A chara, - Sile de Valera's speech in Boston was a first-rate piece of political leadership, an oasis of challenging political thought and leadership in a desert of subservience on the subject of Europe and Ireland. Now we have a serious debate.
To date, genuine questioning of specific EU policies has been shouted down by the pro-EU faction and drowned in shrill anti-EU rhetoric by the anti-EU faction. The rest of us have now found a middle-of-the-road voice.
While I favour enlargement to include the genuine democracies of Eastern Europe, I oppose ever deepening integration towards a United States model. I am a believer in a "Europe of the Nations" which is genuinely nation and community-centred, not Commission-centred.
Full marks to Ms de Valera for giving us a real debate in which I can differ with her on some aspects of enlargement, flatly oppose Mary Harney's rejection of the European social democracy model, and support both in their questioning of excessive EU integration and directives. - Yours, etc.,
Pat Kelly, Deerpark, Cork.