Madam, - It is surreal for a guy who, during the last general election campaign, climbed up a pole to demonise the Fianna Fáil party for fear of losing its embrace in government to now stalk and attempt to vilify Labour leader Pat Rabbitte over his post-election intentions should Fine Gael and Labour jointly not have the Dáil numbers to form the next government.
Does PD leader Michael McDowell think no one has noticed that the PDs have spent all their political life when in government hitched to the Fianna Fáil wagon? Common sense would indicate that this is a topic on which he would be better off staying silent.
It is apparent that the PDs have now officially abandoned their self-proclaimed role as a policy-driven party and are more comfortable with old-style Fianna Fáil personality-bashing and scaremongering.
No doubt Mr McDowell is planning to ignite some phoney political war between the PDs and Fianna Fáil prior to the general election to attract public attention and political support for his party and to misrepresent the PDs as being independent of their coalition colleagues. However, this will not disguise the reality that the PDs are now little more than Fianna Fáil Lite. - Yours, etc,
ALAN SHATTER, Upper Ely Place, Dublin 2.
Madam, - In the current debate on government formation David Carroll's remark (January 20th) that the Taoiseach would not want to work in government with "such a belligerent and cantankerous character" as the Labour Party leader is revealing.
Firstly, it highlights the unspoken assumption of many participants in this debate that the next election is merely about deciding who will support the present Taoiseach in forming a government. Secondly, it implies that the leader of the Labour Party has a cheek being "belligerent and cantankerous" when he should be bowing and kowtowing to the semi-divine Taoiseach who is going to decide all our futures after the next election.
This is a democratic republic with options as to who will form a government after the next election. It is not as yet a one-party state. We got rid of one semi-permanent ascendancy elite. We are not likely to replace it with another. - Yours, etc,
A. LEAVY, Shielmartin Drive, Sutton, Dublin 13.