Madam, - During the debate last week on a motion calling for an early general election, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell gave a remarkably selective appraisal of the economic record of Fine Gael and Labour when they were last in government from 1994 to 1997.
True to form, Mr McDowell sought to make sweeping assumptions about the opinions of the electorate, saying that "the people know that if they put the Labour Party and Fine Gael into office. . .the unemployment queues will grow and growth will stop".
He declared that "anybody with any memory knows that Fine Gael and the Labour Party together form a slump coalition. When the Rainbow Coalition left office in 1997, unemployment stood at a figure of 10.9 per cent".
The Minister's own memory seems to be at variance with the facts. What Mr McDowell failed to mention, for some reason, was that the unemployment rate stood at 15 per cent when the Rainbow Government entered office. So in fact, unemployment fell by almost a third during the two-and-a-half years when Fine Gael and Labour were last in Government.
Anyone listening to Mr McDowell's version of events could be forgiven thinking that the figure of 10.9 per cent was somehow a sign of failure on their behalf.
Mr. McDowell also omitted several other relevant facts from his analysis. When the Rainbow was in office, 1,000 jobs were being created every week; the economy was growing at a rate of almost 8 per cent a year; inflation was at a record low of less than 1.5 per cent; tourism revenues, house completions and global exports all reached all-time highs.
Why did Mr McDowell not take these facts into account when giving his analysis of the "slump coalition"? Surely he could not have been trying deliberately to misrepresent his opponents?
Mr McDowell's comments are the the latest symptom of the arrogant belief among the Progressive Democrats that no one but themselves is capable of managing a successful economy. They seem to believe their presence in Government is absolutely vital to the continued economic well-being of the country, and that cranes will vanish from the skyline should the electorate vote them from office - a kind of après nous le déluge attitude to public life. Unfortunately for them, the record of the last Rainbow government proves otherwise. - Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH, Castletroy, Limerick.