We don’t need ambassadors, we need fairness

Night after night, I hear smug ministers on TV and radio defending the Government’s austerity cuts by telling us we are borrowing €16bn to €18bn a year to pay for our services, etc.

How, then, can they justify their huge salaries plus expenses, plus personal advisors, personal secretaries, drivers and the rest?

The Taoiseach, for example, earns more than most other national leaders for fronting what is no more than a glorified county council.

Let’s face it, we don’t manufacture nuclear weapons, perform great feats of engineering, or come up with great innovations. We mostly export cows and people.

Look at our embassies. They are all over the world. What for? Ambassadors earn huge salaries, live in rent-free residences, probably have personal chauffeurs, and lots of holidays a year. Half of these embassies should be sold and some replaced with tourist offices. I lived in England for years and I was never invited to the Irish embassy, nor do I know any Irishman or woman who was.

Look at our embassy in Canada. It was refurbished, I believe, at a cost of €2m to €10m under Michéal Martin in 2005.

We have embassies in countries where they wouldn’t know an Irishman from an Eskimo. In my opinion, this is where the Government should be tackling cuts, plus on their own salaries, and leave the elderly and the unemployed alone.

P Boyd,

Macroom,

Co Cork