Sir, – The argument for pulling a State subsidy from fee-paying schools has the same flaw as the similar argument applied by those advocating the same measure in respect of private healthcare.
Most people struggling to meet ever-escalating costs of both these services have paid taxes and social insurance throughout their working lives.
They did this in the belief that, like everyone else in the State, they were accruing a quantum of benefit towards the cost of education and healthcare.
The fact that one forks out for private education or health insurance should not imply that this quantum of value should be confiscated and that they should meet the entire cost without any element of State support.
From the beginning, health insurance in Ireland was promoted with State support as a means of “topping up” on an earned right to free basic healthcare. The process in private education was analogous.
It is simply not right to disenfranchise taxpayers from their accumulated rights, most particularly when there are no acceptably functioning alternatives. – Yours, etc,
JOHN GRIFFIN,
Kells,
Co Meath.
A chara, – Eamonn Doyle (Letters, January 2nd) does some calculations about taxes paid by those sending their children to fee-paying schools as part of some tangled argument to justify why the State should subsidise private education.
However, the glaring point he has missed is that schools subsidised by taxpayers should be open to the children of all taxpayers and citizens,not just those who have €7,000 of disposable cash, whether from taxed income or not. – Is mise,
CARMEL
DE GRAE,
Baile Átha Cliath 9.