Sir, – As part of Prime Minister Mario Monti’s new gimlet-eyed group of technocrats, Italy’s welfare minister, Elsa Fornero, announced €30 billion in cuts in their austerity budget. As she tried to describe the sacrifice this would require from the Italian people, and especially old-age pensioners, she began to weep – so much so that she could not continue with her speech.
Our politicians, by comparison, remain remarkably dry-eyed as they deliver their austerity measures to the long-suffering Irish people. – Yours, etc,