Don’t dabble in Bard’s tongue

Kevin Curran (Letters, Feb 21) exhibits a clear creativity of capture and keen imaginative appraisal, as he sallies forth to defend the good name of the public service and the folk who serve therein.

Engaging the erstwhile literary legacy of one William Shakespeare, he ‘metaphors’ his way through a contrived sequence of symbolic paraphrase, to punch home a pointed defence of the predominantly ‘protected’ species that is the public service.

It’s good to know that he can find such time and inventive energy to dabble and dawdle in the ‘bard’s tongue’, while the country recedes apace. No doubt the many who are visiting their local dole office, about to be made redundant or languishing under crucifying debt, will appreciate and applaud his satirical efforts.

One wouldn’t want to engender divisive partisanship, hyper-jealousy or aspersion-casting tendencies regarding the nation’s civil bureaucracy, but neither might one be very inclined to rush to the defence of same. The cushioned, ‘perk-plied’ security of tenure enjoyed by the ‘servants who serve the State’ plus the ingrained certainty of full statutory cover for every eventuality is hardly the stuff of debilitative penury and hard labour incarceration.

There are many ‘fair-game’ (in)efficiencies to be targeted, and while nasty innuendo is unbecoming, it’s somewhat understandable in the current harsh, bleak winds of change. Of course Mr Curran could ease himself into the literary world of academe, if the going gets too tough, foregoing his public-service persona in favour of a mid-Summer’s night dream.

By so doing he could well avoid the tempest from the (not so) merry wives of Éiré, or the merchants of vengeance, not to mention those who do little about nothing bar calibrating every measure for measure, while perpetrating a continuous (dark) comedy of errors.

As you like it, Mr Curran.

Jim Cosgrove

Lismore

Co Waterford