Madam, - Breda O'Brien's comments on the new Broadcasting Bill (Opinion, June 21st) make telling reading for many reasonable folk of my acquaintances. The Bill's curiously restricted approach to all matters religious would seem to be nothing less than churlish.
But whatever about this aspect of the proposed legislation, there is another issue concerning public service broadcasting which might be more easily reviewed by the Minister for Communications - an issue which of itself has nothing to do with God or religion.
It is the increasing coarseness of language to be heard nowadays, on RTÉ radio in particular. Of course, profanities of various hues are and will remain a "colourful" ingredient of our national patois. However, when they punctuate interviews and discussions on the public airwaves, they demean the social environment (as Déaglán de Bréadún has recently noted).
Gratuitously coarse language insinuates an undertone of violence into public discourse and thus harms the social environment. Moreover, the use of locker-room language when addressing the public at large does violence to the sensibilities of many people - and not just fogies. It is widely acknowledged that Irish society is growing more violent by the day. It follows that anything which contributes, obliquely or otherwise, to this violence, should be resisted.
The coarsening of discourse in society is a civic matter and when public service radio conspires, even unwittingly, in this process, taxpayers are entitled to regard it as objectionable. - Yours, etc,
Fr TOM STACK, Maple Hall, Milltown Road, Dublin 6.