Madam, - John Hume's intervention in the House of Commons, casting doubt on Hugh Orde's assessment that the Provisional IRA was the probable perpetrator of the Northern Bank robbery, came at a most unfortunate time for the SDLP leader, Mark Durkin.
Mr Durkin, to his eternal credit, has attempted to breathe new life into the SDLP and help it assert its identity vis à vis that of Sinn Féin. All too often in the past, particularly under the leadership of Mr Hume, the SDLP seemed to be promoting Sinn Féin's agenda to the detriment of democratic nationalists and republicans in Ireland.
Unfortunately, Mr Hume by his question in the House of Commons has helped to undermine, not just the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, but the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair. No wonder Eddie O'Grady, MP, who also spoke in the debate, was allegedly livid at Mr Hume's comments, for he is well aware that Provoism thrives on ambivalence and appeasement.
Nobody disputes the role that Mr Hume played in developing the peace process but is this not a time to support the leader of his own party rather than give succour and hope to a party which aims to destroy the SDLP? - Yours, etc.,
SEAN and ROISIN WHELAN, Ormond Keep, Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - Seamus Mallon interestingly once called the Belfast Agreement "Sunningdale for slow learners", which was amusing but not really accurate - and probably the agreement is not something about which we should be making jokes. It will leave many of us Northerners who are willing to compromise bereft if it is allowed to fall. Ian Paisley will be the main winner.
The inevitable return to a combination of destabilising political violence and unionist majority rule would leave the job undone. Sunningdale lacked that crucial consensus element that 1998 so inspiringly had - sharing power, not with those you agreed with but with those you disagreed with.
The agreement, an inspired new approach to the practice of democratic politics, was not dependent on the government-opposition type of system, which was never going to work in Northern Ireland. Consensus to be achieved by means of representation right across the community and the sharing of power across that same community were the essence of the new way.
When I personally was involved politically I fought tooth and nail for these principles, standing for the David Trimble Ulster Unionist approach against Paisleyite unionism. If the agreement is "adapted" to exclude a major political element, in this case Sinn Féin, then the experiment will have failed and we will, with our children, all suffer on this island. All-island co-operative politics within these islands can still work for us all. - Yours, etc.,
ANDREW DAVIDSON (former UUP Derry City Councillor), Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.