Madam, - In a mere two sentences, your readers have been told by Vincent Browne (Opinion, July 26th) that an esprit de corps "seems" to have evolved in the course of Garda training, that he "suspects" the transmission of prejudices in that training, and that this "possibly" is directed against many immigrants.
By what conceivable test can you construe those 65 words of rant to be worthy of publication in a newspaper which takes itself as seriously as yours does? Even the most despised of tabloids hangs its bombast on at least one verifiable fact. To ask the same of Vincent Browne will hardly put an end to his mischief-making, but at least it would be a start. - Yours, etc,
MAURICE A O'SULLIVAN, Ashton Wood, Bray, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - I'm not a guard. I work as a doctor in a Dublin city emergency department and don't claim to have read as many tribunal reports as Vincent Browne.
My recent experience of the "dark side" of our police force entailed brief encounters with young members of An Garda Síochána in the middle of the night as each of us tried our best to deal with the messy and tragic effects of idiots driving cars. Working nights is a pain, but the guards did their job, as I hope I did mine.
I'm sure that Mr Browne honestly sees value in wanting to "dissolve the esprit de corps" of the force. Personally, I would be nervous that this may be achieved at the cost of finding it harder to get enough men and women to take that step out of the luminous yellow door of the squad car into showers of broken glass and drunken spit in support of their colleagues and the public.
Recent events have exposed weaknesses in the police here. Evidently, we're not world leaders in handling some situations involving firearms. I hope we can train our specialist gardaí better so as to avoid further tragedies. However, when you step off a plane in this country certain things may unfortunately be taken for granted by Irish people. Firstly, I believe that the average police force member that you may meet, often under circumstances of loss and fear, when help is needed, will not be corrupt or incompetent. Furthermore, we still have a State where that average garda on the street does not patrol with a firearm on his or her hip. This is a strength of our State, and our police, not a weakness. It is based on how we have managed to run things since 1922, ie with fewer bullets than most other countries.
My own central point is that deficiencies need to be sorted out, but that the heart of our police force is far from rotten. - Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID NILAND, Windmill Lane, Dublin 2.