Sir, - Now that the Good Friday Agreement seems to be running into the sand let us hope that our politicians finally learn one of history's most difficult lessons: that ideological conflicts cannot be resolved by political agreement.
This should of course have been obvious from the beginning, but we can hardly blame the Agreement's authors for being overwhelmed by the surging tide of progress and change that seemed to be flowing at the time of it's creation.
The way forward now is to examine the mistakes that were made and to use this knowledge to root out the origins of the mistrust that were always going to cause the Agreement's demise. One possible approach to this goal would be to replace Northern Ireland's numerous symbols of division with new and imaginative symbols of unity, such as replacing Union Jacks and Tricolours on public buildings with a new Flag of Northern Ireland.
The province's problems are of course much more complex than symbolism alone can provide for, but symbolism itself is an intrinsic part of developing genuine trust. This is something politicians have to recognise before locking communities into vague and unworkable agreements that achieve nothing more than political capital for those involved.
If they can, the death of the Good Friday Agreement may well be a blessing in disguise, for no other reason than it would focus complete attention on the whole question of trust and its creation. This is the key to Northern Ireland's future. Political agreement will follow as a matter of course. - Yours etc., Garreth McDaid,
Sandyford Hall View, Dublin 18.