Sir, - It was with some disquiet that I read your Editorial of July 30th entitled "Plain talking on Europe".This provided a detailed overview of a speech on Europe and the Nice Treaty made by the Minister for State Mr Tom Parlon at the MacGill Summer School in Donegal. His voice was described as one of "practical experience and fundamental honesty".
Mr Parlon's willingness to identify the "nay-sayers" - including the Green Party, Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party - who apparently display "suspicion and hostility" towards the international economy, and who have engaged in "wild rhetoric" during previous campaigns on European treaties, was reported in approving tones.
As a member of the Green Party, I wish to put on public record my concern at what can only be described as the blatantly partisan tone of your Editorial.
I respect the fact that your paper is broadly in favour of ratification of the Nice Treaty, but I believe that a newspaper of quality such as The Irish Times has a responsibility to be as even-handed as possible in the months preceding a popular referendum on the issue.
It is hard to imagine your paper giving as much editorial space or prominence to a public speech made by, for example, the Green Party Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, John Gormley, explaining why a principled and far-seeing political party such as the Green Party is fundamentally opposed to treaty. Furthermore, given the strong campaign of pro-Nice propaganda being orchestrated by the Government and other well-funded establishment groups at present, surely the Yes side is well capable of successfully putting its arguments across to a discerning electorate without any additional help from papers such as your own?
Instead, it might be helpful for your readers if your paper guided them away from some of the reactionary rhetoric of the last Nice campaign towards a more balanced and satisfactory understanding of the issues at stake. Perhaps such an approach could contrast the narrow and almost exclusively economic arguments in favour of the Nice Treaty being advanced by the Progressive Democrats - those enthusiastic advocates of the neo-liberal economic agenda of liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation which increasingly drives the development of the European Union - with the broader arguments made by the Greens concerning the dangers of centralising political and economic power in Brussels, the lack of democratic accountability and transparency within EU institutions, the problems inherent in the creation of an two-tier Europe and the growing militarisation of the EU which undermines and threatens Irish neutrality. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr DEIRDRE DE BURCA, (Green Party), Bray, Co Wicklow.
Sir, - Day after day you publish letters for or against the Nice Treaty. Some say the applicant countries will be able to join no matter which way Ireland votes; some disagree.
Can you not spare five lines to say that already they are not getting fair play? The European Commission requires Poland, Hungary, Latvia - all of them - to translate the documentation into English at their own expense. The final agreement may be bilingual, but the English version will be the official version. - Yours, etc.,
MÁIRE MULLARNEY, The Mill House, Whitechurch Road, Dublin 14.