Sir, – I hope that Paddy Woodworth’s article (Weekend Review, August 27th) on this vital issue has been read and taken to heart by someone in the bowels of Pat Rabbitte’s department and by would-be investigative journalists with regard to the exploration licences granted by the Fianna Fáil government (when “double jobbing” after the Greens belatedly left office). I refer specifically to the shale gas exploration likely to “pose a threat not just to economic life as we know it but to the survival of our species” here in the Lough Allen basin! – Yours, etc,