A Chara, - Compared with the last local/European elections, the Fianna Fáil vote went down by about 8 per cent, Sinn Féin went up about 8 per cent, while the supposed alternative government of Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens hardly budged. How the Opposition could rejoice at this nightmare result is beyond me.
Will Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte pop more champagne when the latter's party crowns a Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of our capital city at the next Dublin City Council meeting? Or will the infantile naïveté of their stubborn Anyone-But-Fianna-Fáil mentality finally hit home? - Is mise,
DAVID CARROLL, Castle Gate, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Dr Fenton Howell (June 18th) claims the smoking ban has been warmly embraced by the majority of people and that support for the ban influenced the election results.
Dr Howell chooses to ignore the fact that the vast majority of supporters of the ban do not care enough about it to allow it to influence their vote. If it was important to people to have a smoke-free atmosphere in the pub they would have demanded it from the publicans and the publicans would have obliged because it would have been bad for business not to do so.
The minority of people who oppose the ban do so very strongly indeed and that is why the smoking ban was a factor in Fianna Fáil's poor showing at the polls. Fine Gael may well have supported the ban but as they didn't actually inflict it on us it was never going to influence their vote and to claim that it did suggests that Dr Howell is grasping at straws.
Between the smoking ban, Shannon airport, excessive indirect taxation and arrogance in the Cabinet I think Fianna Fáil got off lightly. Roll on the next general election. - Yours, etc.,
AIDAN O'CARROLL, Mount Argus Close, Dublin 6.
Madam, - We're facing a federal election here in Canada next week, but the lampposts and telephone poles are entirely free of political posters. All election advertising is on private land: citizens, shops and businesses put up signs on their lawns and in their windows. The net quantity of advertising is far less than one sees in Ireland.
This simply means that politicians and their supporters have to put the emphasis on door-to-door canvassing, public appearances and media interviews. That's better for the politicians, better for the people, and far better for the environment. - Yours, etc.,
LUKE MURPHY, Toronto, Canada.
Madam, - With the election over and many posters removed I no longer have to endure the smiling face of my local Sinn Féin candidate grinning at me every time I leave my front door. Not to worry, though: he has left me with a lasting reminder of himself in the form of the two plastic ties firmly attached to the ESB pole on which he hung for so many weeks.
I wish him well next time around and hope to have a chance to point out the error of his ways if he comes calling for my vote. - Yours, etc.,
EAN WALLACE, Riverview, Avoca, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - Four days to complete the European counts, six for the local elections - ludicrous, isn't it? And threats of recounts and High Court appeals are still pending.
So, for modern Ireland, it's back to the pencils, pencil-parers and string, the printed sheets, metal stamps and rickety booths for the voters - and, of course, the inevitable delays, staff shortages, meal-breaks, the random distribution of surpluses, human errors, overnight postponements, recounts, squabbling, invalid and spoilt votes and legal challenges. Where's the fun in all that?
If the electronic voting machines cost €40 million plus, the considerable savings in staffing, renting premises, printing and security charges must surely offset the capital costs well before the expiry date of the machines.
It's about time that the Opposition parties - and some elements in the media - put aside their petty point-scoring attitudes and welcomed the new developments of the 21st century as other EU states have done or are planning to do. - Yours, etc.,
LOUIS POWER, Killiney, Co Dublin.