - Yours, etc,
PIARAS MAC ÉINRÍ,
Model Farm Road,
Cork.
Madam, - Congratulations to Minister Dermot Ahern, who is quoted in your edition of December 13th as having "no apologies" to make for the unpopular but necessary decision in these "very tough times" to cut the Equality Authority's budget by 43 per cent, a move that led to the resignation of that body's CEO.
Mr Ahern has shown himself to be a man of courage, and the people should be heartened by such steadfastness.
If he would now have the courage to implement the equally unpopular and necessary decision of taking a 43 per cent pay cut and reducing his own constituency staff by the same proportion, the people would be even more cheered in these very tough times.
And, at any rate, what need have we for an Equality Authority in the first place? Isn't everybody in this republic already treated equally, as idiots? Perhaps rightly so, by a government that cannot believe we continue to return it to office again and again despite its best attempts to persuade us contrariwise. - Yours, etc,
LIAM STENSON,
Knocknacarra,
Galway.