Madam, - If we should be hesitant to accept the word of the "chief constable of one of the most discredited police forces in the world" (Tom Cooper, January 11th), then surely we should be loath to accept the assurances of (1) a group of terrorists and (2) the most discredited political party in this State.
If, as Mr Cooper suggests, we should refrain from judgment until the relevant evidence is brought forward to substantiate the PSNI's claims, then surely the electorate of this country should refuse to support Sinn Féin-IRA until it brings forward the evidence to substantiate its claims of being committed to the peace process. - Yours etc.,
BRENDAN COFFEY, Maynooth, Co Kildare
A Chara, - Your Editorial of January 8th says: "the idea that the IRA would be planning the Northern Bank robbery at the same time that the president of Sinn Féin, Mr Gerry Adams, and the proposed Deputy First Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, would be negotiating final acts of completion with the two governments just beggars belief".
How strange. It "beggars belief" yet you do not question it in any way, accepting as fact the unsubstantiated claim by Hugh Orde that the IRA was responsible. You go further. You claim this is "the darkest hour in the political process in Northern Ireland". It seems that all sense of proportion can be thrown out the window once any opportunity is offered to escalate the demonisation of Sinn Féin.
However, I believe most sensible people will recoil at the thought of Kevin Myers, from his perch on the top right of your editorial page, setting the Irish political agenda, as Charles Flanagan (January 11th) seems to suggest. - Is mise,
MICHEÁL MacDONNCHA, Cill Bharróg, Baile Átha Cliath 5.
Madam, - David Smith's reply (January 12th) to my letter of January 10th is deeply depressing if it represents a sizeable part of Southern opinion, as I fear it might. While I sympathise with his despair and justified outrage at the endemic corruption in public life in the Republic, what is his remedy? To support a party whose corruption entails much more profound matters than financial ones. He seems to say: ignore morality; see "the big picture"; vote for people who will "get something done". When did we hear these arguments before? In Germany in the 1930s.
Mr Martin's attitude, I fear, is proof of Sinn Féin's success at selling itself as the party with an answer to everything: partition, poverty, class, race, the secret of the universe - and whatever you're having yourself. It is fast replacing religion as the opium of the people - and with the same brain-deadening effect. And this in a first-world country in 2005 - Mother Ireland you're rearin' them still!
Here in the North, with our recent history, we have at least some excuse to be a little punch-drunk and befuddled - but in the South? My case for a "mental condition" stands. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN ROONEY, Belfast 15.
Madam, - Is it not ironic that a bank robbery could almost fatally damage the peace process when murders, repeated maimings, and intimidation of whole communities could not? What does it say about our values? - Yours, etc.,
MAURICE CURTIN, Ballintemple, Cork.
Madam, - Judging by readers' comments it is widely believed that public figures associated in any way with criminal activity, or with the supposed perpetrators of criminal activity, should be excluded from political life. It matters little that no conviction has been obtained by due legal process.
Should this apply only to criminal activity involving the physical removal of banknotes from bank vaults, or should it apply to the crimes of fraud, tax evasion or corruption?
A generation of public figures, many still active in the democratic process, have been closely associated with the perpetrators of these crimes, and with those who have protected the criminals. These criminal activities have blighted the life of the nation to a far greater degree than the Belfast bank robbery.
Do I detect double standards? Or a whiff of bourgeois hypocrisy? After all, robbing banks is such a blue-collar activity, not at all respectable, like fiddling the Revenue or pocketing the odd brown envelope. - Yours, etc.,
GORDON DAVIES, Briar Wood, Bray, Co Wicklow.