Sir, - Any Dublin candidate for the leadership of Fine Gael, be it Jim Mitchell, Alan Shatter or whoever, will be doubly handicapped by the party's voting system. Firstly, senators have equality of voting with TDs, even though rural areas have disproportionately more senators than urban ones because most senators are elected predominantly by county councillors; and rural areas, particularly counties with small populations, have disproportionately large numbers of councillors compared with Dublin and other urban centres such as Cork and Limerick.
Secondly, with Fine Gael doing so poorly in the Dublin area (where a third of the population lives), there will be fewer Dublin-based TDs to support a Dublin candidate in Friday's election. Given the reasons for the demise of John Bruton, it is ironic that the party's voting system it is not designed to reflect the interests of the overall electorate. - Yours, etc.,
J. Colgan, Leixlip, Co Kildare