Sir, - Freemasonry is at the moment coming under close scrutiny by the Westminster Parliament, with a resolution being formulated there to compel disclosure of membership of the Masonic Order by policemen, members of the armed services, and many other public officials and appointees. That doughty crusader Chris Mullin MP currently heading a parliamentary committee which is closely questioning the head of British Freemasonry, with particular regard to the investigation into corruption involving the West Midlands police force in the Stalker Affair. But the motion to compel disclosure of masonic membership will be limited to what is nowadays referred to as "the Mainland": it specifically excludes Northern Ireland. I am astonished that this highly significant exception has so far passed without comment in our Irish news media.
In view of the total absence of any Northern Ireland policemen ever being brought to account and found guilty on foot of the many, many complaints entered against the RUC, I find this proposed exception highly disquieting. The matter of the Kincora House scandal, with its uninvestigated ramifications and abrupt termination - to say nothing of Widgery's whitewash - lends further suspicion to this proposed special treatment for the North.
Are we once again to be compelled to rely on the good offices and decent concern of such lone figures as Chris Mullin MP, Michael Mansfield QC and Ms Gareth Peirce, solicitor, to take up the cudgels on our behalf in this extremely significant matter? The present head of the RUC, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, has publicly voiced his own disquiet at the involvement and numbers (uncoutned as yet) of Freemasons in the ranks of his police force. Why has our own Government, in its almost daily meetings with its British counterpart, envinced not the slightest interest or concern in this matter? Why has not this very newspaper adverted to it? I find this deeply disturbing. - Yours, etc., David Grant,
Mount Pleasant, Waterford.