Madam, - I feel compelled to express some sympathy for Mary Hanafin, Minister for Education, when she denied there was any real prospect of Fianna Fáil going into government with Sinn Féin in the foreseeable future. I feel sorry for her: firstly because, like the Progressive Democrats, she has clearly been duped by her Government colleagues concerning her party's strategy at the next election; and secondly because she is probably one of the few leading members of that banana republican party with any credibility left.
It seems clear from the comments of Martin Mansergh, Dermot Ahern and Ned O'Keefe that the two long-estranged republican parties will set aside their differences and come to a hideous reconciliation which will see the formation of a nightmare government combining populist nationalism with violent republicanism. These cynical manoeuvrings are a wake-up call to the electorate.
Fine Gael has made its position crystal clear. As Enda Kenny clearly indicated, we will never participate in a coalition with Sinn Féin, not only because of the cruel and savage murder of countless innocent Irish men and women or its history of contempt for Irish democracy, our institutions and our security forces, but because we have no politics in common with them.
Fine Gael will not defraud the electorate by entering into any agreement with a backward, fanatical, Eurosceptic and unreconstructed Marxist party and to do so would be an affront to a democracy where people should have a real choice.
The Progressive Democrats promised to be the watchdog of this Government. Will Mary Harney now please stand up? - Yours, etc.,
RONAN GUCKIAN,
Secretary Fine Gael,
Mount Merrion Branch,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - Albert Reynolds memorably described the seminal Fianna Fáil/PD Coalition as a "temporary little arrangement".
How would Dermot Ahern describe a similar alliance between Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin? A provisional little arrangement? - Yours, etc.,
PAUL DELANEY,
Beacon Hill,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.