Dear Editor,
It was with great sadness I read the intemperate attack by Niall Farrell of Galway Alliance Against War (GAAW) upon Michael D Higgins.

I would like to state clearly that Niall Farrell's remarks do not represent the position of everyone in GAAW. His remarks represent his personal opinion only. There are many people in GAAW who strongly disagree with his sentiments.

We have admired Michael D Higgins for many years. He has always taken a strong principled stand against injustice. He has spoken and written and campaigned tirelessly and fearlessly for many years. He has fought against torture and injustice, against the death penalty, against apartheid, against the repression of the Palestinian people, against Guantanamo and rendition flights, against the militarization of the Galway Airshow, and on many other issues of justice and equality.

I've watched him walk miles to support important causes when his health was not good. He has been there for many individuals and groups no matter what cost to himself. He has fought for the downtrodden and the neglected, at home in Galway as well as abroad in Gaza and elsewhere.

He fitted in his tireless work for others into his own leisure time - weekends, holidays etc, after long hours in the Dáil, in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Dáil, in constituency clinics, after flights abroad on behalf of the Dáil or the Foreign Affairs Committee etc etc. He has opposed war in all its guises - the military wars and the insidious economic wars.

This catalogue is brief because it would take a book to recount all he has done and achieved. To accuse him of dishonesty simply because he has a different interpretation of the clauses on militarization in the Lisbon Treaty is an astonishing folly and injustice. It is to deny to others the very liberties that the accuser is supposedly defending.

Geraldine McDermott,
Member of GAAW,
Moycullen

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