Madam, - It is interesting that Dermot Ahern (May 12th) has time to throw stones from his glasshouse at the leader of the Labour Party, Pat Rabbitte, while the public experience the effects of the negligence and incompetence of the FF/PD Government to which he belongs.
This includes the people lying on trolleys in our public hospitals in the shambles of a health service presided over by his colleague, Micheál Martin; the children and parents who endure the broken-down school buildings and under-resourced education system operated by Noel Dempsey, who is also trying to re-introduce university fees; the people stuck in traffic jams for hours on end as a result of the Government's lack of urgency or understanding of how to tackle the problems of transport; the 50,000 people on the housing waiting list in Dublin; and the people in the community groups in the most deprived areas of the State who are suffering massive cuts in their funding from his Department and from the Department of "Enterprise"run by his cabinet colleague, Mary Harney.
Many of these groups are providing essential social services which, in most other EU countries are provided by the State. I haven't seen any proposals from Dermot Aherne to replace the services which will close down as a result of his cuts. This Government's social housing provision in six years has been zero, the shame of the entire European Union.
It is an old trick of right-wing politicians like Dermot Ahern to pretend there are no such things as class divisions in society and that we are all in some kind of "boat" with his namesake Captain Bertie.
This lie is more exposed than ever now as people can see the discrepancies between their own levels of access to health, education and employment and ownership of property and that enjoyed by the financial backers of the FF/PD coalition as their perks are paraded before the various tribunals in Dublin Castle. - Yours, etc.,
SEAMAS RATIGAN, Dublin 8.