Sir, Your correspondent Garret FitzGerald's self laudatory account (December 30th) of the dramatic, if not miraculous, change he brought about in Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's allegedly cynical attitude to Ireland's membership of the European Community, at their very first meeting in 1973, would reflect rather badly on Helmut Schmidt if it were accurate.
I was not, of course, present on that particular occasion, but I did have the privilege of meeting the former German Chancellor on numerous occasions subsequently, mostly in the company of former Taoiseach Jack Lynch at meetings of the European Council. I can say, without qualification, that Helmut Schmidt was the driving force behind the policy of convergence in the European Community, because of his own personal conviction and his statesmanship. He did indeed have a very positive disposition to Ireland's membership, but are we really expected to believe that this resulted from one masterly presentation to him from Garret FitzGerald?
Garret FitzGerald is on more solid ground when he talks about the importance of German goodwill to Ireland. On almost every occasion on which I was present, at informal discussions between Helmut Schmidt and Jack Lynch in the 1977/79 period, he inquired very warmly for former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, and he clearly had the same man to man feeling for Jack Lynch. This was evident from the special package of loans and grants he agreed for Ireland at the launch of the EMS in 1979 a package severely criticised as inadequate at the time by Garret FitzGerald. Res ipsa loquitur. Yours, etc., Seanad Eireann, Dublin 2.