Madam, - John O'Donoghue should be congratulated for the entertainment offered by his recent outburst against Pat Rabbitte (Opinion & Analysis, July 21st). It is a rare sight indeed to see a Fianna Fáil politician take the high moral ground and demand explanations from others for their past sins.
Mr O'Donoghue claims that Fianna Fáil deserves the credit for implementing the fiscal corrections after 1987 which helped to overcome a sustained economic crisis. He carefully ignores Fianna Fáil's central role in provoking this economic crisis in the first place. Has the Minister forgotten that it was a Fianna Fáil government which trebled the national debt between 1977 and 1981? Perhaps he hopes that nobody will remember how Charles Haughey told the nation in 1979 that we were living beyond our means - and then did nothing about it until 1987, despite two terms as Taoiseach in the meantime.
But most entertaining of all is the Minister's denunciation of Pat Rabbitte for allegedly opposing "fiscal restraint". This is exactly what Fianna Fáil did in opposition between 1982 and 1987, when Mr Haughey opposed any attempt by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition to reduce the spiralling levels of public debt.
The Minister accuses Pat Rabbitte of subscribing to "a revisionist/amnesiac school of history". Ironically, this is a perfect summary of the Minister's own contribution, which is a mixture of selective historical analysis and political abuse. Rewriting history is a difficult business and John O'Donoghue shows little aptitude for it. - Yours, etc,
JOHN WALSH,
Dunshaughlin,
Co Meath.
Madam, - Beneath the craggy exterior of John O'Donoghue lies the soul of an unfulfilled investigative archaeologist. This latter-day Indiana Jones from Iveragh leaps from decade to decade like one of our indigenous wild mountain goats, in search of the fossilised (left) footprints of the Great Irish Rabbitte. Surely, however, he might be better employed, in his day job as Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, in defending the heritage of Ireland against the earth-moving excesses of his colleague, the Minister for Environmental Annihilation, Dick Roche. - Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CONNELL,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.