Free optical care

 With the advent of non-private corporate opthalmology to our high streets,a whole new world of measured social support has become possible. By social support,I mean government wealth transfers to the poor.

The possibility of supporting, financially, optical care for the low- and medium-income pensioner,sick, unemployed and disabled is a necessary extension of social provision.

Reasonably priced mass-market optical wear alleviates the need to write a blank cheque to bloated middle class opticians with third-rate qualifications, people talking out of their backside. Those "specialists" are delivering a sub-standard service.

A burden shared is a burden halved! Let English-based high street opthalmology chain stores be made to feel more welcome by all in Ireland. We must give over our native petite bourgeois fantasies about supporting local business and the sole trader.

Let dreams of national self-sufficiency pass by,not immediately but at a measured pace. A way of life in local business in the South is coming to an its natural end as unionism perished in the North less than two weeks ago.