Sir, – The irony of Lucinda Creighton TD’s new party being fronted by three individuals representing incompatible interests should not be wasted on the electorate.
Ms Creighton departed Fine Gael following her election in 2011 due to a matter of conscience, after years of dutifully supporting the governing Coalition’s reforms, and she continues to espouse conservative social values. Eddie Hobbs criticises the role of the State in people’s lives and advocates for its reduction. Cllr John Leahy from Offaly calls for State support for rural post offices, farming families and public services, which would involve a concomitant increase in the reach of the State.
These three platforms are each appropriate and stimulating contributions to the debate around political and social reform in Ireland.
However, they are completely incompatible with one another, and any “alliance” or “common ground” reached between such people will represent little more than an opportunity for individuals, interests and egos to be put before the national best interest.
Multiparty politics is a painful business of compromise involving the aggregation of needs and the allocation and distribution of limited resources among a multitude of competing interests, usually at the expense of sectional, local and personal interests.
Anyone who thinks that an alliance of such diverse “independent” individuals can bring about much-needed reforms and progress in the national best interest should carefully scrutinise the agendas of individual candidates, and what exactly it is that holds any such “alliance” together before choosing to give them their vote. – Yours, etc,
BARRY COLFER,
Department of Politics
and International Studies,
University of Cambridge,
England.