Madam, - Stephen Collins writes (Inside Politics, January 21st) that if the results of last Friday's TNS/MRBI poll be replicated in a general election situation the Labour Party could be faced with a choice between coalition with Fine Gael, the Greens and the PDs or ditching Pat Rabbitte as leader and coalescing with Fianna Fáil.
What most commentators overlook is that a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition is as likely and stable an outcome as a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition.
If the next general election result were to be identical to last week's opinion poll it would demonstrate two things: that Labour's anti-FF stance since Pat Rabbitte's election as party leader was successful but that the Mullingar Accord was not.
In 2007 it will be 25 years since Fine Gael won a general election and should the Mullingar Accord be unsuccessful it brings into question the viability of the Civil War party alignment in Irish politics. This presents Pat Rabbitte and the Labour Party with an opportunity. Mr Rabbitte should stick to his guns of no coalition with Fianna Fáil and make it categorically clear that if Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael want a stable government they will have to follow the example of the two largest parties in Germany after the indecisive 2005 general election result and form a "grand coalition".
Fine Gael's conservative and liberal wings would probably part ways if there was a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition. There is a broad progressive constituency that would support a new Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) made up of the Labour Party and the liberal wing of Fine Gael.
Pat Rabbitte has already proved a bold and decisive leader of the Labour Party and if there should be a hung Dáil after the next election he should use these qualities to end the tired political dichotomy of Fianna Fail versus Fine Gael. - Yours, etc,
JOHN DOYLE, Kingswood Heights, Tallaght, Dublin 24.