Madam, - It is too easy to deride election candidates' wish to advertise their candidature on public lampposts. Before your Letters page determines what is politically correct and acceptable, perhaps the following should be considered.
There is no limit to the amount of money candidates can spend during a local election campaign. Local authorities issue guidelines about the siting of posters but, to the best of my knowledge, make no attempt during the campaign to police their own rules. They do, of course, move swiftly once the seven-day period allowed for election postering, under the Litter Act, is over and issue fines to an offending candidate at a rate, here in Dún Laoghaire, of €125 euro per offending poster.
Because it is important that the electorate is encouraged to vote - and vote they did at the recent election - surely local authorities could in future address the issue more imaginatively. Many of your readers will have seen how other European countries co-operate with election candidates during their elections. For example, Spanish municipal authorities earmark specific frames on public lampposts, according to parties' percentage support, to allow poster displays during campaigns - and treat all other posters as offending litter.
Like Buddhist prayer-wheels, the posters call the electorate's attention and create a street exhibition that is both colourful and applied.
If the issue is not revisited until the public's patience snaps, we could find that the only winners will be commercial advertising companies and Government coffers. Advertisement companies charge commercial rates for commercial hoardings, plus VAT at 21 per cent. Well-heeled candidates may be the winners if allowed to buy votes with smart advertising campaigns. Democracy may be the only loser. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr NIAMH BHREATHNACH, Anglesea Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Last week, in a letter you kindly published, I suggested that Fine Gael needs to find its Christian Democratic credentials if it wants to appeal to the electorate at the next general election.
This advice comes from a semi-objective stance in that I want to see the present government out of office. I am not a member of Fine Gael and I should like to take this opportunity to advise Labour, because a strong rainbow coalition combining these two major parties (with the Greens or Independents) can offer the public a real choice at the polls.
What Labour needs to do is to shift substantially to the left, to take ground from under Sinn Féin and to counter the FF/PD Government which is sitting firmly and comfortably (despite Ahern) on the radical right.
If Labour articulated a Christian socialist vision and argued, for example, that capital gains tax should be slightly raised from its present low of 20 per cent to 25 per cent for public services such as health, I believe an understanding electorate would vote the party into power and we wouldn't have the case of a man leaving his trolley in a hospital corridor to go to the toilet and coming back to find it no longer vacant. - Yours, etc.,
Dr STEPHEN J. COSTELLO, Foster Avenue, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin.