Dear Santa, You must be surprised to receive this letter from me after 50 years of my not writing. I know I didn't thank you after the very last gift you gave, but let me say that the toy fire engine was great. I still have it in the attic somewhere.

I'm writing now because Irish business is struggling this year and I thought you could help. My cousin is a banker and he doesn't even believe in you, but he's getting such a lovely gift that I thought I couldn't go wrong by putting pen to paper and asking for some modest help from you.

In the Irish Times on the 25th September 2004, I said:

By making the right investment, we can immediately cut our road deaths to the lowest levels of any country in the world. As a businessman, I am attracted by the fact that the return on this investment would be both sizeable and fast.

For a book called "A Just Society", edited by John Scally and published in 2003, I contributed this chapter: