Sir, – If only Dr John Doherty (Letters, March 6th) was right and the British electorate had been truly aware of the economic damage inherent in Brexit then there would be a certain nobility in what he calls their "two-fingered salute" to the EU. Unfortunately the message of virtually the entire privately owned British news media and of the Brexiteer campaign itself was that Britain would not be damaged by leaving the EU and would actually thrive by leaving the Brussels bloc. Anything contrary to this , including the UK government's leaflets, was successfully dismissed as "Project Fear" and the British voters were told not to trust the bleating of "experts".
It is indeed the impossible attempt to limit the damage caused by this lie while also trying to honour the democratic process that has put us in the mess that we currently find ourselves. – Yours, etc,
JOHN COTTER,
Ferrybank,
Waterford.
Sir, – As an owner of a very small business nine miles from the Border, the area within which my business operates relies heavily on consumers from Northern Ireland and our capacity to cross the Border and conduct cross-Border transactions on a weekly basis.
My business has not been contacted by any Government department or State agency at any stage over the past two years to offer assistance or practical transactional advice as to how the pending no-deal Brexit might impact on the viability of my business, or indeed how I might act to mitigate this potentially negative impact. My mantra has, in desperation, been the inconclusive direction of the former US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld, advising awareness of known knowns, known unknowns, and, the most apposite for people like me, unknown unknowns. God help us! – Yours, etc,
CORMAC MEEHAN,
Bundoran,
Co Donegal.