Madam, - As it prepares for next week's meeting to interrogate RTÉ about the "veracity" of last month's High Society programme about cocaine misuse by the Irish middle classes, I hope the Oireachtas Committee on Communications will reflect on the tragic cocaine-fuelled events which have occurred since the airing of the mini-series, written and narrated by Justine Delaney-Wilson.
The controversy following the programme surrounded the plausibility of the author's claims that a serving politician and active pilot had "confessed" to taking cocaine. Shortly afterwards, Simon Coveney TD and several journalists attempted to make Ms Delaney-Wilson identify the drug-taker or to rubbish her entire endeavours. But - sensibly, in retrospect - she had taken a well-deserved and long-planned trip to New Zealand so the controversy swirled aimlessly around studios and newspaper columns.
A month is always a long time in politics, though, and with so many cocaine-associated tragedies unfolding all over Ireland, it must surely be apparent to all who saw the programme that its author's narrative, the "scientific" opinions and the overall thrust were all too authentic.
In my view there must be politicians and pilots consuming cocaine in this country but their identity is of no importance to the public discourse. Conversely, as one of the "frontline" contributors to the programme on our burgeoning cocaine epidemic, I am dismayed that this pioneering and long-overdue piece of public service broadcasting was hijacked for reasons (perhaps political, perhaps professional envy) that have merely delayed and distracted from the soul-searching and urgent debate that this nation - politicians and pundits included - must begin. The televised simulation of professionals taking cocaine was feeble, but the truth of cocaine consumption in this country would still seem to be too hard for some to handle. - Yours, etc,
Dr CHRIS LUKE, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Cork University Hospital.