A Chara, - Vincent Browne's views on the purchase of Farmleigh (Opinion, June 23rd) were both provocative and persuasive. Expending such effort on the purchase of a mansion, while having no obvious inclination to help in any meaningful way the growing number of people who live on our cities' streets, is, unfortunately, to be expected. After all, here is a Government whose Taoiseach shields himself from all allegations of culpability in political scandal with protestations of his own ignorance and lack of foresight.
I wish, however, to take issue with Mr Browne's side-swipe at the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, in which he says: "Isn't the very existence of that Department silly enough?" While many of those sympathetic to Browne's major thesis will doubtless see this comment as compatible with it, I do not.
The socialist tradition, with which I am proud to associate myself, has a motto saying, "We fight for bread, and roses too." This encapsulates the essence of a belief that every individual has a right not only to food, clothing and shelter, but also to participate fully in the many cultural aspects of society.
One area of which I have particular experience is community radio. Since the first licences for such stations were issued in 1995, literally thousands of people have presented and produced programmes on a limitless range of topics, with many thousands more having their lives enriched through listening.
As someone who is active himself in the public space on radio and in the press, Mr Browne will, I am sure, appreciate the importance of broadening that space through increasing both the numbers participating and the depth of that participation. It is this role that I see the Department (under whose auspices the IRTC operates) filling. There is a very real danger that the arts might become the preserve of a monied elite, or even the monied majority. There are numerous examples of how, through State aid and the actions of the Department, this danger has been averted. - Is mise, Andrew O'Baoill,
Liberty Court, Clanbrassil Street, Dublin 8.