Confronting our past - Our response will tell us who we are

WE have been reminded more vividly than is comfortable of the great wrongs, the great hatreds festering in our past over recent days and weeks.

The crushing Ryan report has forced horrors that were ignored for far too long into our lives in a way that would have been far more appropriate decades ago.

Yesterday’s sentencing of former Government press officer Frank Dunlop to two years in jail and a fine of €30,000 for bribing councillors to rezone land on behalf of developers or speculators points to another layer of immorality in our public affairs.