Madam, - I am dispirited that some recent events have left Sinn Féin and the IRA undeservedly smelling of roses.
I am dispirited that a very able Minister for Justice, frustrated by legal restrictions, felt inappropriately compelled to adopt questionable methods to reveal what he felt needed to be brought into the public domain.
I am dispirited that the Centre for Public Inquiry, a watchdog investigative body set up in a spirit of maintaining high standards in the public arena, seems itself to have standards that raise many questions that need to be answered.
I disagree with Eddie Holt that this situation divides opinion between left and right. I have always considered myself left of centre and cannot see that Sinn Féin truly represents the left. To me it represents sectarianism, narrow nationalism, exclusivity rather than inclusivity and is far as you can get from the plural inclusivity of Wolfe Tone's republicanism, which unfortunately no party seems to represent on this island.
For an economically thriving Western European democracy, our present political machinations seem to be of a Third World variety. No wonder I and many others feel so dispirited. - Yours, etc,
CYNTHIA CARROLL,
Newport,
Co Tipperary.