Madam, - Congratulations to the censor for banning the video game Manhunt 2 because of its excessive violence. The average Irish child now sees more than 7,000 violent deaths on television before starting second-level education. Yet many of those who sell TV advertising because they know we are influenced by what we see claim that repeated exposure to violent images has no adverse effect on us.
I hope our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will consider the use of violent death as entertainment to be as barbaric and socially unacceptable as we now consider slavery. However, it is up to us to help shape that future. Observing a single day each year when no violent death is shown for entertainment purposes on TV would help to raise awareness of the issue.
TG4 is currently the only TV station transmitting in the island of Ireland which is willing to observe such a day. - Yours, etc,
TERRY GILLESPIE, The Glebe, Stradbally, Co Laois.
Madam, - It is very worrying that the Film Censor's Office has banned Manhunt 2.
While I do not doubt that the game contains gratuitous violence of a very severe nature, it ought not to be left up to an organ of the State to determine what is justifiable in respect of the content of a creative work.
Ireland has a lamentable history of censorship, which is just one feature of the paternalism and conservatism that characterised Irish governments for so long. I had hoped that the people of Ireland were finally being entrusted by their Government with the power to make decisions for ourselves. It appears this is not the case. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK MAIR, Hermitage Grove, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.