Madam, - Michael McDowell said at the weekend that, "when it comes to the next election, we shouldn't do what the people of Germany did in the 1930s when they elected to office people that liked having it both ways - the Brownshirts and the Nazis which were a threat to democracy".
May I remind Mr McDowell, that it was the FF/PD coalition which let the genie out of the bottle in the first place by promoting Sinn Féin within the peace process and allowing more moderate parties like the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists to diminish?
Why only now are the PDs and Fianna Fáil trying to put the genie back into the bottle? Is Mr McDowell's current wishful thinking based on political reality, or on political manoeuvering? Sinn Féin is not alone in having it both ways. - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN GILLEN, (Fine Gael Local Elections Candidate), Northbrook Walk, Dublin 6.