As the Christmas season descends, the Irish human welfare charity industry cranks up production.

In the run-in to Christmas Day, sob stories will be issued and heart-strings plucked all aimed at financial extraction from your purse.

Implied in the charity message is that somehow it is your responsibility that your fellow human cannot get their act together.

This guilt-tripping is aimed at those who just get on with life and orient to help themselves to overcome life’s difficulties.

As a nation we enjoy suckling the teat of human misery. Irish people seem to be at their happiest helping those who wallow in the milk of ‘oh, woe is me’.

High-profile human welfare charities are addicted to their public self-important image and numerous opportunities to pontificate as a pompous windbag on the fragility of the human condition.

Not for them the aim of every charity which is to disband having achieved what they were set up for in the first place: to solve a recognised human need and then to put in place a support structure.

The Irish charity industry needs downsizing alongside a realignment of personnel and resources.

There will always be those in a generous state within our society. But we must never forget the adage: charity should be given without being asked for.

Please spare us from charity porn this and every Christmas!

John Tierney

Ashtown, Fews, Co Waterford