Picking up the Government's tab

Dear sir - Health Minister Mary Harney"s new Bill is her version of fair play, forcing elderly people to pay for their hospital beds and worry about their homes, which they paid for with their taxes all their lives. How did we manage, as a poor country 30 and more years ago when there was very few private nursing homes, to look after our less privileged and elderly? Who is making the running here - the government or the owners of private nursing homes? But then Minister Harney ten years ago invited the Turkish firm Gama Construction to tender here for state sponsored and local authority schemes, only to transpire it was paying its Turkish workers just €2.20 an hour for an 80-hour week. Such outsourcing continued in Irish Ferries where Irish workers were sacked and cheap labour replaced them, and this goes on with the privatisation of Aer Lingus. Ms Harney famously called for Ireland to look to Boston rather than Berlin, but now that hundreds of millions have been squandered, her supporters have their nest eggs abroad. The PAYE sector and the elderly have to pick up the tab, while Fianna Fáil need not worry, but blame the PDs, Greens and Independents - unfortunately, a lot of the people will believe them. Yours, Cllr Tommy Grimes, Fr MacCullen Park, Kells.