Madam, - I am 79 years of age. I have had a medical card for the past eight years.
How dare any politician who participated in the rape of my country over the same period in a tent at the Galway Races preach to me about my "patriotic duties" - Yours, etc,
SEAN C. Ó COFAIGH, An Daingean, Co Chiarraí.
Madam, - The decision to remove the automatic entitlement to a medical card for people over 70 is mean-spirited.
People who are now over or approaching 70 have lived in very hard times. Despite this, many of them raised large families, bought their own homes and saved a little for "the rainy day". Many also lived frugally so they would have some security in their old age.
To think that these people are now being rewarded for their thrift by the removal of a benefit that was a great comfort to them in their old age is disgusting. A means test is seen by many people as demeaning and an invasion of privacy.
The Government should reverse this decision. Older people are more likely to vote in elections than the rest of the population. This announcement has touched a raw nerve. To the Government I say: retract this measure before it is too late. - Yours, etc,
HENDRICK VERWEY, Old Church, Cobh, Co Cork.
Madam, - I emigrated from Ireland in the mid-1980s, primarily for economic reasons, but I was nonetheless delighted for my friends and family when their fortunes took a turn for the better with the Celtic Tiger.
In particular, it was heartening to see my parents and others in the 70-plus generation being recognised for their long years of toil throughout the dour earlier decades with such benefits as free medical cards and prescriptions, along with free travel on public transport.
The arbitrary removal of the medical card from this vulnerable group is one of most callous and immoral political decisions I have ever seen - and all for a lousy €100 million. Has Brian Lenihan been studying at the Mugabe School of Economics?
I can only hope that the current working population of Ireland will not sit idly by as this heartless Government plunders the savings of a generation that built the foundations for the good times. If you allow this precedent to be set, it may well come back to haunt you in your own twilight years. - Yours, etc,
PETER SPENCER, Sydney, Australia.
Madam, - I can't help noticing that the €100 million to be saved as a result of the medical card cuts for the over-70s is exactly the amount that will have to be reimbursed to the pharmacists as a result of their recent High Court action over wholesale services. As a result of this action the price for medicines is also scheduled to increase by 9 per cent.
But there is some consolation as the Irish Pharmacy Union, in association with Age Action Ireland, is running a campaign entitled "Master Your Medicines" to help older people. So to all those pensioners who will now have to pay for their medication, remember that the pharmacists really do care: as they take the money off you they give you a nice leaflet. - Yours, etc,
JOHN FARRELL, Newcastle, Galway.
Madam, - The outcry over the proposed withdrawal of full medical cards from the over-70s shows that when a segment of the Irish population is provided with a European-style health or social service it laps it up. Many of those same people and their families, whose votes the measure was designed to seduce, voted for lower taxes, conveniently forgetting that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Countries with decent health and social services have higher taxes, based on a sense of solidarity that says what is good for you is good for me.
In Ireland the Government spent €2.1 billion on primary care in 2006. Astonishingly, to provide medical cards to everyone would cost €3 billion, or an additional €0.9 billion. If the direct cash out-of-pocket payments by families of €692 million went instead towards the central funding of primary care, this would leave a funding shortfall of just €217 million. Good health economic calculations conclude that we could have a full medical card system for everyone for very little extra money. This work was commissioned by the Adelaide Hospital Society and the calculations are available on the society's website: www.adelaide.ie.
The medical card has become the most valued aspect of all our health privileges and yet it is the subject of increasing restrictions. Surely it would be good politics to listen to what people are saying and to begin a dialogue on how to achieve an expansion of this highly valued privilege.
While this may not look like the time to argue for more taxation, it is impossible to give people the primary care they say they want within the current financial constraints. - Yours, etc,
TOM O'DOWD, Professor of General Practice, Trinity College, Dublin 2.
Madam, - As practising GPs we think it is a most retrograde step to cancel the automatic right of people over 70 to a full medical card. May we suggest a compromise? GPs should take a 50 per cent reduction in the fees for these cards for the calendar year 2009. At the end of that period this voluntary reduction can be reviewed.
Let the IMP and Government meet immediately about this and work out a compromise so that the most important people involved - our patients - will not suffer. - Yours, etc,
Dr ADRIAN HONAN and Dr FRAN O'HARA, Medicentre, Portarlington, Co Laois.
Madam, - As a proud Irishman, I feel compelled to answer Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan's "call to patriotic action" to help this great nation of ours. To that end, I will boost my income, make more profit, earn more interest, travel abroad more and pay for everything by cheque. I will start smoking, drink more wine and drive a more polluting car everywhere, but especially to my city-centre parking space and my other homes in Ireland.
