Madam, - The recent publication of the Moriarty Report and its clarity and precision cause me to contrast it with the beef tribunal report. The difference between McCracken and Moriarty on the one hand and the beef tribunal report on the other is enormous.
The beef tribunal report is one of the murkier chapters in Irish judicial history. What was important was the evidence rather than the report. The evidence disclosed substantial fraud, theft, false accounting and tax evasion. Curiously, the only significant prosecution to follow the report was that of the journalist Susan O'Keeffe, who made a television programme for a British television station highlighting some of the malpractices rampant in the Irish beef industry.
The beef tribunal left a lot of unfinished business behind it. It remains unfinished. - Yours, etc,
DESMOND O'MALLEY, Lynton Court, Merrion Road, Dublin 4.