Sir, - Initial reaction to the Budget focused on the donation of £20 million to Croke Park and the failure to allocate adequate funds to more deserving causes, such as the treatment of the medically and physically handicapped.
Now, even more fundamental problems are beginning to emerge. The huge rise in consumer spending in the run-up to Christmas and the ongoing increase in house prices show the potential for overheating in the economy. This is likely to be exacerbated by the lowering of interest rates as a result of EMU next year.
It appears as if the FF/PD coalition has learned nothing from the mistakes of the Tories in Britain in the 1980s when the "greed is good" philosophy was encouraged by tax cuts for the rich, leading to overheating and the crash of the late 1980s. Mr McCreevy should have taken this unique opportunity to reduce the widening poverty gap and stabilise our economy before the advent of EMU by imposing more, not less, tax on rapidly growing wealth, which otherwise could worsen inequality, social division and economic instability.
The wealth used could be used, not only to improve basic public services such health, education and transport, but on critical areas such as the shortage of IT skills and the threat to the environment. Here in Ballymun, a highly successful computer training program, Tramlines, has just finished with over 80 per cent placement of 25 previously long-term unemployed local people. But Tramlines was considered to be only a pilot scheme and there is no guarantee that it will run again. It should be extended locally (there were over 120 applicants last time) and throughout the country at a time when computer companies are crying out for trained workers. - Yours, etc.,
From (Dr) Sean Marlow
Willow Park Road, Dublin 11.