President Higgins and Siptu speech

Sir, – Michael Cawley (Letters, April 1st) criticises President Higgins’s remarks about the “twin evils of efficiency and productivity”.

There is only one problem. According to the text of the Sligo speech made available by Siptu, the President never actually used the words “twin evils of efficiency and productivity”.

He referred rather to “the achievement of often crude metrics based on efficiency and productivity”, going on to query “the notion that an organisation can only thrive if it strives to achieve the maximisation of productivity and efficiency at any cost, regardless of social or human welfare impacts”. – Yours, etc,

DARAGH DOWNES,

Make do and mend

---

The price of electricity

---

Local democracy and restricting cars

---

Pensions and the ‘renting generation’

---

Dublin 2.