Sir, - Fintan O'Toole has done it again. Spot on - nail hit dead centre on head. Of course Dana won't get nominated. Our democratic electoral system will see to that. Maybe that's a good thing - maybe it's a good idea that presidential candidates can be nominated only by people who themselves have been elected by the people.
However, as a regular reader of his column, I do detect an anti-Catholic bias which seems to be developing, like a festering sore, into a neurosis. When he allows that neurosis to shape his writing, then professional detachment, which is the sine qua non of respected commentators, is lost.
To describe the thousands of young people who enthusiastically applauded and sang at the Pope's Youth Mass in Galway as "happy-clappy fundamentalists" betrays a difficulty in empathising with the idealism and generosity of youth. To sneer at Eamon Casey and Michael Cleary in the same context is unworthy and churlish.
To suggest that the Catholic "hardline orthodox" (aka "fundamentalists") could gather support from a third of the electorate is surely the ravings of their election agent. Is he trying to frighten the life out of ordinary, committed Catholics who cringe at the antics of the "fundamentalists'?
Perhaps Fintan might benefit from a re-evaluation of his personal philosophy. Or is he just following orders? - Yours, etc.,
Kevin Healy,
Hampstead Avenue, Dublin 9.