Madam, - It is a scandal and a disgrace in 21st-century Ireland where the Celtic Tiger runs amok, that hospice care depends on voluntary donations for its very existence.
I was appalled when a request for a direct debit of €10 per month fell from my newspaper on Saturday, a request from the Irish Hospice Foundation. Please understand, I was not appalled by the request but by its necessity.
Until my brother-in-law died recently in Northwest Hospice, Sligo, I had no experience of hospice. The excellence of the care he received and the compassion of the staff for him, his family and friends are a bright light of hope shining in an otherwise commercial, uncaring world.
He died with dignity, which is the right of every human being. Why not make hospice care, the humane way to leave this life, an election issue? - Yours, etc,
BREDA SULLIVAN, Kilmore, Streete, Co Westmeath.