Sir, - Aine Ni Chonaill of the Immigration Control Platform (April 28th) should be very careful engaging in a political argument based solely on the name of her group. Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party, for example, is called the Liberal Democrats but no-one would equate an attack on his policies with an opposition to liberalism or democracy.
She ends her bizarre tirade with the obligatory attack on "political correctness", which she defines as "intellectual cowardice". This is truly strange. Surely Mr Paddy Mulcahy of the ASTI, whom she berates, is being taken to task for openly and publicly stating his principled opposition to her views. How is this cowardice? And if an abhorrence of racism is "political correctness" then I hope that Mr Mulcahy would be proud to be so accused.
It is, however, heartening to see that the only defence she can offer is a meaningless exercise in her own personal brand of semantics, as she knows her politics are indefensible. Ms Ni Chonaill should take note that her political enemies, of whom thankfully there are many, do not oppose immigration, control or platforms. They oppose the hideous, blinkered, racist agenda of her group, whatever she may call it. - Yours, etc., Ben Walsh,
Eustace Street, Dublin 2.