Madam, - It is heartening to see that the majority of your correspondents see through deceptions in the policies of the Fianna Fáil/PD Government. The electorate in aggregate is consistently of the same view. The only group that now needs to be convinced to jettison the PDs and their policies is the high command of Fianna Fáil.
During the fiscal calamity of the 1980s, Fine Gael supported Fianna Fáil in office to keep the State from bankruptcy. We are now enduring a social and an incipient economic calamity caused by Fianna Fáil implementing PD policies in defiance of the will of the people expressed at the ballot box.
After the next election, if by misfortune Fianna Fáil can again cobble together a majority with the PDs to remain in office, it will become morally incumbent on Labour, Fine Gael or any other patriotic party to sustain Fianna Fáil in power as a minority government, if they can be brought to pledge to put the interests of the people first.
It seems to me that the PDs are openly seeking to institutionalise inequality in society. They counter that their social conscience is evident in the existence of a minimum wage. No PD supporter I have ever met would work for the minimum wage. Neither would they allow any of their offspring to work for it once they had left their student jobs behind. The pinnacle of PD social concern seems to be to try to preserve a few trees in a privileged leafy Dublin suburb, when a sensible effort is made to facilitate ordinary people getting into Dublin by bus. We must be rid of them. - Yours, etc.,
HUGO BRADY BROWN,
Stratford on Slaney,
Co Wicklow.
Madam, - The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, has come under fierce criticism in recent days in your Letters page. In one day (August 9th) her policies were described as the "promotion of wealth, greed and inequality" by Dermot Looney and a "cut-throat ideology" by Barry McCrea.
Is the promotion of employment to all in society "cut-throat ideology"? How is the introduction of a generous minimum wage a "sharp rightward tilt"?
The Progressive Democrats have offered real policies with real results for real people. At the expense of Ireland's economic competitiveness, a decent wage has been guaranteed for all those in employment, whether they are rich or poor, Irish or non-national.
It is clear that Mary Harney is not only looking after Ireland's super-rich, as some people claim. Ask someone on the minimum wage whether they would prefer higher taxes or another bump in their pay cheque, because one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. - Yours, etc.,
ROBBIE ROULSTON,
Ardmeen Park,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.