Sir, – I write regarding your editorial on May 18th (“Judicial review costs: Reform was clearly needed”). Judicial reviews are being mooted for the delays in housing and infrastructure delivery, yet this narrative does not stand up to scrutiny.Your editorial writer agrees that the net effect of the new measures will discourage environmental activists and others from taking judicial reviews. According to the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, it will “focus the minds of applicants”.The movement to circumvent the planning process has been deliberately choreographed by this new legislation to accelerate infrastructure. Simon Coveney promised more efficiency when he deregulated the planning process to allow large planning applications to bypass local authorities and go straight to An Bord Pleanála. The result was chaos. And Fianna Fáil should be especially cognisant of its history in the deregulation of planning and housing policy. The Department of Public Expenditure is to pay €8,500 a month (taxpayers’ money) to an outside consultancy to spin public support for infrastructural projects, one of which will be the Shannon pipeline project. The Government has carte blanche to spend taxpayers’ money to fight indefensible policies, while the citizens who win their cases still face substantial legal bills as the capped awards will not cover their actual costs. Pre-empting democracy will not work. People are more powerful than politicians when they exercise their rights. – Yours, etc,KAY MULLANE,River Shannon Protection Alliance,Ballina,Co Tipperary.Sir, – The reforms you supported in your editorial on Monday are a barrier to justice regardless of whether lawyers or anyone else is making the point. There is no doubt that judicial review ought to be rarer. However, the approach the Government has taken to achieving this is one that leaves it entirely open as a remedy for the wealthy while deterring the less well off. Private law is already a major source of inequality in Ireland, as former High Court justice Deirdre Murphy highlighted a couple of years ago. It is a glaring flaw in our liberal democratic model that the pursuit of justice is de facto always available to the few privileged and a great risk to the majority.It is quite stunning that you would gloss over the extension of this inequality so glibly. – Yours, etc,DR MICHAEL KEARY,Herent,Belgium.