Sir, – For two days in a row you have carried front-page headlines name-checking a backbench parliamentarian (“Varadkar calls for pledge on Irish unity”, News, September 26th, “Varadkar says rise in immigration too fast”, News, September 27th).
Mr Varadkar has interesting opinions, many of which, I understand, he has thoughtfully refined during his time in politics.
What a shame he never had the chance to reach a position of serious influence. Who knows, he might have made an excellent minister.
To take just one example – in the vexed area of health – he would surely not have tolerated the debacle of the new national children’s hospital. The list of things he might have achieved is endless. Dare I mention the dizzy heights of taoiseach or tánaiste? The nation has missed out, I fear. Or did I miss something? – Yours, etc,
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ALAN SWEETMAN,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – In pushing the Irish unity agenda, the former taoiseach fails to acknowledge the reluctance of most people south of the Border to take on the problematic North. Apart from the challenge of reconciling two systems of public administration and the need to subsidise their economy, we don’t want them exporting their community divisions to the rest of the island.
The great achievement of partition was to decouple the “Ulster Question” from the “Irish Question”, thereby largely confining the conflict between the aspirations of nationalists and unionists in Ireland to within Northern Ireland and enabling the rest of the island to find a way forward into modernity. We have now reached, not without some difficulty, an equilibrium down here. Let’s not disturb it: that, I suggest, is the attitude of most people here. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – First Northern Ireland, and now immigration. Is Leo Varadkar trying to make a play for the presidency? – Yours, etc,
DAVID CURRAN,
Knocknacarra,
Galway.