Sir, - I was present at a forum last week in Liberty Hall as part of International Women's Day. The main presenters were four women from the Garvaghy Road. The audience of men and women were horrified to hear ordinary women talking about the kind of daily outrages that are inflicted on their small community. But more disturbing was the realisation that they feel totally abandoned by the people of the South.
They were visited in December by Eamonn O Cuiv, David Andrews and Mary Harney, who wished them a Happy Christmas. Nobody from our Government has been near them since. And the only references we see in the papers is minor coverage of yet another march. To be fair to the people down here, I believe they are being kept in ignorance of the scale of this officially tolerated abuse.
Apart from Sinn Fein's Councillor Christy Burke and Coimhghin O Caolain's secretary, there were no elected representatives nor a single newspaper reporter or television camera there. That alone tells the story.
It seems that political parties only understand the sound of marching feet or Xs on ballot papers and that justice as a right has very little tender. In light of the upcoming local and European elections, it is time to press our Government to act now for implementation of the equality agenda on behalf of the Garvaghy Road residents. - Yours, etc., Geraldine Cusack,
Hanover Square, Patrick Street, Dublin 8.