Madam, - The predictable outcome of the Northern election for the SDLP flowed directly from John Hume's successful policy of easing the Republican movement's transition from guns to government. But Mr Hume has nothing to reproach himself with - and wouldn't dream of doing so - because that policy was an essential precondition for the relative peace we enjoy today.
Mark Durkan has nothing to reproach himself with either: the SDLP fought a vigorous campaign in difficult circumstances. The fact is that election campaigns are generally important for alerting the populace to the fact of an election and not much more. Settled judgments are made over months and years, not weeks, and Sinn Féin's momentum over those years was already clear for all to see.
While we wait and hope that their victory finally gives Republicans the confidence to turn the IRA into a veteran's association, the SDLP has to consider seriously what to do next. To do nothing will be to invite more of the same. There is a European election coming up next year (which may be something of a special case if John Hume runs again, as I hope and expect that he will) and a Westminster election possibly within 18 months.
Panic is not called for, but imaginative thinking is. The party's forthcoming annual conference, postponed from last month because of the election, would not be too soon to start discussing the options.
I believe these revolve around the need for the SDLP to become a truly national party - or part of a truly national party - to provide a coherent and powerful counterweight to Sinn Féin within the nationalist electorate of Northern Ireland. The SDLP believes in Irish unity by consent within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement and - because it was the architect of that Agreement - it carries more conviction on the consent principle than does Sinn Féin, which retains more than a whiff of simplistic "Brits-outery".
But Sinn Féin outguns the SDLP (I think I am talking metaphorically here) as a national party competing in Dáil Éireann and as a candidate for government in both jurisdictions. The SDLP needs to be the same.
John Hume's view in the past has always been that, since the SDLP benefits from the support of all sections of political opinion in the Republic, it would be counter-productive to form partisan alliances in the South. I think circumstances have now changed. Whether they have changed enough to make merger with a Southern party not only desirable but necessary is a matter for a debate which should start soon.
As a social democratic party we would naturally look, if it came to it, for a social democratic partner. My heart tells me that that would be Labour. My head says Fianna Fáil, despite its tribulations of recent years. The Social Democratic and Labour Party/Fianna Fáil could wipe the smile off the face of the tiger in the electoral highways and byways of Northern Ireland in years to come. We need to talk about it. - Yours, etc.,
JONATHAN STEPHENSON, (SDLP Chairperson 1995-98), Windsor Park, Belfast 9.
Madam, - Last Sunday Bertie Ahern was asked on one of RTÉ's news programmes why he wouldn't have Sinn Féin in government while at the same time he expected unionists in the North to share power with this party. As usual, his answer was a fudge lacking all conviction.
Along with most cowardly politicians in the South, Mr Ahern is afraid to say anything even remotely critical about the political wing of the Provisional IRA. The simple answer to the question posed on RTÉ is quite straightforward: if politicians in the North do not include Sinn Féin/IRA in government then Sinn Féin's private army will restart their campaign of murder and terror. Politicians in the South have the luxury of not having to face such a prospect.
But if they do not face up to Sinn Féin/IRA soon, they will suffer the same fate as the SDLP. The amnesia about the recent past of Sinn Féin/IRA is beyond belief. Media and politicians alike seem unable or unwilling to confront the movement's relentless propaganda with its ongoing sanitising of 30 years of brutality and outright terror.
No party should be expected to share power with Sinn Féin/IRA while that party has a private army, while the punishment beatings continue and while people are living in IRA-imposed exile. Ironically, it may take a dangerous bigot like Paisley to get this across to Adams and Co. Meanwhile those who voted for the Provos and the DUP got what they deserved - an impasse with another long period in limbo for Northern Ireland politics. - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY HARTNETT, Chestnut Grove, Bishopstown, Cork.