Madam, - Vincent Browne (Opinion, January 19th) asserts that "Gerry Adams and Co have condemned the robbery and they have in the past gone to the ends of the earth, semantically, to avoid condemning other and far more outrageous actions".
That assertion is incorrect.
Following the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare in 1996, Gerry Adams stated: "The killing of Garda McCabe was totally and absolutely wrong. We accept the IRA statement that it was not involved."
Later, but only after the Garda had already caught some of the killers, the Provisionals' position changed. Now Gerry Adams campaigns to have those killers released - the same killers whose actions he previously denounced as "totally and absolutely wrong".
So Vincent Browne is factually wrong to assert that we haven't heard strongly worded Sinn Féin condemnations of IRA operations before.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. - Yours, etc.,
Senator JOHN MINIHAN, Seanad Éireann, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Once again it is left to Fintan O'Toole (Opinion, January 19th) to pen the truth about Sinn Féin's gross hypocrisy. His analysis of Monday's Questions and Answers programme was precise and insightful.
As a result of able and unflinching questions from the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, Mitchell McLoughlin of Sinn Féin admitted he and his party do not believe the murder of Jean McConville was a crime. This admission is as astonishing as it is abhorrent.
Yet why has it taken so long for Sinn Féin to be exposed? Why haven't journalists (with the exception of Fintan O'Toole and Kevin Myers) held Sinn Féin up to this kind of scrutiny? For too long the media have cowered and toed the Sinn Féin line. Perhaps now they will be emboldened by the Minister's interrogation of Sinn Féin policy and follow his example. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN KENNY, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Gerry Adams denies any IRA involvement in the recent Northern Bank robbery. Would that be the Real IRA, the Official IRA, the Provisional IRA, the Old IRA, Sinn Féin/IRA, or the plain ordinary IRA? - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY BURKE, Hazelbury Park, Dublin 15.
Madam, - As a mere Seán Citizen, I haven't the faintest idea whether the IRA carried out the famous bank raid or not. But I am completely baffled by Mr Ian Paisley Jnr's statement that "it is up to the IRA to prove they did not do it". Just how could they do that? - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL WEEDLE, Firmount, Clane, Co Kildare.
Madam, - So they bombed, maimed, extorted, kidnapped and murdered when it suited their purposes - but telling lies would be a step too far? - Yours, etc.,
CHRIS DEVINE, Ratoath, Co Meath.
Madam, - I have just listened to Gerry Adams speaking on RTÉ's one o'clock news. Apparently, the Taoiseach's assertion that IRA/Sinn Féin was involved in the Northern Bank robbery is "deeply insulting" to his organisation. I assume Mr Adams is equally deeply insulted at Mitchel McLaughlin's statement that Jean McConville's murder was not a crime. God give me patience. - Yours, etc.,
NICK O' CONNOR, Ballycrane, Castlebridge, Wexford.
Madam, - Last year British and Irish intelligence services were proven to be at worst liars and at best incompetent when they asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The media were widely ridiculed for their uncritical acceptance of these assertions. Now we are told with absolute certainty that the IRA carried out the recent Northern Bank raid.
Are the media going to look foolish and gullible again? - Yours, etc.,
PHELIM MURNION, Pairc Thiar, An Spideal, Gaillimh.
Madam, - Congratulations to John Waters on his perceptive and incisive column of January 17th. He is right to query Michael McDowell's assertion that the Provos are "classical Marxists". Not for the first time, the Minister's scattergun approach to those with whom he disagrees has targeted the innocent with the guilty.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"; the "dictatorship of the proletariat"; "workers of the world unite" - hardly the stuff of which the Provos, in either their military or parliamentary forms, are made.
The Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin are right-wing, ultra-nationalist organisations who dress themselves, literally and metaphorically, to suit occasions. To label them Marxist is to cast a shadow on Marx and his powerful ideology. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN MacKENNA, Prusselstown, Athy, Co Kildare.