Sir, - Yet again, in a very mild way, we hear the president of the St Vincent de Paul Society, in his annual report, censuring the Government for neglecting the poor of the country: "It is simply not good enough in the midst of such obvious affluence that large sections of our population are effectively excluded from the benefits of this new prospering Ireland." What lovely mellow language!
As far back as I can remember I have heard the same old criticism again and again from the lips of these gentle, mild-mannered people in the St Vincent de Paul Society, and each year I get the distinct impression that the Government of the day completely ignores them - because, after all, they are very nice people and they won't cause trouble.
Fifteen years ago I suggested that this potentially powerful organisation, with a branch in nearly every parish in the country, should rethink its strategy and become a more influential and vociferous pressure group lobbying on behalf of the impoverished of this country, just like the farmers' organisations or any of the effective trade unions.
The underprivileged have nobody to represent them at a national level and it seems to me that the St Vincent de Paul Society is well placed to become such a body. The society does excellent work to help the needy but at the end of the day, with all due respect, most of its efforts are built around doling out money to people down on their luck.
In the past year the society has spent over £1 million a month helping people. There will always be a need for this kind of charity, but why, oh why can't these good Christians in the SVP use their strength of numbers at a national level to campaign for a reasonable living for the downtrodden? It seems to me that if the man himself, Vincent, was around today he would be doing just that. He certainly wouldn't be too happy handing out £1 million a month knowing full well that there was little or nothing happening to eradicate the causes of poverty.
We may well soon see the day when the society is donating £1 million a week, while the president continues annually to meekly chide the Government of the day in his/her forgiving way. - Yours, etc.,
Jackie Robinson PP
Aghaboe, Co Laois.