Madam, - Your edition of July 6th reports the Tánaiste as saying that in the recent local elections voters had punished her party over decentralisation.
What is not entirely clear, however, is whether Ms Harney has grasped the point that while some of the anti-decentralisation vote was grounded in self-interest, a substantial proportion of it was for objective reasons.
People voted against the PDs and Fianna Fáil not only because they did not personally want to be uprooted and dispatched down the country. Many voted against the Government parties because of exasperation at the economic and strategic illiteracy of the decentralisation proposals and because of the "cute hoorery" inherent in all who signed up to them, manifested most blatantly by Messrs McCreevy and Parlon.
On decentralisation the PDs were punished for stroke politics, not because they were martyrs to principle. - Yours, etc.,
COLETTE ROBINSON,
Gracepark Gardens, Dublin 9.