DECLAN S. WHITE,
Sir, - I was born in 1922, which is possibly of little interest to anybody except myself; but it has always been a source of pride that I belonged to the first generation of almost free Irishmen (pace the oath) for a long number of centuries.
I am now an old man and the State is but a pup - and what a pup it has proved to be! I was reared in Fianna Fáil politics and always had a deep interest in politics in general. At the age of 23 I was asked to go forward as a Fianna Fáil candidate for the local town commissioners but I refused on the grounds of not wishing to be a "yes man". In a discussion shortly afterwards with my cousin, the late Vivion de Valera, he said I had made a good decision. In his opinion politics was a filthy game. What would he say if he were alive today?
These are days of mixed emotions for me: total delight that a corrupt political and business coterie has actually been named, and sadness that the country has whelped such a coterie. - Yours, etc.,
DECLAN S. WHITE, Orwell Road, Dublin 14.
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Sir, - Senator Joe O'Toole has articulated best an attitude about the crooks exposed in the Flood Report: "I'd prefer to see them poor and free than rich and in jail". The idea is to hit them where it hurts, in the pocket.
This speaks volumes about Ireland's attitude to middle-class criminals. Oiks who rob banks or deal in drugs are jailed and have their assets seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau. Bribing, rezoning, tax dodging white-collar thieves can buy their way out of prison.
They will never be left poor - they will only have to cough up for the scams where they get caught, and they will never be caught for everything. They are likely to calculate that if they have to pay only occasionally it is worth the risk. This is no deterrent. Prison is. - Yours, etc.,
WILLIAM CAMPBELL, Harold Ville Avenue, Dublin 8.
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Sir, - I find it hard to take that Bertie Ahern is disgusted that Ray Burke has let down the Fianna Fáil Party.
What about Denis Foley, Padraic Flynn, John Ellis, Beverley Cooper-Flynn, Charlie Haughey, P.J. Mara and Liam Lawlor, to name but a few? Does he not realise, even now, that the Fianna Fáil party has consistently let down the Irish people? - Yours, etc.,
JOHN FAGAN, Gartlandstown, Co Westmeath.