Sir, - Your Legal Affairs Correspondent, Carol Coulter, is to be congratulated on her excellent report on the conference on human rights organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (The Irish Times, February 3rd). Mr Michael Farrell, former co-chairman of the ICCL and a member of the newly formed Human Rights Commission, believes its first task should be combating racism. I agree.
Racism against refugees, economic migrants and travellers was discussed. However, the issue of Irish nationalists living in certain areas of the North who are currently experiencing a mini-pogrom in the form of pipe-bomb attacks went unreported. These ongoing attacks on people's homes are the result of a loathing of things Irish, nationalist, and Catholic.
The first step in the battle against this form of racism is a recognition by society, especially the media, that such attacks are racist. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Cooper, Delaford Lawn, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.
Sir, - It may not be your fault, but your report of the ICCL conference on human rights commissions does not cover some important aspects of the day's proceedings. At the outset, a speaker from the floor queried the appropriateness of the presence at the conference of the president of the Human Rights Commission, Mr Justice Donal Barrington, in view of the fact that the conference was being held under the auspices of an organisation whose women's committee last year proposed to the Government that "Irish women should have the legal right to abortion". This same committee went on to urge the Government to delete the right to life of the unborn child from our Constitution, so that "free and freely available abortion in Ireland" be guaranteed, and that legislation be enacted "to ensure abortion on request is available".
You do not mention this. Nor do you mention that none of the human rights commissioners present dissociated themselves from the re-statement of the ICCL's policy by one of the panel speakers, Miss Ursula Barry; and that no speaker on any of the panels expressed concern about the most abused of all human rights - the right to life of the unborn child. Nor do you mention that during the course of the day, numerous speakers from the floor did draw attention to this most fundamental of all human rights. I therefore ask that you demonstrate your impartiality by publishing this letter. - Yours, etc.,
Mrs Lelia O'Flaherty, Rathmines, Dublin 6.