Sir, - "If all the gardai at Abbeylara had been unarmed, John Carthy would be alive today - and very likely, at least one garda would have received another Scott Medal, posthumously, of course." So writes Michael Dolan (May 19th) in response to my letter of May 17th.
Yet, over all the years since the formation of the force, the detention by compassionate gardai of armed mental patients had not resulted in a single instance of death or serious injury to either patient or garda.
Vigilance is the price of the freedom we enjoy. Our way of life is threatened every time it is even suggested that there are shortcuts in crime control. We must be our guard and, in whatever way is open to us, use our influence to ensure that we do not lose by default a core value in the philosophy underpinning not only the Garda Siochana as we have known it, but the ethos of the State itself. - Yours, etc.,
Gregory Allen, Upper Kilmacud Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin.