Sir – Michael McDowell’s excellent article covering the shortcomings of our Defence Forces and policing deserves immediate attention from Government (”If the worst happens, who would come to Ireland’s defence?” Opinion, April 24th).
Yes, we are a neutral country, however we must be a strong neutral in the current global situation.
We must be able to police our own skies and territorial waters. This is particularly important as we continue to develop our offshore wind farms and to protect our subsea cables. This necessitates that the Navy has the capacity to operate the latest sonar related equipment.
We must also insure our Garda have sufficient, well-trained officers and equipment to be able to deal with the type of riot we saw in Dublin last November.Therefore, it is important that part of our budget surplus is used to address these issues ito maintain a secure, stable democracy. – Yours, etc,
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MIKE CORMACK,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
