Madam, - If an answer given to a tribunal question is, according to a tribunal judge, a "polar opposite" of an earlier one, does this mean that one or both of these answers are, in the words of General Alexander Haig, a "terminological inexactitude" or a "tactical misrepresentation"?
- Yours, etc,
EOGHAN O CÉIRÍN, Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare.
Madam, - You always know Fianna Fáil is rattled when you see the bluster machine cranked up to full speed. We saw it before the election when the party talked up the economy, the growth in employment and the housing market. Six months later they are looking like a house of cards.
We find that the jobs growth is mainly in temporary and public service jobs (which destroys jobs in the real economy), the housing market is in free fall and the stock market is suffering the worst decline in Europe.
Now they are at it again, trying to salvage something from the wreck of Bertie's finances. The initial salvoes were fired by Minister Cowen with a cringe-making plea for the sympathy vote, a case of going to the well too often. Then we had the rent-a-letter mob attacking everything but the culprit, from the tribunal to the media, with allegations that nobody takes seriously. Even the election result was clutched at as an endorsement, ignoring the fact that two-thirds of the respondents in pre- and post-election polls found that Bertie was wrong to accept money. And of course we had the saviour of the west, Groucho O'Dea, whose contribution was as useful as an ashtray on a bicycle.
Might I proffer a bit of advice which might be helpful to Fianna Fáil and the taxpayer? Fire half of your spin doctors, try a little humility and talk to the German Ambassador, one of the few people who tells it as it is.
- Yours, etc,
JOHN WHELAN, Shankill, Dublin 18