Sir, - Letters in your editions of August 21st and September 20th are just the tip of the iceberg of deep resentment that nearly half-a-million Irish Eircom shareholders feel at being compelled to sell their shares to a handful of Θlite capitalists and at being deprived of their rights to any further participation in our national telephone system.
The magical 80 per cent accumulation of shares which will enable this compulsion may be technically legal, but it is a facet of the unacceptable face of capitalism. Will the Employee Shareowners' Trust (ESOT) be significantly instrumental in facilitating the compulsory buyout?
The Irish taxpayer has paid for our telephone system since its inception, even before the Department of Posts and Telegraphs took it over, and again in 1999 when Mary O'Rourke floated it. We assumed we would be in it for the long term, naturally! The telephone system is a goldmine, given the massive increase in phone usage and the proliferation of diverse applications.
The media, with a few exceptions, have ignored the injustice about to be perpetrated on the ordinary Joe Soap shareholders and concentrated on the pathetic cat-and-mouse tactics of the capitalist adventurers. - Yours, etc.,
John Lavin, Glencormac, Co Wicklow.