Madam, - With six murders in the State last week (give or take one) and with one already this week (or is it two?), this nation seems to have lost the fundamental virtues of integrity, decency and good manners that go with civilised behaviour. Reams of legislation are going through the Dáil to control the rebellious and lawless streak in our society, apparently with little effect.
May I suggest that there is a much simpler and much less expensive way of doing it? It is the Ten Commandments, which in their simplicity and logic must appeal to Christian and non-Christian alike and their public recitation must reduce the level of crime in the country.
By public, I mean a public recitation that would start with our political leaders in Dáil Éireann, with the Ceann Comhairle intoning at the start of each Dáil session, "Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal" and so on down through the Ten. If this filtered down through the civil service, local government and private companies into the family home, peace and contentment would reign again. We could give up our oul' tribunals and committees, retire all the ombudspeople and farm out the plethora of inspectorates and directors.
The money saved could be ploughed into our health services while State grants would be available to buy effigies of a "cute hoor" in the act of passing the buck, to be placed on the mantelpieces of every house in the country to remind us of what we were.
All this is likely to happen when you see white elephants flying over Dáil Éireann stuffing their inflated expenses sheets up their, eh, trunks. - Yours, etc,
PAT MULLIN, Calderwood Avenue, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.