The correctness or otherwise of my strategy as an Independent TD holding the balance of power in 1982 will at some stage be objectively assessed by historians dealing with that period. For my part, I have no apology to make for the role I played and I am happy to leave it to the wisdom and scholarship of historians to pass judgment on it.

However, it would be difficult for me to leave unchallenged Garret FitzGerald's article (The Irish Times, August 19th), which in my view lacked any semblance of balance. The only conclusion I can reach is that Garret's motivation must simply have been to tar all Independents with the same brush and so undermine the validity of Independents participating in the democratic process.

Coming from Garret FitzGerald, this may to some degree be expected, given that his own experience with Independent TDs was far from being a happy one. His elevation to Taoiseach in June 1981 lasted a mere seven months and his efforts to form a government in February 1982 were futile - in both instances Independent TDs played a decisive part.

The recent opinion poll results, which suggest an accelerating collapse in the confidence of many of the electorate in the main political parties paralleled by a surge in support for Independents, inevitably adds salt to the wounds.

While Garret listed a series of governments that involved the support of Independents, the one experience he failed to mention was his own government of 1981/ 82 which, incidentally, was the only government in the history of the State to have been brought down by Independents voting against it. What an extraordinary omission for the author of an article deploring the role of Independent TDs.

Perhaps Garret's omission is best explained by Prof Joe Lee's reference to the collapse of that "rainbow" government (Ire- land 1912-1985, p.507): "Independents on whose support the government had hitherto been able to rely voted against a politically inept imposition of VAT on children's clothing and footwear on the 27 January, 1982."

Had Garret's government not been "politically inept" in its budgetary strategy, it is likely there would have been no difficulty with the support of the late Jim Kemmy and Sean Loftus and Garret would certainly have been spared feeling obliged "to compete for my support" in 1982.

Had Dr FitzGerald gone a step further and assessed the concerns of all the participants in his coalition, including Independent members, and had he made even minimal efforts to incorporate their priorities into a programme for government, then it's quite possible his short-lived coalition could have lasted far longer and met even his exacting expectations for good government in the national interest.

For my part, when I was elected in February 1982 I did not approach either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael - they were both anathema to me. Instead, I called consistently for an alliance of the Left, i.e., the Workers' Party, Jim Kemmy's Democratic Socialist Party, and myself.

My position was that while one non-aligned TD could decide the composition of the next government, an alliance of five TDs sharing common left-wing policies would have provided a stronger negotiating bloc which might have achieved valuable gains for working-class people. Such an alliance would have demanded "that national resources be deployed where needs are greater", to quote Dr Fitzgerald's own requirement for good government in the national interest.

Indeed, I will argue that that prerequisite is precisely what my arrangement with the 1982 Fianna Fail government sought to do.

Is that position any more or any less valid than four members of the Progressive Democrats demanding some of the highest positions in government for themselves, the implementation of their priority policies, while, like other Ministers, directing the spoils of office to their own constituencies?

My hoped-for alliance of the left did not materialise in 1982. It would have required a willingness to negotiate with both Fianna Fail and the Fine Gael/Labour coalition in order to maximise the concessions to be obtained. Jim Kemmy could not stomach any involvement with Fianna Fail, while the Workers' Party, for reasons best known to themselves, decided to support Fianna Fail.

THAT was the context when I was approached by Charles Haughey, Garret FitzGerald and Michael O'Leary. I presented each of them not with a shopping list for my constituency, but with a detailed range of social and economic issues, principally housing, employment, education, healthcare, welfare, all from the standpoint of disadvantaged communities and with an emphasis on young people at risk. Indeed, had these proposals been implemented, the last 20 years might not have seen the lives of thousands of young people devastated by drugs and social deprivation.

The 30-page agreement I signed with the FF government was published in full in The Irish Times. I read its principal features in the Dail record on my first day in Dail Eireann. That was an early version of openness and transparency in the Dail. Eireann.

It of course made specific reference to the appalling poverty of Dublin's north inner city. But anyone who takes the trouble to read the agreement will recognise that it contained far more, with comprehensive policies ranging from increased taxation on banks, financial institutions, and rezoned development land, (which should be of particular interest in the context of recent events), to the plight of Combat Poverty projects in Cork and Waterford and the crisis in the Clondalkin Paper Mills. Hardly matters of immediate concern in my Dublin Central constituency.

Dr FitzGerald refers to this as "post-election horse-trading on the basis of local agendas", adding, "since that time the destructive localism of Irish politics has intensified".

Such a distortion of what was contained in the "Gregory Deal" does no justice to what I and those who worked selflessly with me in 1982 tried to do - nor, indeed, does it do justice to Garret himself.

Dr FitzGerald then goes on to single out the 1982 Fianna Fail government as one of the two governments being "least able to pursue policies serving the national interest" - blaming this on its " dependence on locally motivated Independents".

While I would argue that everything in my agreement was in the national interest, it is worth saying that this was the same government that Prof Joe Lee says "began to prepare a new plan, the Way Forward, designed to adjust at long last economic policy . . . which adopted much of Fine Gael's own economic programme . . . It seemed as if Haughey was finally determined to treat the disease he had diagnosed in January 1980."

The fact that the Fianna Fail government was not in a position to pursue this policy had nothing to do with Independent TDs. The collapse of that government resulted from the opportunism of the Workers' Party following the death of one Fianna Fail TD, Bill Loughnane, and the serious illness of another, Jim Gibbons, at a time of bitter conflict within Fianna Fail.

My final word on the agreement, which was the basis of my support for the 1982 Fianna Fail government, is simply to quote the verdict of Joe Lee, one of the most eminent historians of modern Irish history: "Critics denounced the idea of a special deal as disgraceful, allegedly debasing the political coinage. What was disgraceful in this case was less the deal than the fact that it needed a deal to win some attention for one of the most deprived areas of the country, an inner city constituency ravaged by poverty and neglect, and their concomitant, unemployment, bad housing and a vicious drugs problem." (Ireland 1912-1985, p. 508)

Tony Gregory is an independent TD for Dublin Central