Letters: The case for assisted dying

Craic down

Sir: If Ireland had been investing in infrastructure as Ross Clark writes (‘Bog down’, 21 September), Dublin would have a metro, Galway a ring road, and primary school parents wouldn’t be forced to pay for basic necessities. And when the only local hotel cancels wedding and birthday parties because government has block-booked it for migrants and refugees, no wonder people beyond the Dublin bubble are mutinous. Rural areas often lack broadband or even piped water (just ask Melissa Kite) and where the blue pipe does reach, ‘boil water’ orders are common.

Corporation tax is 27 per cent of government revenue (per head of population, more than four times that in France or Germany) and 90 per cent of it is paid by foreign multinationals. Low tax rates have indeed increased revenues, but this hasn’t ‘stimulated business’, as Clark claims, or created much employment. Big pharma does make pills in Ireland for American consumers, but those are jobs and taxes that the US means to onshore. Where are the trucks on the motorways? There are often more privately operated coaches, public transport being so sketchy.

Like Gaelic football, deflecting blame is a national sport. Just witness the education ministry’s response to this month’s outrage over a racist school textbook: each school must pick its own books, and what publishers put in them is nothing to do with us. Official deflections will be interesting when multinationals call it a day and pay tax in the countries where ethically it is due. But the hole in the budget will be no joke.

Mike Wells

Ickwell, Bedfordshire

Cop out

Sir: Rod Liddle may be right in suggesting that the quality of police and crime commissioners varies (‘The tyranny of lawyers’, 21 September). But the same could be said of chief constables and home secretaries. He is, however, wrong in saying that the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners contributed to a ‘politicisation’ of policing.