I PRESUME Roger Cottrell’s letter headlined “Let’s take the ‘but’ out of politics on both sides of the Border” (Irish Examiner, January 23) was an outburst of frustration at prevailing attitudes and not intended as a carefully reasoned argument.

ROGER COTTRELL’S letter (Irish Examiner, January 23) arguing that segregation needs to be taken out of Northern Ireland’s school system misses a fundamental point.

YET again Roger Cottrell expands upon the mote in the republican eye while minimising the beam in the adjacent loyalist one (Irish Examiner letters, January 12).

“A PLAGUE on both your houses.” So said Shakespeare’s Romeo of the Montagues and Capulets before he expired.

BRENDAN COFFEY praises Bertie Ahern for “understanding the difficulties” which nationalists in Northern Ireland have in trusting the PSNI (Irish Examiner letters, January 6).

REMARKS by Senator Mary O’Rourke that her campaign team “worked like blacks” (Irish Examiner, January 9) reveal how entrenched racist attitudes are in Fianna Fáil and the wider republican tradition to which it is aligned.

THE column by former Fianna Fáil adviser Noel Whelan (Irish Examiner, September 15) is typical of the arrogance of that party concerning unionists and loyalists and their total ignorance as regards the situation in Northern Ireland.

THE venality and depravity of the Green fascist scourge that is Sinn Féin/IRA knows no bounds.

PAT Cox was angered at Silvio Berlusconi’s use of words when he compared a German Social Democratic MEP in Strasbourg to a concentration camp guard.