Fine Gael have forgotten lessons of the downturn

Your report, ‘Government committed to full employment by 2018’ (Irish Examiner, December 16) quotes Brian Hayes as saying that Fine Gael’s key message ‘is to keep the recovery going”.

He expands on this using the jaded spin doctor catchphrase about making “work pay”. But rather than pledging to bring in legislation to stop the exploitation of workers, via zero hour contracts and a too low minimum wage, Hayes places the emphasis on taxation suggesting that people are “caught in too much taxation”.

What is scary about this is we have learned nothing. This government has divided the country, widening the socio-economic gap to the point where homelessness, and thousands of children living in deprivation, is commonplace.

If Fine Gael continues cutting tax for the well-off, how will the State provide vital basic services?

Have they abandoned the concept of

“community”?

Mr Hayes and his colleagues could do well to remember the old proverb “It takes a community to rear a child”; and rather than focus on materialism, endeavour to develop a vision for our future.

Our recent history is screaming “greed is most certainly not good”. Listen.

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond

Sligo