Sir, - In his article of July 27th, Dr Garret FitzGerald sets out to place the proposals on property made by the Constitution Review Group in the context of the property clauses of the first draft Constitution of 1922. As he says, these were prepared by a committee of which Michael Collins was chairman. He goes on to refer to that committee as "the Collins committee" and the draft Constitution as "the Collins draft constitution".
I would refer Dr FitzGerald to Donal O'Sullivan's The Irish Free State and its Senate. The author points out that, because of Collins's other preoccupations between March and May 1922, his chairmanship of the constitution committee was largely nominal and that Darrell Figgis was in practice the chairman. It may be that Dr FitzGerald is attributing to Collins views on property which he did not hold. - Yours, etc.,
Gartan,
Bandon,
Co Cork.