Madam, - One of the reasons many of us are relieved to see Mr McCreevy move to Brussels is the opportunity this creates. The government parties can now feel free to put on their socially concerned face. It seems we may now expect the strings of the national purse to be loosened a little.
Even if we doubt that the Government's expected discovery of a social conscience is the result of painful soul-searching, still we will be grateful for concrete signs of this Government's concern for the problems of ordinary people.
One of the voices of the Irish Catholic Church that gives hope to many of us is that of Father Seán Healy. We have waited a long time for churchmen to speak and act as if the gospel has hard things to say about our society and how it is organised.
If the question of whether this republic has lost its soul is in the air at the moment, the presence of such people as Seán Healy allows us to believe that a decent country may yet be rescued from the disciples of "no such thing as society." Seán Healy is the kind of person who gives "sanctimonious guff" a good name. - Yours, etc.,
AIDAN HAYES, An Ráith, Falcarragh, Co Donegal.