Madam, -I write in response to Ed Moloney's letter of July 12th about Tommie Gorman's alleged role in facilitating rapprochement between the DUP and Sinn Féin.
For the past 40 years the date of publication of Ed Moloney's letter was one on which we feared that reports of sectarian violence would dominate RTÉ's evening news and would continue to do so for days or weeks to follow.
That we no longer tune in on that date with such trepidation is due in great measure to the people who have worked courageously in the background to create the small pathways of trust that made negotiation possible.
It is entirely appropriate that a profession should have its codes of practice. It is also appropriate that these professional codes should be subject to, and where necessary secondary to, a greater sense of the human good.
What the public primarily requires of its journalists are objectivity and integrity. I have noticed no absence of these qualities in the work of Tommie Gorman. If, in addition, his journalistic work has given him a special insight into the dynamics of attrition, if he has had the compassion to acknowledge the deep hurt on both sides of the sectarian divide in the North, and if he has had the courage to address the fears which act as a springboard to violence, then, as a member of the Irish public, I would like to take this opportunity to offer him my most sincere thanks for his quiet work as a peacemaker. - Yours, etc,
MOYA CANNON,
Henry Street,
Galway.