Sir, – Fintan O’Toole (“Official reports are disappearing down the Irish ’memory hole’.” June 17th) identifies a problem that extends far beyond Irish government reports.
The phenomenon of “unpublishing” is rife globally. I have found a number of accounts of speeches that I have referred to in previous research across a wide range of topics hard to retrace ie they have completely disappeared from internet search engines, despite my having details of date etc.
This is especially the case when what was said no longer suits the current moment.
Thus, I can imagine that right now support for net zero and tackling the climate emergency is going to vanish from the online record of speeches by many public figures as long as Trump is in power.
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Public figures should of course be free to change their minds, but it is sad that they should be able to erase the record of their previous opinions so easily. – Yours, etc.
PROF ADRIAN GUELKE
Fitzwilliam Street,
Belfast.
