Madam, - Reading the various obituaries of the late Pope John Paul II has been both uplifting and edifying. One particular sentence in the London Times's obituary positively leaped off the page.
It read: "Communism's error was to reduce human beings to economic units" - a quotation from the Pope's 1991 encyclical, Centessimus Annus.
Considering that Irish society is now uniformly referred to as "this economy", and knowing what income-tax individualisation has been designed to do to family life, the above phrase can equally be applied to us here in Ireland.
Ms Mary Robinson said a few years ago, "perpetuating the low status accorded to women in the home perpetuates their oppression". As with Communism it is only a matter of time before it will be shown to have been Ireland's error to reduce human beings to economic units. - Yours, etc.,
ANNE CAHILL, Laurel Park, Clondalkin, Dublin 22