Tax collectors and CEDRA ensuring rural death

I refer to Fergus Finlay’s recent column in your newspaper (Opinion, Feb 4).

Mr Finlay asks many questions but provides no answers and didn’t spend too much time asking around for any, either. His column is littered with woolly statements. He says John Healy’s book “led to a fresh emphasis on regional development”. Did it? What fresh emphasis? Where’s the evidence? Mr Finlay asks: “How are banks, for instance, allowed to walk away from towns…” They were allowed, if not encouraged, by a Fine Gael Minister for Finance in a Fine Gael/Labour Coalition Government. But then Labour is the party for the urban middle class state employee. So long as their rural seaside village of choice, whether that be Roundstone or Baltimore, Schull or Ardmore, is open for two weeks in the summer, who cares about the rest of the year?

Government and local authority tax collectors are ensuring the death of rural Ireland with extortionate commercial rates which take no account of ability to pay, 23% VAT, excise duties among the highest in Europe making life in rural Ireland much more expensive than Dublin, and an NRA which ensures that all roads lead to Killarney, meaning West Cork is by-passed by motoring tourists.