GERALD MURPHY,
Sir, - There is segregated education in the North and young children there are prone to use sectarian comments; these are two incontrovertible facts, but are they related?
There is segregated education in the Republic also, but we have as yet no report into the sectarian utterances of our six-year-olds. If it turns out that our children do not make such remarks - or at least not to anything like the same extent - could it be that the North's problem in this area is due to something else? - Yours, etc.,
GERALD MURPHY,
Marley Avenue,
Dublin 16.
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Sir, - In her column on segregated education in Northern Ireland (Opinion, June 27th), Mary Holland omits to tell us if she is advocating a policy of forced mandatory integration of all schools, perhaps against the wishes of some parents, as the answer to the sectarianism which is endemic in the North.
To lay the blame for bigoted and sectarian behaviour on the current policy of parental school choice and educational pluralism is naïve. To pursue a policy of forced integration in schools, one would have to pursue a policy of forced integration of housing at the same time.
As this island moves towards a multicultural and multiracial society, surely difference should be tolerated and respected and hopefully the scenes which we witnessed at the Holy Cross girls' school in Ardoyne will never be repeated. - Yours, etc.,
TOM COOPER,
Delaford Lawn,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.