THE economist's analysis (Business, 22 April) betrays the denial of someone living in Dublin for too long. If you cannot buy a second-hand house in Dublin for less than 450,000, Gurdgiev is asking all the wrong questions given that his calculation that the average value is approximately 280,000. It is not "the Irish state" that is the problem; it might more correctly be described as the present coalition which is the problem.

They have been in government for 10 years and only came to their Augustinian conversion after the Fine Gael manifesto.

"The PDs making sense. . ." is no trick question; so there are "lies, damn lies and statistics"!

PDs' policies are ahead of the pack

FURTHER to Constantin Gurdgiev's article in last week's Sunday Tribune (Business, 22 April) I would fully concur with his view that the Progressive Democrats are well ahead of the other parties in terms of economic policy.

We believed that by reducing the tax bands simultaneously it will incentivise higher labour supply.

Currently, those thinking about returning to work are faced with a 41% tax on virtually every cent earned.

The PD tax cuts will reduce this barrier to work, at least for some.

It has always been our view as articulated by our party leader again recently that "government doesn't create prosperity, the people do.

Government doesn't own prosperity, the people do. Tax reform means sharing prosperity with the people who create it.'" The Progressive Democrats believe that the fruits of labour belong to those who earn them.

The Labour party have another view but it's not one we share.

Victor Boyhan, 25 Grange Crescent, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Time to put limbo to rest in the afterlife

I AM intrigued by the findings of the International Theological Commission on the Catholic concept of 'limbo'.

The commission's secretary general has been quoted as stating, in relation to children that die without baptism: that "we can say we have many reasons to hope that there is salvation for these babies".

The pope has agreed with the commission's assessment of an unbaptised baby's chances of being "saved". It refers to serious theological and liturgical grounds for so hoping.

So after centuries of frightening the living daylights out of parents who grieved the loss of their innocent children with that cruel and crazy nonsense about limbo, the church is at least conceding that it has "reasons to hope".

I regard the long-running limbo saga as another example of how dangerous it can be to place blind faith in ANY religious teaching or doctrine.

The church still teaches that people who die without confessing a mortal sin can wind up in hell, a perpetual abode of terror and suffering whose torments are beyond human comprehension.

None of these teachings are borne out by any kind of evidence apart from what was stated in ancient writings, any more than the belief by another Christian sect regarding the salvation of only 144,000 souls is anything other than a faithbased doctrine.

In my view, the best way to resolve the age-old issue of life after death is through carefully supervised research into all aspects of the paranormal.

Already, psychic research has pointed to very strong indicators that we survive bodily death.

Mediums have yielded impressive evidence under laboratory conditions, and neardeath experiences have in many cases given weight to the results of those experiments.

Let's probe further into the mysterious realm of the afterlife, but with an open mindf unhindered by sectarian prejudice.

John Fitzgerald, Lower Coyne Street, Callan, Co Kilkenny.

Buyers abroad need to be on their guard

MAY I take this opportunity of warning Irish purchasers of property abroad to take the strongest legal and taxation advice before they buy such properties.

As an Irish MEP, I have received numerous complaints from Irish citizens who have encountered legal and other difficulties when they have sought to purchase either residential or business properties abroad. Many of the complaints which I receive relate to property transactions which take place in Europe.

My one piece of advice to prospective Irish purchasers of property abroad is simply to invoke the Latin phrase 'caveat emptor' . . . namely 'let the buyer beware'.

Put simply, prospective purchasers must take the ultimate care before purchasing such properties and also one must adequately deal with inheritance issues relating to the purchase of foreign properties.

I am a member of the legal affairs committee in the European Parliament. The very issues which I am referring to today are presently being looked at very carefully at a European level by this committee.

Other MEPS from other countries have received many complaints too concerning this very issue.

Brian Crowley MEP, European Parliament.

Religious heads need to inspire thought

POLITICAL correctness says that priests, pastors, ministers of religion, rabbis and imams should not poke their clerical noses into politics. In any case, has not their moral authority and credibility (the word is used deliberately), been severely compromised? But if they are, even in a residual and strictly optional sense, still moral guides' how can they NOT comment on the society in which their flocks live and try to live morally?

Irish society was never perfect. We have not brought into reality all that of which our ancestors dreamed.

When (or if), we venerate Tara and the surrounding landscape, we are not venerating sticks and stones and antique bones. We are venerating the ultimate symbol of what makes us, as an allisland people. It is a sacred place, where we should tread carefully and speak softly.

Suddenly, sacrilege has an immediate and contemporary meaning.

This is not about the past; nor about the Ireland we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren. It is about how we see and treat each other in the now. As economic statistics or consumers? Or as brothers and sisters? It is about who we are. Clerics should not command their flocks, with bell, book and candle, how to vote.

That is Caesar's patch. All that is being suggested here to them as suggestors' and guides (however tentative and deferential), is that they suggest to those of their flock who like occasionally to think that they might contemplate Tara. Before they vote.

Maurice O'Connell, 19 Forge Park, Oakpark, Tralee, Co Kerry.

Wake up and smell the slurry, Nuala

I LIVE on a farm. I presume that Nuala O'Faolain is not a country person and lives in the city.

I believe she has absolutely no knowledge of country living, especially of life on a farm.

Apparently, we do not produce anything that anybody in this country needs. Interesting to say the least; we have the most traceable herds in the world. If O'Faolain likes to sit and eat her Sunday roast or whatever from a country such as Brazil, which has no traceability whatsoever of its animals and has been plagued by foot and mouth disease, then off with her!

Maybe she should ask her butcher where he gets his meat from. No doubt it is local, or supplied by a farmer from a particular county.

There are vegetable, fruit and poultry producers here too that would be classed as farmers and I am certain that what they produce is consumed in this country of ours.

Her article says all but a minority of smaller farms are now run by part-time farmers. I don't believe this is true. I am sure there are quite a few large farms around Ireland where the only income is derived from farming.

Her most insulting remark has to be in respect of the environment, and how farmers deal with it; according to her, they pollute the waterways, throw black plastic up on trees, leave dead animals in fields etc. Let her be informed that farmers gather all the black plastic sheets, bring them to waste-disposal areas organised by the county councils and get a receipt to show the plastic has been disposed of in a proper manner. Also, dead animals are collected and disposed of in the proper manner; in fact there is a fine for burying animals on your land. Spreading of slurry has a cut-off time, and fertiliser is obviously only applied to grassland up to the end of September.

Maybe in Nuala's garden she has grass growth 52 weeks a year and has to cut it!

Geraldine Kyne, Moycullen, Co Galway.