Honours system fit for a republic

YOUR mild rebuke (Editorial, March 6) of the Irish State for its failure in not having an honours system in place whereby we could officially acknowledge the contribution made to it by those deemed as worthy recipients is unwarranted.

You cite the US and France as examples of how a republic can have an honours system, and I agree there is merit in your suggestion.

The system in the US — known as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which your editorial favours — has its merits, but before any scheme is introduced in Ireland, a political honours scrutiny committee, made up of a cross-section of society and expressly excluding politicians, as you intimated in your editorial, must first be put in place as the temptation to abuse such a system might prove too great to be resisted.