Sir, - I feel it is grossly unfair and disingenuous to compare Mr Hugh O'Flaherty to Charlie Haughey, George Redmond et al as you did in your editorial (May 20th). The appalling corruption that is being exposed in various tribunals cannot be equated in any way with an error of judgement grounded in the type of "humanitarian interest" for which Justice O'Flaherty was well known.
The outright rape of our country that occurred throughout the 1970s and 1980s is a sweeping indictment of our political system and of a rotten core at the top of the political and economic hierarchy in this country. In the 1980s, while the vast proportion of our tax take was being spent to service the crippling debt incurred in the 1970s, the top dogs were sending their dodgy money overseas and creaming what they could off the top. While the PAYE sector tightened its belt, the political and economic oligarchy that ran this bankrupt side-show, threw a party.
Mr O'Flaherty paid the price for his minor involvement in the Sheedy case with his legal career and his position as a Supreme Court Justice. To compare his involvement, in what was a regrettable incident, to the arrogant, illegal and venal behaviour of one of the most shameful periods in Irish public life is not only unfair but is also a poor analysis on your part of the relative gravity of these unrelated situations.
There may well be more questions to be answered about the Sheedy affair but I reckon that people are much more interested in the unanswered questions surrounding the bribery, tax evasion, corruption and downright thievery that occurred here in the recent past and for which, so far, no-one has paid any price. - Yours, etc.,
Ed French, Bray, Co Wicklow.