This hectic and stressful lifestyle will no doubt result in frequent unscheduled visits to AE, and should see me shuffle off this mortal coil long before I reach 70 years of age, thus saving the country at least €400 a year.
Finally, in a display of patriotic inaction, I will avoid Northern Ireland! - Yours, etc,
DAVID KING, St Alphonsus Road, Dublin 9.
Madam, - It is lamentable for Taoiseach Brian Cowen (Opinion Analysis, October 16th) to speak of acting for the long term. It is precisely because Fianna Fáil has consistently taken the soft option and followed its own self-preserving short-term goal of re-election, rather than the long-term goals which would have benefited the State, that we are now all required to share the burden.
Mr Cowen further suggests that we "learn from our past experiences". I suggest we follow his advice and ensure that in the next election such gross negligence is not rewarded. - Yours, etc,
MICHELLE CARROLL, Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Madam, - The Minister for Finance's decision to raise pupil-teacher ratios beggars belief.
This move comes after a decade of sustained economic growth and prosperity, a torrent of talk about ensuring Ireland becomes a knowledge-driven society, and promise after promise about prioritising education, and specifically about reducing pupil-teacher ratios.
In my capacity as a primary-school principal, I have been inundated with calls from parents,some of them in tears, about the impact of this decision on their children. It is as if we have reverted overnight to the 1980s, when students who experienced difficulties were pushed to the back of the class, and some of them out the door. This is a direct attack on the front line of education, the classroom.
Incredibly, the Budget also places a ceiling of two English-language support teachers per school and cuts funding for resource teachers for children from the Travelling community at a time when Government rhetoric on respecting diversity and supporting equality has been in overdrive.
To ensure that the third-level sector doesn't feel left out, the Minister also decided to reintroduce third-level fees by the back door. The Minister for Education flew a kite about the reintroduction of fees in recent weeks but was met by the cold wind of public opinion. Undeterred, the Minister for Finance has simply decided to go about it in another way, by raising the student registration charge to €1,500. - Yours, etc,
Cllr MARY MITCHELL O'CONNOR (Fine Gael), Cabinteely, Dublin 18.
Madam, - The Minister for Finance, when summing up his Budget speech, used the expression "a call to patriotic action" to rally support for one of the cruellest budgets in the history of this State. When I look at the way this Government, its predecessor and our senior bankers have conducted their business over the past five years, the act of treason comes readily to mind. - Yours, etc,
DONAL KING, Rowan Park Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
A chara, - This Budget is a watershed in Ireland's equality and anti-poverty infrastructure - and not one to be proud of. It is a case of the Government asserting its authority over those who have been leading the way in developing our national responses to inequality, poverty and racism, and who, at times, have rightly been critical of Government responses to these issues.
The Combat Poverty Agency and the Office of Social Inclusion are to be integrated into the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Office of the Minister for Integration will cease funding the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism. Its functions will be absorbed into the Office in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The committee is to be retained in an advisory role.
The Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission are to fully integrate their facilities, back office and administrative services and access for citizens. You might consider that this is not too bad — at least the crucial functions performed by these organisations are protected. But the devil is in the detail on this one. The budget of the Equality Authority is to be cut by a 43 per cent — one of the biggest cuts in the entire Budget - and the budget of the Human Rights Commission is to be cut by 24 per cent.
In effect, the Budget means that the work of all these agencies, which are praised and seen as models of good practice on an international level and lauded by Government members when it suits them, is to be severely curtailed or to cease.
What sort of vision is this from the leaders of our country? We know poverty rates are highly likely to increase. We know racism is a growing issue and we also know that the work of the Equality Authority is far from complete. Budget 2009 will surely be seen as a defining moment in the struggle for equality and one that we will all look back on in years to come with regret. - Is mise,
ANN IRWIN, National Co-ordinator, The Community Workers' Co-operative, Galway.
Madam, - This is one of the most regressive budgets for many, many years, with so many direct and indirect tax increases that it may well stall the economy. What is most galling is the mantra from Government that the poor and vulnerable are being protected. This is patently not the case. Those very sectors of society will bear a disproportionate and unjustifiable burden if this Budget is not reversed.
It is infuriating to listen to Ministers obscenely wrapping themselves in the cloak of patriotism. This Budget is the product of a group of morally and intellectually bankrupt individuals who should, if they had any decency, place themselves in front of the electorate for validation of their actions. Little chance of that happening. - Yours, etc,
RICHARD KILLEN, Malahide, Co Dublin.
Madam, - I am not responsible for the mess the economy is in so why should my family and I be penalised? Patriotism be damned. - Yours, etc,
PAUL REDMOND, Colthurst Rise, Lucan, Co Dublin.