Madam, - It is too easy to see the defeat of Spain's ruling Partido Popular as the direct result of Thursday's horrific bombings in Madrid. Such a perspective simply plays into the hands of the terrorists who carried out the atrocity.
A more considered view would suggest that the defeat of Aznar's party is the culmination of a nation's frustration at a government which adopted an uncompromising, unilateral view of many issues, including the war in Iraq - which an estimated 90 per cent of Spaniards opposed - and the ecological disaster of the Prestige, which Aznar first tried to off-load on Portugal and then blame on Britain.
Aznar's persistence in blaming Eta for the Madrid massacre before conclusive proof was available simply confirmed what many Spaniards already felt: that his was an administration too keen to manipulate the media and even capitalise on tragic events for political gain.
Rather than showing that terrorists have massively swayed public opinion in a "fledgling democracy", as Spain is often called, these elections demonstrate the mature response of an electorate wedded to the idea of free speech and democratic debate. - Yours, etc.,
ALISON RIBEIRO DE MENEZES, Taney Crescent, Dublin 14.
Madam, - As Spain prepares to bury its dead, the people of Ireland will join wholeheartedly with the rest of the civilised world in condemning last week's savage attack on Madrid.
Once more the people of Ireland will be vociferous in their condemnation of international terrorism. But once more a large percentage of the people of Ireland will show their support for international terrorism by their ambivalence towards our own terrorist organisation, the IRA.
When will we begin to realise that the IRA is just one poisonous cell in the cancerous body of international terrorism? - Yours, etc.,
P. CHAMBERS, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - My heart goes out to the innocent civilian victims of the appalling atrocity committed by al-Qaeda terrorists in Madrid. The Spanish people did nothing to deserve this carnage.
My heart also goes out to the innocent civilian victims of the appalling atrocities committed by the US military and their allies in Baghdad. The Iraqi people did nothing to deserve that carnage either.
George Bush and Tony Blair claim they are fighting a war against terror to protect our way of life. In order to do this, they are actually destroying our way of life. They are undermining our civil liberties, our human rights, deploying armed guards on planes and commuter trains and turning Western democracies slowly but surely into military fortresses, where the population lives in permanent fear of terror attacks.
They are fooling themselves. It is impossible to protect the whole civilian population of Europe and the US all the time against terrorism. There are simply no security measures which will guarantee our safety.
The answer seems blatantly obvious: if these governments sincerely want to protect us, they should change their foreign policies and stop bombing and occupying other countries.
I do not want to pay with my life for the imperial designs of Messrs Bush and Blair. - Yours, etc.,
PETRA SCHURENHOFER, Terenure, Dublin 6w.
Madam, - The proponents of the war against Iraq argued that the world would be a safer place if Saddam Hussein was removed. Perhaps now they would like to expand a little on that theory. - Yours, etc.,
ALAN McPARTLAND, Grange Court, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.