Madam, - Sinn Féin/IRA may be correct about there being a corruption of due process in Hugh Orde's statement about the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast. But the movement's leaders would do well to consider a few counter-perspectives.
Legislation enacted post-Omagh allows convictions in court to be made on the basis of the assertion by a superintendent or the Northern equivalent that a person is engaged in subversive activity, so we have already elevated the judgment and trust we place in police forces.
The second point is that opinion in both States - excepting Sinn Féin/IRA - is at one in being persuaded by Mr Orde's assertion. If evidence comes in due course, even the civil liberties brigade will have to pipe down. The consensus is almost unprecedented, and includes all of the members of the policing board, the British establishment parties, the British government, the entire Irish Government and Opposition (bar Sinn Féin/IRA).
The final point is that Sinn Féin/IRA is merely reaping the fruit of the crop of lies it has sown. The peace process is important, but it is not more important than the integrity of the oldest and third oldest uninterrupted democracies in the world. The UK and Ireland, their security and their people come first - the rights of tainted parties with loose connections to constitutionalism a very definite second.
The Rubicon has been crossed on this occasion and we are now faced with two choices: allowing SF to maintain a dictatorship of endless demands from the process or enforcing through multilateralism the essential condition of eliminating all parallel activities prior to any re-engagement. That hardly constitutes a pound of flesh. - Yours, etc.,
ROSS McCARTHY, Castle Avenue, Dublin 3.
A Chara, - Before Christmas the DUP, backed by the British and Irish governments, was insisting on not only the eyewitness evidence of John de Chastelain plus two clerical observers, but photographic evidence as incontrovertible proof of IRA decommissioning.
Now, however, these same parties are very keen to blame the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery, thus undermining the Good Friday Agreement, without any evidence whatsoever.
Why the dramatic difference in standards? - Is mise,
Dr SEÁN MARLOW, Willow Park Road, Dublin 11.
Madam, - In his questions to the Secretary of State in the House of Commons on January 11th, John Hume was notably sceptical about the statement from the Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, blaming the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery.
The next day, the SDLP press office issued a statement in Mr Hume's name with the headline "Hume agrees with Ahern on the Northern Ireland Bank robbery" and noting that it was not just the Chief Constable who was blaming the IRA.
Are we to take it from the SDLP that the word of the Taoiseach is fine, but that the word of the Chief Constable is not? Where does this leave the SDLP's support for the new policing arrangements?
Is Mr Hume, the statesman, out of touch with the rest of his party? Is this a case of the SDLP still standing for "Still Don't Like Policing"? - Yours, etc.,
S.J. ALEXANDER, Alliance Party, Belfast.
Madam, - If the IRA is responsible for the Belfast robbery then it should be brought to book for its actions. However, I am surprised that Hugh Orde should rush to allocate blame without producing a scrap of evidence that would put the IRA in the dock.
Not surprisingly, the political establishment and the media here in the Republic have endorsed, without any critical analysis, the Chief Constable's view.
I am more than a little surprised, Madam, at the tone of your rather judgmental Editorial of January 8th. Surely 100,000 dead Iraqis must suggest to you that intelligence agencies do not always tell the truth. I am sure Mr Orde is truthful and impartial but the same cannot be said of the British security services in general.
Since the robbery took place the DUP has been putting pressure on Mr Orde to say the IRA was responsible, an action that hardly enhances the DUP's democratic credentials. Mr Orde has now made that statement. It seems everyone is happy with the statement except Sinn Féin. (If the IRA was clever enough to carry out the robbery, surely it must have realised that the party most hurt by its actions would be Sinn Féin.
No, something is not right. Mr Orde will have to do better to convince the ordinary man in the street with no political axe to grind. - Yours, etc.,
PATRICK DOYLE, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.