Madam, - It is secularisation and the marginalising of religion that is responsible for the culture of greed and criminality afflicting Irish society, as Archbishop Brady would have us believe (The Irish Times, December 18th). Rather, it is the political and business elite who have legitimised "grab what you can" ethics and to hell with the people. The Church itself was not averse to looking after number one when it came to revelations of child abuse.
Criminals reason that if Fianna Fáil leaders can get away with it, then so can they. It is a crisis of the purpose of the State - the same crisis of the lack of ideals that has afflicted it ever since the influence of the last revolutionary generation died out to be replaced by "cute hoors". There is no sense of the purpose of the State, no shared social vision of what constitutes the good life except money and lots of it. What are these armed robberies and drugs wars but the logical consequence of the Ansbacher scandal and all the rest of it being played out now on the streets.
The only people who can remedy matters by repudiating the gangsters and committing society to change are ourselves alone. - Yours, etc,
JOE MURPHY (Former secretary of the Campaign for the Birmingham Six), Macclesfield, Cheshire, England.