Madam, - Your Editorial of January 7th lamenting Enda Kenny's "parish pump" stance on the Government's decentralisation plan is spot on.
There is no mystery as to why so many people are disillusioned with politicians: too often they put their own interests before the country's.
The Fine Gael leader's self-indulgent posturing is a case in point. In the 2002 election he sneaked in as a TD, receiving not only fewer first-preference votes in Mayo than all of its other elected TDs but so too than non-elected party and constituency colleague Jim Higgins. Now he is jeopardising the national interest in the hope of a few more votes in his home county to lessen the delicacy of his position there.
Not only is this an immense disappointment to all of us who long for a Fine Gael government of integrity, it is also contrary to one of the party's stated core values: "to act in a way that is right for Ireland, regardless of dogma or ideology".
I, for one, want an alternative taoiseach whose patriotism and conviction on matters of critical national importance dwarfs even his own - and occasionally even his party's - electoral considerations.
Former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes behaved in such a manner with his Tallaght strategy; he may not have ended up as taoiseach but he did what was right for his country - and that, Mr Kenny, is what politics ought to be about. - Yours etc,
ANDREW GREANEY,
Castle Avenue,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.