Sir, - Patrick Ussher (September 26th) asks what education Adi Roche received and how well she did. I cannot answer this, but I would assume Philip W. Walton, Professor of Applied Physics in NUI Galway, to be a well educated person. What Professor Walton's letter proves is that education is a poor thing when it is not matched by qualities of the heart. Even if "the only observable effects of Chernobyl were an increase in childhood thyroid cancer and many psychological problems due to fear and to the major social disruption involved" (Professor Walton's words, my italics), I would still be glad that Adi Roche rather than Prof Walton answered the Chernobyl victims' appeal for help.
For every child that Adi Roche helps there is a whole family somewhere in Belarus who know that they are not just a forgotten casualty of applied physics. - Yours, etc.,
Ailesbury Grove, Dublin 16.