A grave disservice to honest journalism

AS an honest and hardworking primary schoolteacher I was very disappointed with your editorial (‘Day of action becomes day of cheap beer,’ November 25).

Many hundreds of my colleagues and I spent hours on a cold and wet picket line last Tuesday.

The INTO has a legitimate dispute with the Government and we were merely exercising our right to industrial protest. We had a democratic mandate to do so, with an 81% vote by primary teachers in favour of industrial action in Cork city alone.

Your assertion that thousands of public servants travelled north of the border on Tuesday to shop was based entirely on allegory and hearsay. To accuse striking workers, groundlessly, of “economic treason” belies the editorial’s own political agenda and does the cause of fair and honest journalism a grave disservice.

The protectionist economic policies advocated in your editorial go against many EU principles that you have previously espoused and are the same policies that led to the economic doldrums in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. The fact that Irish shoppers and emigrants are crossing borders in thousands is symptomatic of successive governments’ mismanagement of the economy and, in the case of cross-border shopping, our taxation system. I hope the Irish Examiner will live up to its former high standard of responsible journalism.

Hugh Cronin

Vice-Chairperson

INTO

Cork City North