Sir, - I love a good principled stand, e.g. "No talks until decommissioning", or "We will not negotiate with. . . [insert pejorative label of your choice]". I had a good principled stand at my bus-stop this morning. It didn't get me anywhere so I walked to the DART station where I took another principled stand. This one was a bit more sociable than the stand at the bus-stop as there were several hundred other commuters taking a principled stand there too. We got tired from taking a principled stand after a while, but we didn't give up because we are people of principle and the principal thing we noticed about the DART station was that there was nothing to sit on, least of all a train.
I'm glad to see that Peter Bunting of the NBRU and Noel Dowling of SIPTU are also taking a principled stand: "No talks with breakaway strikers". I hope that Mr Dowling and Mr Bunting have the courage to refuse, on principle of course, to talk with their own members who have supported the ILDA by not passing its pickets.
Eventually, if everybody sticks to their principles, we can achieve a state of perfect consensus where everybody agrees to talk to nobody. - Yours, etc.,
Andrew Munro, Richmond Park, Bray, Co Wicklow.