Sir, - A significant, if disconcerting, element of the decommissioning issue is highlighted by Cllr Nicky Kehoe (August 22nd) when he points out that "Sinn FΘin - in line with what it signed up to under the Good Friday Agreement - has done more than any other party to use its influence to achieve decommissioning".
But surely that is no big deal.
Apart from Sinn FΘin, no other party to the agreement has the moral authority to influence the confident, committed, and well-armed IRA to disarm (much less disband), without satisfying them about their ultimate goal of Irish freedom from British rule.
But perhaps the people of (the island of) Ireland have that authority.
The Sinn FΘin President, Mr Gerry Adams, has on occasion made it clear that peace-making and confidence-building is a collective business. It would therefore seem appropriate that a national forum be set up to examine and adjudicate the patriotic validity of armed struggle (now and in the future) in the light of the implications of the one-nation doctrine.
That doctrine represents the all-embracing Irish nationality conceived in the mind of Thomas Davis. It was to establish "internal union" as the means to win "external independence". It is symbolised in the national flag. A plebiscite on it should influence the IRA. - Yours, etc.,
James McGeever, Dublin Road, Kingscourt, Co Cavan.