Sir, – I had to look twice at Chris Stephen’s piece (World News, April 27th) on Charles Taylor’s recent conviction in the international war crimes court at the Hague.
In it, Mr Stephen quotes the cost of bringing Taylor to justice in 2006 and moving the entire Sierra Leone Court from Freetown to the Hague at $9 million. He continued “that this might be considered a high cost perhaps”.
I think if he asked any Irish citizen their views, they would express amazement at the relatively low costs, especially given our experience of bringing people before any of our recent three major tribunals, where current estimates range from €300 to €500 million.
Perhaps future Irish governments might consider outsourcing any proposed new investigations to the Hague administrators, where not only significant costs savings will be made but justice might also be found. – Yours, etc,