Sir, - Vincent Browne (August 28th) reminds us that Ruairi Quinn asked a friend to get Independent Newspapers to commission a poll on Quinn's popularity compared to Brendan Howlin's at the time of the Labour leadership contest. Your columnist apparently thinks that this was some sort of wrong-doing on Quinn's part. It is a contrived argument. Quinn merely wanted to find out and show how Howlin and himself stood with the public. Was that a crime?
Your columnist then had a go at Howlin "whose handling of the hepatitis debacle was controversial". The use of the word "controversial" in this sort of context is, of course, a device to cast an aspersion without making a direct accusation. I would remind your readers that Howlin was probably the second best health minister (after Noel Browne) since the inception of the state. I shudder to think how Vincent Browne would berate our present health minister for his ineptitude if Brian Cowen were a member of the Labour Party.
The idea that Labour members would be influenced by the poll in question is in any case highly debatable. The party obtains only a minority of votes at election time and it follows that most people are either hostile or at best indifferent to it. Members of the party would have been unwise in these circumstances to allow themselves to be influenced by the poll.
While Vincent Browne hits the nail on the head most of the time, he has a weakness for cleverality which sometimes serves chicanery rather than truth. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Williams, Goldenbridge Ave, Dublin 8.