Three cheers for the men who tell it straight

FERGUS Finlay (Irish Examiner, July 22) regaled us with a quizzical, witty, eloquent, precise dissection of some of the performances of the Tánaiste, her obsession with the ‘merits’ of competition, and some of the negative consequences of unleashing it on all and sundry, without regulation, restriction, or control.

Then Matt Dempsey, in the editorial page of the Irish Farmers' Journal, exposed some of the absurdities which follow when academia excludes commonsense, in this instance regarding the need for competition.

As he pointed out, it really is a bit rich to find one section of Ms Harney's department taking another section to court the only product of which is the further enrichment of the legal profession. And Stephen Cadogan of the Irish Examiner Farming section, with absolute clarity and no mercy, exposed the sham which has, with great determination, sought to discredit the CAP.