Sir, - We should all be grateful to the Garda for having investigated and charged Cllr John Flannery under the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, and to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for having taken its case against him to Galway District Court pursuant to the comment he made about Travellers at a Western Health Board meeting last May. They have done their part, and it is now up to us to do ours.
Like Ulysses S. Grant, "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." The repeal of this particular dangerous law will not be automatic. Having, however, been treated to the spectacle of a public representative being prosecuted for commenting on a matter before a public body, we can no longer ignore the pernicious influence of the Incitement to Hatred Act. It is now up to each of us to petition our representatives in the Dail to treat the repeal of this law as a matter of urgency and importance. - Yours, etc., William Hunt,
Harold's Cross, Dublin 6W.