Sir, – Articles by Stephen Collins and Noel Whelan on April 19th about supposed “damage” to the Government during these “precarious times” miss the point of democratic politics and are another symptom of the Irish media’s obsession with the view that spin-doctors should form public opinion.
Both cite “spats”, “public skirmishes”, “wrangling”, “clashes”, “dust-ups”, happening “in public” in government at a time when – horror of horrors – elections are coming up.
The whole point of a democracy is that different vested interests fight out their various conflicting causes in public in the Oireachtas and in election campaigns. Sometimes it is not pretty but it is better than violently fighting them out on the streets or having totalitarian solutions dictated from on high.
Having our problems thrashed out in public is also much better than promoting a misleading spin-doctored, all-in-the-garden-is-rosy picture.
We should all remember that during the boom, according to the spin doctors of that time, our betters were seemingly walking on water. The few opinions being expressed contrary to that conventional wisdom were, to put it mildly, frowned upon. We now know to our cost how that ended up.
Our democracy is much less precarious when we all know what is really happening – not a spin-doctored version – and when have our dust-ups in the Oireachtas and in election campaigns and not in violence in the streets. Yours, etc,
ANTHONY LEAVY,
1 Shielmartin Drive,
Sutton,
Dublin 13