Madam, – I am a solicitor and a past pupil of a “posh Catholic boys’ school”. This means that I may well be devoid of a sense of social solidarity, according to Vincent Browne (Opinion, September 1st). I only wish that I also belonged to “the wealthier reaches of society”, although my overdrawn bank account, 15-year-old car and negative equity property clearly disbar me from membership.
The professions have been the object of Mr Browne’s anger on several occasions recently. While I concede that some of his criticisms are valid, I also believe that they are unbalanced.He does not acknowledge the positive contribution of the professional classes and implies that it is only the elite who are capable of wrongdoing.
Why do the poorer sections of society always escape his wrathful gaze? Recently, I saw a group of men in a public park enjoying the late summer sunshine by drinking cans of beer. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday, they were clearly drunk and were not in a hurry back to any workplace, so I can only assume that they were unemployed. Their behaviour; discarding litter and bawling obscenities at passers-by, did not show much sense of responsibility towards society. Nevertheless, they would doubtlessly be the recipients of greater resources if Mr Browne had his way.
He fails to explain how the radical redistribution of wealth he longs for would be achieved or what would be the result. Dom Perignon instead of Dutch Gold for unemployed daytime drinkers? Increased taxes for our indebted workforce? I can’t agree with Mr Browne that this is the most obvious solution to our present crisis. – Yours, etc,