Madam, - Your Editorial "Arming the gardai" (April 23rd) says the Garda "enjoys a generally positive relationship with the community. . .Changing that formula. . .would be a great mistake".
You imply that arming the Garda would automatically degrade the force's relationship with the public. But this is not the experience in other small European countries, such as Denmark and Finland, which are consistently proven in surveys to have low crime rates. There, all on-duty police are armed, yet the rapport with the public is excellent.
Therefore I surmise that the preservation of the positive relationship between gardaí and the public has less to do with whether they bear firearms as part of their uniform - they are already armed to a limited extent anyway - and more to do with good training, expertise, public relations, and higher visibility in Ireland's neighbourhoods and on its thoroughfares. - Yours, etc.
NIALL O'DONOGHUE, Narva, Finland.