Sir, – Patrick Nolan’s praise of “two outstanding public servants, TK Whitaker and Dermot Gallagher” is well deserved (January 21st).
I wonder, however, if they had, throughout their careers, been repeatedly called elite, unelected, faceless, unaccountable, tax-exempt Dublin bureaucrats, they would now be so highly regarded. That is the fate reserved for EU officials, no matter how faithful their service, or how useful to the public, or indeed how much income tax thy pay.
When an EU policy is successful, member state ministers usually take the credit because they approved the proposal. However, if it stalls, it is the officials who, as “Brussels bureaucrats”, get the blame, even though it may be the same ministers who, for domestic reasons, are obstructing progress. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY,
Brussels.