A Chara, - T Gerrard Bennett (October 18th) describes the protest by local residents in Mayo against the imposition of Shell's high-pressure gas pipeline as GUBU-like.
And he is right.
It is indeed grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented that members of an isolated Gaeltacht community are vilified for exercising their right to protect their families.
It is grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented for hundreds of gardaí to be shuffled round the country at the whim of a wealthy multinational.
And it is most certainly grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented for an Irish government to give away our natural resources without any financial benefit to the State, except for a pathetically small tax take. And meanwhile Irish citizens face a price rise of 34 per cent for Irish gas. - Is mise,
CHRIS Ó RÁLAIGH, Droim Chonrach, Baile Átha Cliath 9.
Madam, - On RTÉ radio on Monday the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, launched the most outrageous attack on the Shell to Sea protesters. According to Mr Dempsey, Ian Paisley, who has made a career of destroying every effort at compromise in the North, who has been the arch-advocate of anti-Catholic bigotry, who has been a source of inspiration for loyalist death squads, is more reasonable than the non-violent Mayo protesters.
Slanderous rants like that serve only to show how out of touch Dempsey and the rest of the Fianna Fáil leadership are with the ordinary people. - Is mise,
PHELIM MURNION, An Spidéal, Gaillimh.