We need to know what politicians get up to

TOM CAREW (Letters, September 24) may well be right when he says the Taoiseach is “one decent, honourable, incredibly hard-working public servant”.

There are, however, thousands of others and nobody is writing to the newspapers about them. Anyway, that is what they are all paid to do.

But Mr Carew is wrong on both counts when he says the Taoiseach has “as little right to ask about or know such details of my life as I have to ask or know about his”.

As head of government, the Taoiseach has the right to use the security apparatus of the State to enquire into the details of anybody’s life if the security people think it is necessary.

And by the same token, ordinary people have a right to question the actions of any politician who is elected to exercise power on behalf of all of us.

That may, as Mr Carew says, “render political service even more repugnant to capable and honourable people who otherwise might think of entering it”. But it is the price we have to pay if we are to maintain our hard-won democratic freedoms.

Anthony Leavy

Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13