Madam, - The breadth of the widespread loss of State files revealed by the MacEntee commission is staggering. Government ministers, many of their senior civil service officials and members of State security have presided for many decades over a system of record-keeping that has denied justice to untold numbers of Irish citizens, including the victims of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
The media have swallowed the Government line that such things could not happen now. The truth is that there remains an in-built bias towards protecting State institutions, or "vindicating the Constitution", as Minister for Justice Michael McDowell recently put it, at the expense of individuals who have suffered injustices. And those wrongs are compounded by the actions of those who usurp the integrity of the justice system through the destruction of State files and records.
The people who have carried out these acts of destruction are nothing less than traitors and have done the state no service. This legacy will live with us for many decades still to come. - Yours, etc,
FINIAN FALLON, Newmarket Square, Wards Hill, Dublin 8.