Cheque charge should go the way of 2p stamp

WHEN I was a little boy about 70 years ago, bills and accounts required a twopenny stamp to legalise a receipt when paid.

Today — alone in Europe, I believe — we retain this stamp on our cheques.

The last time I enquired (a few years ago) the Department of Finance section that looked after this impost was operating at a loss but, ‘shure, ye can’t fire a civil servant and they wont move’ (a bit like a parish priest, but without the justification), so the tax had to remain.