Sir, - Eamon Gilmore TD's defence of the present electoral system (January 17th) is based on an out-of-date concept of the rights of citizens to approach TDs to enlist their help to get their entitlements to pensions and grants and to deal with injustice and unfairness.
It is, of course, necessary that all citizens have a fall-back in dealing with a sometimes obdurate bureaucracy. Has Mr Gilmore overlooked the fact that we now have an Ombudsman and citizens information bureaux with a specific remit to deal with virtually all complaints of personal injustice at the hands of officialdom?
Unfortunately, many TDs encourage their constituents to bring their problems to them in order to induce a dependency culture. TDs can only obtain benefits to which constituents are entitled. They can, on occasion, obtain for their supplicants unfair preference over others.
As a former colleague of Mr Gilmore, I can vouch for his abilities as a parliamentarian and it saddens me that he has to spend so much of his time dealing with constituency matters at the expense of his legislative duties.
I believe that the bones of the Government's proposal of a combination of single-seat constituencies with party lists and a reduction in the number of TDs represents a major improvement on our present system. It certainly will produce a Dail which is a mirror image of the votes cast for each party while at the same time giving a fair crack of the whip to independent candidates.
Let the debate continue! - Yours, etc., Roger Garland,
Butterfield Drive, Dublin 14.