Sir, - Now that the Flood tribunal has at last extracted disclosure of the extent of the corruption in the planning process, is it not time to force the guilty parties to come out into the open by offering them a choice between lesser penalties if they come forward voluntarily and confess all, or much harsher penalties if they oblige the tribunal to extract the truth at further costs in time and legal fees?
Certainly there should be no amnesty, but a choice between appropriate fines and public confession as against confiscation of assets plus mandatory prison sentences should do the trick, and save the compliant taxpayer from further fleecing. - Yours, etc.,
Richard Reid, Rathgar Avenue, Dublin 6.