Sir, - Vincent Browne, as woe all know, is a man driven by strange obsessions; his latest appears to be a tele poll published in the Evening Herald on January, 26th (The Irish Times, January 1st, 1996).
Some 97 per cent of respondents said they did not feel safe in light of the current spate of violent crimes. Vincent takes issue with this conclusion.
Tele polls are not, and have never claimed to be, precise scientific surveys. But they are worthwhile barometers of public opinion and as such have been widely used in the Irish print and broadcasting media for the past decade or so.
If any significant number of Evening Herald readers had shared Vincent's view that there is no crime epidemic, they would have rung in to tell us so. - Yours, etc.,
Editor,
The Evening Herald, Independent House, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1.