Sir, - It is hardly surprising that 55 per cent of those polled by MRBI support the idea that nationalists should join a barely reformed RUC. The media treatment of the policing issue has been such as to leave public opinion in the Republic seriously under-informed about this issue.
In the worst case, the reluctance of nationalists to accept a barely reformed RUC could well lead to a situation where they, like rejectionist unionists, come to prefer continuing direct rule to a devolved state with a unionist police force.
In such a case, media adherence to the NIO line on the implementation of the Patten report would have helped destroy the support for the Good Friday Agreement, and to subvert the will of the majority of the people of Ireland expressed therein. - Yours, etc.,
Frank Fitzpatrick, St Kevin's Parade, Dublin 8.