Madam, - As a teacher in a fee-paying school, I am incensed at the comments by TUI secretary Peter MacMenamin criticising the continued State support for schools like mine (The Irish Times, October 23rd). Does he not realise that there are many fee-paying schools which exist because the Government was unable - and is still unable - to provide an education consistent with the ethos desired by parents who send their children to such schools?
Contrary to what Mr MacManamin says, these schools will be affected badly by the withdrawal of the contract for substitution and supervision. But clearly he is not in a position to understand that.
The so-called "subsidy" he refers to is no different to that provided to other schools. Parents who send their children to fee-paying schools also pay tax and their children are entitled to equal treatment. The fact that parents decide to pay extra money for the kind of facilities the State cannot afford is not an argument for ending State funding of any particular school.
On that basis, the Government would take the entire income of all workers and redistribute it as it sees fit. There would be no choice in anything. One's housing unit would be a property developer's tax-incentive shoe-box apartment - but you would not be allowed to paint it. One's car would be a Lada - but only in black. And there would only be one political party. Such ideologically-driven nonsense has no place in a modern economy. It should stop now. - Yours, etc,
PETER LYDON,
Woodford Drive,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.