Sir, - I am exceedingly perturbed at the tone of the article "Voters left in the dark again this election") The Irish Times, May 7th). Your correspondent Paul Cullen has an economy of words that has resulted in a blatant distortion of the true facts.
Under the sub-heading "Candidates who received money from developers", Mr Cullen lists election candidates who received such monies, but fails to state that in some cases, including my own, these were unsolicited election donations.
Mr Cullen has also omitted to mention monies/donations made to other parties in the 1992 election. Has Fine Gael's transparency in this matter made their candidates a legitimate target for this kind of journalism ?
Perhaps the true title of this piece should be "Readers left in the dark again to put their own interpretation on half facts". - Yours, etc.,
Senator THERESE RIDGE,
Seanad Éireann,
Dublin 2.
Paul Cullen writes: I am a loss to understand what facts Ms Ridge feels are being "distorted". Frank Dunlop says the money he gave to politicians was solicited; Ms Ridge says she did not solicit the contribution she received. The Flood tribunal will have to resolve this contradiction. The article made clear the assertion by all politicians involved that there was no link between the payments they received and their votes on rezoning issues.
The article did not omit payments received by other parties - a number of Fianna Fáil members are listed. Labour and the Greens say none of their representatives received payments from Mr Dunlop.