Sir, – As an "undecided voter", I have been reluctant to place a number beside the names of Independent candidates at election times. I listened to the reasonable arguments that stability was required to get this country back on its feet. I have been reading about the Garda whistleblowers in The Irish Times recently and it occurs to me that if we had no Independent TDs in the Dáil, the honourable gentlemen Maurice McCabe and John Wilson would be pariahs in their communities, rather than heroes. Independent TDs have done those men and this country a great service. So, this Friday, I am going to set aside my thoughts about "stability" and opt for honour and integrity instead. – Yours, etc,
JOHN O’CONNOR,
Grange Park Road,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – Reading recent letters on this page, one could be forgiven for thinking that voters view the colour of cable ties and low-hanging posters as the most important political issues of our time.
Why are local issues, like county plans, council budgets and local amenities, not discussed at election time? How many voters know how much their council spent last year? Why don’t voters know which services are provided and controlled by our local councils and which services are outside the remit of our local representatives? If these issues are not debated at election time, then how is the voter to make an informed decision?
We live in a democracy and we are expected to vote. However, whose responsibility is it to ensure that voters aren’t kept in the dark? Is it time to appoint an electoral commission, to take charge of the proper running of elections? – Yours, etc,
JIM COTTER,
Aylmer Close,
Kilcock,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – I would estimate that 82 per cent of people are sick to death of having to read opinion polls every other week. Please stop producing polls so often. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN CARTY,
St Johns,
Sandymount,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I am 83 years old and this is the first time in all the years I have had a vote that I could not care less about who gets elected to either the local councils or the European Parliament.
This indifference has been brought on by a recent letter from the HSE requesting income details from me and my wife to check if we continue to qualify for the medical card. The HSE want details of our small private pensions, our old-age pension and any income from savings and investments. I have no problem with that and I am resigned to the fact that we will lose our medical card. However, what galls me is the mean-spirited way the HSE has gone about calculating eligibility. It is based on one’s gross income and no allowance is made for the fact that the State has already dipped into our income and deducted income tax, the PRSI levy and the universal social charge. In the event that one might be naive enough to assume eligibility would be calculated on one’s net income, the HSE use a heavy black typeface in its correspondence to highlight that it is one’s gross income on which they want details. To rub it in we now have the property tax to contend with, and to add to our misery the water tax will be an addition in the near future. And to cap it all we are hit with a 41 per cent Dirt tax on the miserly interest on our savings. It means that our gross income is stripped down to its bare bones by the Government but it is on the gross sum our eligibility will be calculated.
I fully appreciate that there are many far less well-off than I am who are struggling to keep afloat .
A Fine Gael voter all my adult life, as were my parents before me since the formation of the State, I regret to say that the party comes across as being out of touch with the concerns of those on low incomes or none. The party is heading for a kick up the arse by the very same people that ditched Fianna Fáil at the last election. I could well be the leader of the pack! – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN M REDMOND,
Hazelbrook Road,
Terenure, Dublin 6w.
Sir, – Ruadhán Mac Cormaic’s article states that voting in the Republic’s general elections is restricted to Irish citizens (“Parties criticised for not reaching out to migrant groups”, Home News, May 20th). Not so. Irish-resident British citizens are also enfranchised. This migrant group is of the order of 2.5 per cent of the population. – Yours, etc,
GRAHAM HULL,
Glendree,
Feakle,
Co Clare.
Sir, – Here’s hoping that before people vote in the European elections, they will have read Fintan O’Toole (“Elections a chance to claim back sense of national dignity”, Opinion & Analysis, May 20th). – Yours, etc,
N BROWN,
Woodbrook Park,
Templeogue, Dublin 16.
Sir, – According to an Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll (Home News, May 20th), 59 per cent of Sinn Féin voters believe Gerry Adams was in the IRA. So why do a majority of Sinn Féin voters demonise the police for believing the same? – Yours, etc,
NIALL GINTY,
The Demesne,
Killester, Dublin 5.
Sir, – Noirín Clancy, Claire McGing and Fiona Buckley of the “50 50 Group” are correct to conclude that the rise in the number of female candidates in the local elections from 17 per cent in 2009 to just 22 per cent this year is disappointing considering the sharp focus which has been given to this issue in recent years (“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have lowest percentage of female local election candidates”, Home News, May 16th). However, the reasons they give for the lack of progress are based on generalisations rather than actual evidence.
They point the finger of blame squarely at the political parties, stating that “conservative party cultures” and “traditional stereotyping as regards women’s and men’s roles” lead to a situation where women are “less likely to be seen . . . as potential candidates”. Unfortunately, this theory fails to explain why the proportion of Independent candidates who are women is even lower than that of any of the political parties. According to Dr Adrian Kavanagh, the source cited in their article, just 16 per cent of Independent candidates are female, which is even less than the figure for Fianna Fáil, which stands at a very poor 17 per cent .
Clearly, cultures within the political parties cannot be to blame since Independent candidates face none of the internal selection processes or constraints that party members face in running for election. And yet the fact remains that women were far more likely to run in the local elections as a member of a political party than as an Independent.
With this 16 per cent figure in mind, is it not fair to conclude that the problem here is not that political parties are less likely to see women as potential candidates, but that women themselves hold this view?
The fact is that women remain far more reluctant than men to express an interest in running for election due to a range of reasons including the workload, family commitments, and the implications for their careers in other sectors. These issues cannot be blamed on political parties as the authors of the article attempt to do, and they will not be solved by any amount of legislation imposing gender quotas or financial penalties which blackmail political parties into running more women candidates, measures which the authors outline at length with barely concealed glee in their article.
The poor rate of participation of women in electoral politics will only improve when these underlying barriers to entering politics are addressed. Making bogeymen of the political parties and calling for further quick-fix solutions only serve to illustrate the myopia of many of the organisations which campaign on this issue. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH
Brooklawn,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Sir, – Twice in the past week I have notified the Labour Party of collapsing posters. Surely this cannot be an evil omen? – Yours, etc,
MAEVE KENNEDY,
Rathgar Avenue,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – A notable feature of the campaign has been the candidates’ emphasis on their desire to “go to Europe”, their demonstration of previous experience of “working in Europe” or of bringing certain values and ideals “to Europe”. Might I remind candidates that we are already in Europe and part of the European Union. There is no “us” and “them” and I would suggest that our aspiring parliamentarians should bear this in mind in advancing their arguments. – Yours, etc,
ANNE FITZPATRICK,
Kilcoran,
Rathdowney, Co Laois.