Madam, - David Carroll's contribution (May 31st) to the latest Fianna Fáil campaign to hold on to power at any cost misses the point. There can be no rapprochement between the rump of Fianna Fáil's once strong social democratic elements and the left while Fianna Fáil remains in denial about its recent past. The recent celebration of the party's 80th anniversary drew a discreet veil over the active association of Fianna Fáil members and public representatives with white-collar crime, including corruption and tax fraud.
Fianna Fáil must abandon the Haughey-inspired project of encouraging the emergence of a new ascendancy based, not on absentee landlordism, but on the manipulation of artificially - and possibly corruptly - created stocks of land for development. Fianna Fáil must apologise to the citizens of Ireland for its ruthless pillaging of scarce resources, especially, but not only, building land, for the benefit of a small minority of "nouveaux rentiers".
Fianna Fáil must apologise to all those whom it has condemned to live in unfinished estates without benefit of basic services, schools or public transport. Fianna Fáil must apologise to the commuter condemned to wasting hours in traffic jams, to the patients waiting days on trolleys, to the young couples who can no longer afford a home. The party must apologise for the misery caused by its actions in national and local government, and propose effective remedies to solve the problems it has created.
Then, and only then, could Labour, or any other party of the left, envisage even a moderate project of co-operation on a limited range of issues. - Yours, etc,
GORDON DAVIES, Briar Wood, Bray, Co Wicklow.