Give us a break — our tax system needs a strong dose of common sense

AODHÁN O’Riordáin is a Labour TD for Dublin North central and Brian Collins is a Labour councillor in Co Meath.

I’m not singling them out because they’re members of the Labour Party, but because they have both done us a service by pointing out some absurdities in social policy that are essentially caused by irrational taxation decisions. And the good news is that all of these absurdities are fixable.

I’ll get to Mr Collins in a minute, but Aodhán O’Riordáin pointed out over the weekend that a significant inequity is growing in our education system as a result of the ability of some better-off parents to buy psychological assessments for their children.