Madam, - For the Minister of Justice to use the Sunday Independent's deserved humiliation as a stick with which to coax and bully public opinion in advance of a Dáil debate affecting press freedom smacks of the type of media manipulation he claims to abhor.
It would be far more appropriate for his Department to get on with consistent, full and frank engagement with the media rather than shooting from the hip in such an undignified fashion. And incidentally, isn't it time Mr McDowell subjected the legal profession to equal opprobrium?
If lawyers ran newspapers we would have to wait 20 years for the truth about that Moscow car crash to emerge. Newspaper readers can make their own decisions and migrate to another title. Grave editorial mistakes can result in loss of sales, and often dismissal, as in the case of Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror. - Yours, etc,
KEVIN O'NEILL, Coole, Co Westmeath.