Madam, - Denis Rodgers (June 28 th) calls the PDs "hard right" and "driven by an ideology that is alien to the genuine republican principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity." Good stuff to mouth off in a pub, I give him that.
But is abolishing the death penalty "hard right?" What about getting unemployment to its lowest level in a generation? Introducing the minimum wage?
Denis Rodgers has done me a favour, by reminding me why I became a Progressive Democrat. Because I was sick of people like him mouthing empty platitudes and then leaving the likes of Des O'Malley, Mary Harney and Michael McDowell to actually do the heavy lifting.
Because I was sick of the hypocrisy of the conservative right and the ideological strait-jacket of the left. Because I wanted a party that believed in the freedom of the individual and a non-ideological approach to problem solving., - Yours, etc.,
JASON O'MAHONY, Coppinger Glade, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.