Madam, – I found the two articles by Garret FitzGerald and Breda O’Brien (Opinion, October 16th) dealing with the basic problems we have regarding ethics and civic morality in our national affairs, to be arresting. Both shone a light on these issues, where before I had but a haphazard view of the reasons for our present national woes.
They set me thinking as to how the situation could be turned around. The powerful pens of your contributors, and others, would undoubtedly be a part of the sea-change needed to awaken our national conscience.
The creation of a new, clean political party would hardly be the answer, but perhaps encouraging social movements like Muintir na Tíre or Harry Bohan’s Céifin Centre to take a lead, and introducing the issues into adult education courses and into the second-level curriculum would be a start. The churches too have to weigh in, despite the current negative climate in which they function.
In parallel, the elimination of the political “cute-hoor”, brown envelopes, jobs for the boys and political correctness, would be a pre-requisite to a change of national behaviour.
This might lead to the cleaning up of the murky areas of local politics, where some of our politicians currently breed. It’s a social and moral revolution that is required. Is there any chance that such might be accomplished in our time, before we sink into mute acceptance of the moral cesspool that is our present condition? – Yours, etc,