In planning my return to the place where I spent many happy weeks on holidays during my youth – still to my mind the best place to holiday in the whole of Europe – I came across the report of the cuts required of Poole council (Daily Echo, November 27).

If a council saves money, or makes efficiency savings, it has the right to keep the proceeds.

However, these cuts are being driven by the economic catastrophe into which the Labour Party drove the country and the inappropriate response by the coalition government, especially to the European situation.

It surely cannot be right for Poole council to be short of money while the UK is unnecessarily bailing out the Irish government and banks Our contribution is not high enough to be make or break for Ireland, but it effectively writes off all the recent spending cuts.

Meanwhile the coalition agrees to a budget increase in Brussels, whose wastefulness and inefficiency in allocation of resources I experience every day.

This waste was heavily criticised by former European Union commissioner Frits Bolkenstein in a recent speech.

Chris Gillibrand, Rue de l'Industrie, Brussels, Belgium