Madam, - The ghost of CJ Haughey has been well kicked around in the media during the past two weeks, in a Mussolini/Ceaucescu-style outflowing of resentment and pent-up anger, particularly from the older generation of citizens who lived through the not-so-rare old times when he was pre-eminent.
The duty of the electorate now is to ensure that the evil that he did does not live after him (while whatever good he did is not interred with his bones).
His followers and close companions are still in power, which says something about their resilience, and absolutely nothing good about the Opposition parties, which appear to offer us no real alternative to a continuation of the "status quo".
Perhaps we need a proliferation of political independents and stronger small parties, to ensure that the arrogance of a large party will never again predominate in Irish political life. - Yours, etc,
JOHN McDERMOTT, Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria, Spain.
Madam, -- Noel Whelan's column of December 23rd quotes "Haughey loyalists" as speaking "in tones of disbelief and even hurt" about tribunal evidence on the behaviour of Charles Haughey when holding high public office.
In August 1982 Charles Haughey was Taoiseach and was appealing for a wage agreement to be set aside "in the national interest". A letter from me, published by the editor of a national newspaper, questioned his commitment to "the national interest".
Among other things, my letter accused Mr Haughey of "spending taxpayer's money like it was going out of fashion" in order to win a previous election. It also included the following paragraph:
"Mr Haughey is a very successful man. He holds the highest political office in the land. He has great influence in the media. By all accounts he is [ also] a wealthy man. All his personal success has [ however] more to do with self-interest than with the national interest."
Nearly a quarter-of-a-century later, after the expenditure of many millions of euro in taxpayers' money, a tribunal of inquiry reaches a similar conclusion. If an ordinary yob like me, who has no connection with any political group, could come to that conclusion in 1982 there is no excuse for people who were closer to the action.
For people, from the present Taoiseach down, who were Mr Haughey's supporters through thick and thin throughout his public life to claim they did not know what was going on is derisory.
Noel Whelan's attempt to excuse Charles Haughey's supporters of blame because they did not know is, therefore, indefensible.
Politicians and political party activists are not unintelligent. They consequently do not qualify for a fool's pardon.
We have had a re-run of this on a smaller scale recently when questions were raised about payments by private individuals to the present Taoiseach. The current state of that particular argument is that the only people in trouble are the individual or individuals who are supposed to have leaked the information and the journalist and editor who published it.
Obviously we have learned nothing. - Yours, etc,
A. LEAVY, Shielmartin Drive, Sutton, Dublin 13.
Madam, - I write to protest at the Taoiseach's recent assertion that the signing of blank cheques was "a practice that everybody did in the country" as a means of, in some way, exonerating himself for doing the same as a trustee of Fianna Fáil to accommodate Charles Haughey.
While occasionally blank cheques may have been used, then as now, within families for emergency situations, it is wrong for Mr Ahern to suggest that the signing of blank cheques was a regular and acceptable modus operandi for trustees.
Furthermore, given that he admits signing these cheques, his failure subsequently to ensure that the funds under his trust were properly deployed renders his behaviour and judgment as a trustee even more unacceptable.
Mr Ahern's assertion compromises the reputation of a generation of Irish people by suggesting that his own low standards of trustee stewardship were the norm and therefore somehow acceptable. This suggestion is without foundation. I am disappointed that the current leadership of professional and other bodies do not yet appear to have publicly rejected this broadbrush slight by the Taoiseach on the reputation of their members, past and present.
Mr Ahern should not be allowed to get away with his throwaway assertion, because it is untrue and because it does an unwarranted disservice to all those people who have shown, and continue to show, proper care and responsibility in their trustee roles at local and national level, often on a voluntary basis, for clubs, charities, pension funds, political parties and businesses. - Yours, etc,
JOHN B. DILLON, Eglinton Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.
Madam, - Now that the Moriarty report has been published, it is time for a suitable epitaph for Charles Haughey.
The following would seem appropriate: "I have done the State. Some service. And they know it." - Yours, etc,
P. O'REILLY, Sonesta, Malahide, Co Dublin.
Madam, - I note that Mr Dermot Desmond is concerned about the cost to taxpayers of the Moriarty tribunal ( The Irish Times, December 21st). Such sentiments are rich indeed coming from a billionaire tax exile. - Yours, etc,
MD KENNEDY, Milltown, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Vincent Browne writes that "people" are now able to "pilfer" the equivalent of Charlie Haughey's ill-gotten gains in a single year due to some mysterious operation of a "dysfunctional property market" (Opinion, December 27th). Who are these people? Can he name them? - Yours, etc,
ULTAN Ó BROIN, South Circular Road, Dublin 8.