Madam, - Dr Garret FizGerald is entitled to his view that it would have been better if Eamon de Valera had retired as leader of Fianna Fáil in 1952 (Opinion & Analysis, September 16th). But his claim that "total economic stagnation marked de Valera's last seven years as leader of his party because all the chickens of his disastrous commitment to an inward looking policy of self-sufficiency were coming home to roost" must be challenged in the light of the following facts.
Fianna Fáil was in office for only three of the nine years from 1948 to 1957. Sean McEntee's deflationary 1952 budget was brought in to deal with an inherited balance of payments crisis.
The White Paper "Programme for Economic Expansion" was published in November 1958 during de Valera's last term as Taoiseach from 1957 to 1959. This paper set out the government's new economic policy on which the subsequent growth of the national economy was based. - Yours, etc,
EAMON DE VALERA, Merrion Square, Dublin 2.