Laughing-stock Ireland

Madam, - So the people of this State risk making themselves a laughing-stock in Europe should they vote to reject the Lisbon treaty, according to Charlie McCreevy. I wonder.

I think our credibility is far more damaged by the realities recently pointed out by the German ambassador. I further suggest that, in the laughing-stock stakes, you'd go a long way to find a modern Western democracy in which a finance minister found to have been accepting cash from wealthy individuals finds it a matter neither for resignation nor shame. - Yours, etc,

ALAN O'BRIEN,

Barnhill Avenue,

Dalkey,

Co Dublin.