Sir, - The abysmal turnout at the Dublin South Central by-election last week demonstrates just how fed up and angry the public are with the antics of many of our politicians. In order to encourage the electorate back to voting, I suggest the following.
All of the candidates are represented in the polling station by large rubber dummies of themselves. On entering the polling station, each voter is handed a baseball bat. To register their voting intentions, voters whack each dummy with the bat in reverse order of preference - say, 10 whacks for someone they find particularly odious, but only one whack for the politicians they find least offensive. The dummies that get clobbered the least win. (But watch out for the Sinn Fein dummies; they may hit back.) - Yours, etc.,
John Devlin, Erne Terrace, Baile Atha Cliath 2.