Sir, - Mr Bertie Ahern proudly proclaims that his party "would relentlessly pursue the crime agenda" and that it has put forward 10 Bills on the subject in the last 18 months. This typical bluster and sudden show of animation by Fianna Fail is no doubt designed to cover the nudity of its want of action during the previous seven years in which it was in government.
It should realise that speech is the small change of silence. To seek it to obtain a species of moral usury, and make a profit out of recent tragedies, is reprehensible.
The nefarious tax amnesty introduced by Fianna Fail was utilised by some of the most notorious criminals and drug barons to launder and legitimise their ill gotten gains. Fianna Fail's hypocritical bleating about the need for laws to freeze assets of criminals is all the more nauseating, given that any such laws would be effectively neutered by the guarantee of immunity from prosecution contained in the Fianna Fail tax amnesty legislation. - Yours, etc.,
Mount Anville Road,
Dublin 14.