Unfair attack on society’s less affluent

I WAS horrified to read an editorial on social welfare and the poor (September 5) which would have made Margaret Thatcher blush.

Are you including the elderly on meagre pensions — most of whom have paid taxes throughout their working lives — among your targets?

Have you considered the fact that many employers discriminate on grounds of age and disability?

Do you realise that work is not that plentiful for people in rural areas with no car?

Nor is it plentiful for people in urban areas with a bad reputation — many of whom say potential employers’ attitudes change the moment they hear the applicant’s address.

Nor is the Irish welfare system the soft touch you seem to think: recipients of unemployment benefits have to provide proof they are looking for work, and payments can be stopped if they refuse a job without good reason.

Before you start eulogising the US system, consider this horrible fact: one reason the death toll for Hurricane Katrina was so high was because New Orleans’ forgotten poor were at the end of their small monthly wage or allowance and thus could not afford the bus fare out of the city.

Judy Peddle

7 Love Lane

Charleville

Co Cork