Sir, - Do any of your readers find, as I do, the latest salvo from a senior Government figure in the war on racism more than a little puzzling?
At a time of rising unemployment, a crumbling peace process and international crisis, surely the Tβnaiste has more pressing matters of governance than the penning of yet another tract bewailing the largely imaginary waves of racist hatred currently threatening to swamp Ireland.
Judging from both the tone and content of her article in your issue of November 2nd, the untutored observer could be forgiven for assuming her homeland to be a hatemonger's paradise, almost on a par with Nazi Germany or the antebellum Deep South.
The more experienced eye, however, will quickly recognise Ms Harney's Cassandra turn for what it really is - a model manifestation of the enormous clout wielded by that most Irish of political species, the lobby group.
The Catholic Church, doctors, farmers, taxi-drivers, chemists, publicans and banks - all have, at different times since the foundation of the State, had their interests defended and aims promoted by successive administrations, invariably at the expense of the people.
Thus the source of Ms Harney's anxiety is not difficult to divine. The newest addition to the lobby family in Irish political life, while tiny in terms of constituent numbers and wider support, enjoys a vastly disproportionate influence already being felt in the words and actions of our legislators, who are once more running scared.
Cloaking themselves in the inviolable mantle of anti-racism, multiculturalists seek to erase the bonds of our collective culture, history and allegiance, supplanting them with an ideology that elevates the lifestyles and values of the minority, while dismantling those of the majority.
The disastrous consequences of this new secular religion are plain to see here in the United Kingdom; decades of unchecked immigration resulting in a balkanised society from which young Muslim men clamour to leave, that they may fight against Britain abroad.
Rather than regurgitating the failed doctrines of an unelected pressure group, our leaders would be better employed in formulating policy on this critical issue that for once does not repeat the mistakes of others. - Yours, etc.,
Philip Donnelly, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.