Visitor’s comments on Ireland’s unemployed people were arrogant and offensive

I AM writing in response to Monica Gracia’s derogatory and unjustified comments regarding Ireland’s unemployed people and the Government’s attitude to them (‘Spanish visitor baffled by the workshy Irish’, Letters, August 10).

Despite Irish media propaganda, the country is not really that prosperous and recent references to it being one of the wealthiest in the world are highly misleading.

While we have more millionaires than at any time in our short history since independence, and we have discarded the shackles of our improverished past, it is perverse to suggest we all are basking in some new El Dorado.