Would it be too much to expect that the journalist Jennifer Bray and the editor would check the figures in Ms Bray's article (News, 24 January) before sending it to press. Why? Because the figures do not make sense.

"State in €800m payout to retiring teachers last year", reads the headline.

"A teacher working on an average salary gets €100,000 under the current tax free system," says Bray. (She might have mentioned that this is only if they have been a member of the contributary pension scheme for at least 40 years.)

Dividing €100,000 into €800m means that 8,000 teachers would have retired last year? On the other hand, if we accept the statement that "Overall, there was a total of 1,981 applications for retirement last year", simple division would tell us that they got an average of €403,836 each! At one and a half times final salary this gives a final salary of €269,224.

Oh Ms Bray, Ms Bray, as a retired teacher myself, how I wish, how I wish.

Brendan Casserly,

Abbeybridge,

Waterfall, near Cork