Madam, - Michael McDowell has engaged in political correctness weighed down with hypocrisy in his assertion that Dr Bill Tormey's views on compulsory medical tests for returning missionaries amount to to a "type of xenophobia". This is more than a bit rich coming from a man who recently compared an elected member of Dáil Éireann to a Nazi.
It is far from xenophobic to ensure that people, missionaries or otherwise, are tested for diseases such as HIV/Aids when they are returning from places in Africa, in particular, where there is an Aids epidemic. It would be irresponsible not to test such people.
And is it not logical that if I would have to receive inoculations against malaria and other diseases were I to travel to these very same countries, that people entering Ireland from those unfortunate parts of the world should at the very least be tested for the sake their own wellbeing? - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN COFFEY, Maynooth, Co Kildare.