Sir, - Vincent Browne's article (July 18th) looked promising. This, I thought might be an interesting analysis of present day Irish politics. Alas, three-quarters way through, he opted for a facile, superficial attack on Ruair∅ Quinn and his way of making speeches as the reason for Labour's lack of electoral success. At this stage what might have developed into a serious examination of current Irish politics and its very peculiar state fell flat on its face.
I suppose one can hardly expect anything better from a writer who seems of late to criticise political parties in inverse proportion to their faults and shortcomings. In other words - go easy on Fianna Fβil, criticise Fine Gael twice as much and reserve your strongest criticism for Labour. It does not seem to occur to members of the Vincent Browne school of journalism that Labour is the only one of these three parties which has received virtually no largesse from builders or land developers.
If we are to have a proper debate on the present curious state of Irish politics might I throw in a few "non-Vincent Browne" ideas? It is a commonly accepted fact that most Irish working-class people do not regard politics as a left versus right process. This has led to a situation where we are probably about the only country in Europe which has never had a government of the left. People on the right regard this as a good thing, people on the left believe the contrary. We are now being told that we have the worst health system in the EU. Is this purely a coincidence? - Yours, etc.,
Tom Williams, Goldenbridge Avenue, Dublin 8.