Madam, - I used to think the other Charlie was the one with the brass neck. Now I'm not so sure.
Wearing his halo of eco-virtue the Minister for Finance says he will impose a carbon tax. This is to reduce Ireland's prodigious output of carbon dioxide (presumably from all those cars stalled at the Red Cow roundabout) in keeping with the Kyoto Accord.
Coming from a member of the political party that presided over the explosive growth of commuter towns with little or no transport infrastructure, Charlie McCreevy's virtuous proposal seems a trifle cynical.
Why can he not just say that, because of its financial ineptitude, the Government has to put up the price of petrol to try to make ends meet?
Dressing up a price rise as a carbon tax is nothing more than hypocritical highway robbery. - Yours, etc.,
EAMONN SWEENEY, South Hill, Dartry, Dublin 6.