Sir, - It is entirely appropriate that the Tanaiste attended the memorial service for the Omagh murder victims at Colegio del Recuerdo de La Nuestra Senora in Madrid, the school attended by 12-year-old Fernando Blasco Baselga. It was, in fact, from this school that the very first group of Spanish students came to Dublin in the early 1950s, thus commencing a new age in Spanish/Irish relations that has endured to this day. It would be impossible to put a figure on the number of Spanish students who followed in the footsteps of that first group from Pinar de Chamartin (the Madrid district in which this distinguished school is situated), but it must run into many hundreds of thousands. Somehow this fact adds to the dimension of grief, poignancy and, yes, profound anger that surrounds this barbaric act.
I believe that the most fitting memorial to Fernando and his teacher, Rocio Abad Ramos, would be for the Department of Education to institute a scholarship dedicated to preserving and strengthening Spanish-Irish relations. Such a step would also be a tribute to all the Fernandos and Rocios who chose Ireland above all other countries to learn their English. I trust the Minister will give consideration to this proposal. - Yours, etc., Derek Langan,
Neal Street,
Covent Garden,
London WC2.