Sir, - I wasn't very impressed about the Stormont deal when I heard that the cross-Border bodies are to be put on the long finger and that policing and prison reform is being left to yet another British-appointed commission; but reading the proposed amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of our Constitution, I am appalled. I can hardly believe that Fianna Fail, a party that still calls itself republican, can propose such a change.
The claim to the national territory in Article 2 is being abandoned and replaced by an anodyne statement that everyone born in Ireland is entitled to Irish citizenship. Well, I was born in Birmingham, and yet I'm entitled to Irish citizenship. Is Bertie Ahern telling us that Tyrone is as Irish as Birmingham - or as British?
No other state in the world is incapable of proclaiming what its national territory is, so why should we be? And why should we now accept the legitimacy of partition and Britain's claim to the North when the Act of Union and the Northern Ireland Constitution Act remain unrepealed?
I urge your readers to reject this amendment when they get a chance to vote. - Yours, etc., Catherine Roche,
Raheen Park,
Ballyfermot,
Dublin 10.