Sir, – Having negotiated the introduction of water charges with the troika, Fianna Fáil has stealthily slithered to a policy of their abolition, including forcing their suspension in the negotiations leading to the formation of the current Government.
Just as Paul Murphy spooked Sinn Féin on this issue, now Sinn Féin spooks Fianna Fáil. The populism that previously destroyed our economy again threatens to sabotage its recovery.
Micheál Martin recommends that water should be paid for through general taxation. Is this how we will also pay the fines to be imposed by Europe for non-implementation of the water charges?
There are shades of the 1977 Fianna Fáil manifesto in Mr Martin’s latest offering.
With budget negotiations pending, I feel an election coming on. Is the electorate to be bought again, as it was in 1977? – Yours, etc,
PJ McDERMOTT,
Westport, Co Mayo.
Sir, – As Fianna Fáil scents the possibility of a return to power by an amnesiac electorate, its shifts of position over coming months will be worth watching.
Readers will recall that Sinn Féin, “as a responsible party”, was encouraging people to pay their water charges. Outflanked by Paul Murphy in the Dublin West byelection, it then decided “in solidarity with the people” to oppose water charges. It then favoured the retention of Irish Water, although it proposed that charges would be levied through central taxation.
With an eye to electoral prospects, this changed to calls for Irish Water’s outright abolition.
When people call for a merger of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, perhaps the more obvious realignment would involve Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin? The two parties share many traits, not least an unerring instinct for opportunistic posturing.
For all its faults – and its handling of Irish Water has been an unmitigated shambles – at least Fine Gael adheres to sense and logic on the issue of whether the user should pay. – Yours, etc,
PADDY McGOVERN,
Dublin 8.