Madam, - The Greens' decision to go into coalition is the right one for the country. Their participation will not only break down the fears and prejudices against them but provide the opportunity they never fully had in Opposition to air and, hopefully, implement their crucially important policies.
Many of these policies will still remain as ideals or aspirations which, like the stars in the heavens, cannot be reached; but we can all profit by their presence.
We can be certain of one thing: we are all indebted to them for their ingenuousness and concern in the areas of climate change, transport and congestion and especially in the planning processes at local level - issues of importance that will be growing at an exponential rate over the life of the new Government.
Of course there are dangers in participation with a monolithic party like Fianna Fáil. Like other innocent parties in previous coalitions the Greens may, too, be swallowed up by this Minotaur in the political labyrinth. But it's a risk worth taking, though the builders and developers might not agree. - Yours, etc,
JOHN F. FALLON, Boyle, Co Roscommon.
Madam, - John Waters (Opinion, June 18th) assures his readers that they are lucky he "was on hand to provide clarification" of Trevor Sargent's resignation as party leader. According to Mr Waters, Sargent was "mollyifying the. . .gods of Dublin 4".
Like any ordinary citizen of this democratic republic I have ideas on how the country should be run. My opinions are as valid as Mr Waters's, or those of the sundry political bootlickers in the media who have been orchestrating a one-party state for years.
I do not feel that any one party is more or less corruptible than any other one. Because power corrupts, however, I think we should not allow one party to be too long in power. Therefore I thought we should have had a change of government.
I believed Trevor Sargent when he said he wanted the same thing. In contrast to John Waters's belief that Sargent was "ridiculous" to resign, I feel, given what he said during the election campaign, he should not have been in negotiations with Fianna Fáil in the first place. I realise that in John Waters's morally challenged miasma, that means I do not belong in "the real world".
But when someone breaks his word I have no difficulty in recognising what is happening. Dublin 4, or any other mythical place of John Waters's imaginings, has nothing to do with it. - Yours, etc,
A. LEAVY, Shielmartin Drive, Sutton, Dublin 13.
Madam, - Trevor Sargent's resignation and that rueful smile had no connection with any moral dilemma; it came from a realisation that a foolish statement made in the heat of the campaign had almost deprived the new government of two of its best-informed ministers.
If Fianna Fáil were full of wicked people, instead of merely tired incompetents with little vision, he would of course have had good reason to maintain his stance; but it isn't, and he had no need to.
However, he had been foolish, and for this he reasonably chose to resign. - Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER FETTES, Bloomville, Geashill, Co Offaly.
Madam, Leo Varadkar TD writes (June 19th) that "most of the people who voted Green did so because of. . ." How does he know why they voted as they did? Has he conducted national research into the motivation of all those who voted Green? Or, more likely, has he just made up his own mind on the matter?
He later states that "in my own commuter-belt constituency, fewer than 10 per cent of Green voters transferred their votes to Fianna Fáil, while more than 60 per cent transferred to Fine Gael and Labour." It is probably necessary to point out that these were fewer than 1,400 votes for a candidate who polled less than 4 per cent of the valid poll in Dublin West - neither a sizeable nor a reliable sample from which to draw conclusions. The lack of transfers to Fianna Fáil might be due in part to that party's poll-topping candidate having already been elected by the time the Green votes were being distributed and to its remaining candidate being one who polled only slightly more than the Green party candidate (and was due for elimination at the next count). - Yours etc,
TONY McCOY O'GRADY, Grangebrook Close, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.