The universal reaction in the office last week to newspaper photographs from the website 'Heelarious' was one of confused revulsion.

Smiling babies under the age of six months wearing vile constructions of satin padded fabric on their feet with high heel appendages is just wrong on every level. The proprietors – American of course – deem it to be funny and cute as only they can on that side of the Atlantic. The fabric used to make the Heelarious shoes is cheap satin in lurid pink, black and the always baby-friendly leopard skin print.

Some childcare experts have accused the website of sexualising babies, which, when you see the pictures, is perhaps far more heelarious than the shoes themselves. The reason for the discomfort expressed by both myself and my colleagues related rather to the issue of taste.

What power we adults have over defenceless infants when it comes to matters sartorial. We can put them in whatever disastrous concoctions of colours and fabrics we choose, forever immortalising the fashion crimes in photographs of blissfully unaware babies.

Apart from the inelegance, there is, of course, another risk associated with selling padded high heels to parents of babies.

If you are dumb enough to buy them, are you also dumb enough to encourage your child to take their first steps wearing them?

And Another Thing...

Is anyone else finding doing their tax returns more than a little stomach-churning? I couldn't care less about Mary Harney's couple of blow-drys – far more sickening is the serious abuse of the money you and I give the state. Just think, it wasn't enough for Fás to spend €32,000 on unused flights – they thought they'd forgotten to have the tickets credited back but since discovered they did. Good to know they now know they're looking after our money so well...