Sir, - Current tribunals are giving us all a useful insight of the reality of what we have suspected for years. The inheritors of Taca were living up to expectations.
However, much more deserving of a tribunal is the future of the farming and rural Ireland communities. They are being sentenced to extinction without a tear or admission of guilt by the great wallies of the past 30 years who have brought the Irish farming community (the most cost efficient food producers of the 1950s) to their knees and despair.
Ethnic cleansing Euro-style is here unless we can quickly find a dozen experienced, independent and courageous men and women, detached from parties and sectoral interests, who understand the current and pending crises and who have the courage to show present-day demi-Gods awaiting fat state pensions that rural Ireland need not become zero-populated. There currently is but one plan - ethnic cleansing for family farmers.
Closing the door after the horse is gone and another tribunal on this most serious all-Ireland matter in the year 2005 is probably all we can look forward to from existing leadership. Someone must grasp the nettle now. -Yours, etc. Michael MacDonald,
B.Agr.Sc., Harbour Road, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.