Sir, - I believe the Government's decision to terminate discussions with Sinn Fein until they renounce violence, is deeply flawed from a strategic point of view. The appalling scenes of last Friday night in London have distressed and horrified all right thinking people and we are, as so often in the past 27 years totally at a loss to understand the mentality of those who perpetrate such acts.
Gerry Adams understands what motivates such people, and had sufficient influence with them to persuade the hawks within the organisation to call a ceasefire on August 31st, 1994. Adams and the element within Sinn Fein, whom I believe to have personally renounced violence, are in fact the only hope we all have of influencing the kind of people who see violence as the only method which is, productive
To insist on Adams condemning Friday's bomb, or to renounce violence publicly, is to eliminate the only method of influencing the IRA. And what would be gained? Adams and his supporters within Sinn Fein would merely add a small percentage to the millions who can look forward to spending the next quarter of a century baying self righteously while we all wring our hands in impotent rage as atrocity follows atrocity in London, Belfast or Dublin. Yours, etc., Richmond Court, Dartry, Dublin 6.