Ian W Thomson (Letters, March 1) makes the point that, although anti-Irish/Roman Catholic sentiment is still with us we should also remember the progress that has been made in moving away from that bias, which he attributes to the large influx of Irish people who came here as a result of the Great Famine.

Actually, the most bitter anti-Irish/RC sentiment was with us before "an Gorta Mór" and peaked between the world wars; but Mr Thomson is correct up to a point in that change for the better has come in the attitudes of those "originally resident in Scotland".

That change has come is a great tribute to those indigenous Scots who disregarded the propaganda from pulpit and politicians that taught them their fellow Irish/RC neighbours were racially inferior, would damage the purity of the Scots race and should be sent home to Ireland.

However Pat Bourne, the Irish diplomat who called for end to the "appalling" sectarian legacy that exists here is right to do so. In my experience, we in this country have a taboo on the subject of anti-Irish racism, past or present.

My opinion in this regard was reinforced a few years back when I asked the Scottish Parliament to investigate the reasons why Roman Catholics are twice as likely as their Protestant peers or those of no religion to serve time in prison. The Public Petitions Committee kicked the matter back and forth for more than three years before commissioning a report from an academic.

Whenever the academic suggested the causes of the disproportionate number of Catholics in jail may be in some way explained by residual anti-Irish prejudice in society, the petition was closed post haste.

If we don't acknowledge and examine the matter openly it will fester and propagate.

Tom Minogue,

94 Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline, Fife.