A chara, – The mentality revealed by Keith Dunne (November 7th) is exactly the mentality that has created havoc on this island since partition. He advises the Taoiseach to "forget about the North and Northern politicians" and concentrate on developing a better relationship with other EU countries. Forget about a part of your own island is a common enough attitude in the South. Forget about your own people, your own kith and kin, your own fellow Irish citizens. The Taoiseach and the Dublin Government should never forget about the citizens in the North. If they want to build the peace process and improve the economy of the whole island, then they have no choice but to maintain even closer ties with the north of Ireland.
They have to resist all attempts to create a hard border and they have to insist that the Remain vote in the North is respected. – Yours, etc,
Fr JOE McVEIGH,
Enniskillen,
Co Fermanagh.
Sir, – Three cheers for AIB chairman Richard Pym who has said that Ireland is in a unique position to benefit from the “folly” of the Brexit vote. He said that the Brexit campaign had been led by “a group of chancers and opportunists”, that Ireland is open for business, as it is anchored in the European Union, and is a very attractive location for inward investment.
Mr Pym’s welcome positivity about Brexit is a refreshing contrast to the paralysed negativity of the official Irish “response” to Brexit. The recent ESRI report, which added to the general official gloom-fest about Brexit, understands well that Irish politics will always favour steady-as-she-goes managerial pragmatism over high-falutin’ long-term strategy. Tellingly, its negative predictions are based on a “zero policy response” from the Irish Government.
It’s now painfully obvious that, on major policy issues, our culturally-cringing Irish “leaders” (North and South) simply do not possess the vision, the leadership qualities or the intellectual confidence publicly and decisively to disagree with, and diverge from, British policy norms in a timely manners. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick,
Co Tyrone.