Madam, - Mick O'Reilly's relatively low-key questioning of the relationship being developed with Fine Gael hardly warranted the vitriolic and personal attack on him by Pat Rabbitte. It is not just insulting to him personally but also to the members of one of Ireland's largest trade unions, which he leads, and whose view he was articulating. The ATGWU is also affiliated to The Labour Party.
Pat Rabbitte describes him as a "pavilion" member whose views "deserve to be ignored" (shades of the old "sticky" ambivalence and support for the censorship of Section 31). As for being a "pavilion" member his support from ordinary workers is matched only by opposition and intolerance from the bureaucrats largely because he has been a campaigning leader on all the important political, economic and social issues of the day, which might explain why their paths have not crossed in recent times.
The view expressed by Mick O'Reilly that coalition with Fine Gael benefits that party at the expense of Labour is rightly or wrongly a view that is widely held and warrants serious consideration, while the assertion that people are entitled to a choice is meaningless. Elections give people an individual choice and you can interpret the outcome any way you wish (all parties do), so that even parties that lose seats in an election can end up in Government and claim it is the will of the people when in fact it is no more than the outcome of a deal negotiated between the parties.
Pat Rabbitte says he wants to get into government to "build a fair society": perilously close to Fine Gael's "Just Society" slogan of the 1960s, I would have thought.
Could it be that Pat Rabbitte is merely putting down a marker on how this and other issues will be conducted in the future? Either you agree with the leader or you shut up. - Yours, etc.,
BERNARD BROWNE, Elm Mount Avenue, Beaumont, Dublin 9.