Mary Harney says (The Irish Times, July 18th) that the PDs have always been a tax reform party. She calls for a budget that takes as many people as possible out of the tax net altogether. She should not forget that, in spite of increased employment, there are still large numbers who are out of the tax net and prohibited from working. It seems "perverse in the extreme", to use her own words, to introduce "welfare-to-work" following the bad example of New Zealand while her own Government is in the second stage of investigating the basic income strategy which would allow everyone, refugees included, to take on any available work and would also fund those who are engaged in the caring work which does not figure in the GNP. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr Maire Mullarney, (Green Party), Whitechurch Road, Dublin 14.