Sir, - Ruth Dudley Edwards's article (June 11th) relating to the establishment of the proposed police commission in the North was unnecessarily extreme, ill-founded and contradictory.
Firstly, Ms. Dudley Edwards condemns Mo Mowlam for accepting a phone call from Rita O'Hare regarding the composition of the commission. The grounds for this objection are that Ms. O'Hare is "wanted for attempted murder". I assume, then, that for the moment her status is "innocent". If Mo Mowlam had refused to accept phone calls or carry out her responsibilities in Northern Ireland with all those who were possibly involved in a criminal offence, she would have passed a very unproductive period there. However, Ms. Dudley Edwards cites this as evidence that the Irish Government (who originally received the call) are prepared to have their Northern policy "dictated by Gerry Adams", despite abundant evidence framed in the Belfast Agreement to the contrary.
She further alleges that the Republic of Ireland's government allows itself to be "intimidated by a gang of republican bullies" whose only interest is in exercising a "dictatorship" of their people, keeping them "insular and ignorant". The British Government apparently stands helplessly by, crippled by their "educational and cultural largesse". I think that anyone who has examined the structural origins of the ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland will find this analysis of Britain's involvement a little far-fetched: "largesse" is certainly not the adjective that comes to mind.
Finally, she refers to her fear and that of the "second-class Protestant citizens" of Derry as this bunch of republican "thugs" who are caught in a "time warp". I think that the level of compromise evidenced by all the parties that participated in the recent settlement talks, at great personal risk, has been sufficient to convince most individuals and commentators that the unionism and nationalism of old has finally gone. Though republicans may be slower on the whole to do so than nationalists, they have substantially compromised their initial aspirations. Ms. Dudley Edwards might practice some of the "cultural largesse" which she attributes to the British Government and make similar efforts to extricate herself from her own tiresome time warp. - Yours etc., Cliona Hannon,
Pembroke Road, Dublin 4.