State has money — it’s just not spending it fairly

According to A Leavy (Letters, Aug 5) the Government is borrowing €1bn every month to keep the public services going.

Yet, according to the Commission on Taxation €11bn a year is lost to the taxpayer through various forms of tax relief, one of which, pension tax relief alone, accounts for €3bn. So when people like Mr Leavy argue that we are spending beyond our means he is of course right.

But what he really means is that too much money is being spent on the less well-off, not that too much is being diverted to middle-class people and not that they should forgo their pension tax relief, their savings tax relief or some of the myriad freebies for people who can well afford to pay themselves.