Madam, - I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be defending Fianna Fáil but I think that time has come. In the past couple of months the media have been awash with "revelations" of how the public were conned in the last election, with shock-horror looks on the faces of the Opposition, claiming that we were swindled.
Well. we weren't swindled. Anyone who voted for Fianna Fáil was either as thick as two short planks, or as bent as the party is! The public got the Government it deserved, and I believe it should be made suffer the consequences for its selfish greed, with rat-infested schools, trolleys in hospital corridors and the rest of it.
We have had seven years of a Celtic Tiger and we have nothing to show from it because the public lapped up the reduction in personal taxation, luxuriating in their wine-tasting and multiple foreign holidays. A prudent public would have voted for a Government that even - or especially - in the good times thought of the rainy day.
Blaming FF now reminds me of the story of the tortoise who agrees to piggyback the scorpion, who promised not to sting him, across a river. The tortoise duly carries the scorpion to safety, but just as they on the bank, the scorpion digs its poison into the tortoise.
The incredulous tortoise looks up and says to the scorpion, "Why did you do that?" The scorpion replies: "Because I'm a scorpion!"
Fianna Fáil told people what they wanted to hear. It did what it had to do to get elected. So any blame lies at the feet of those who believed it! - Yours, etc.,
NOEL FITZPATRICK,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.