A chara, - Maire Fox (October 9th) urges us to vote for Mary Banotti. Why? Not because of any of her innate qualities (and I agree she has many), but because, by accident of birth, she happens to be a descendent of Michael Collins. If there's one thing that plagues Irish political life, it's this streak of nepotism and ancestor-worship that runs through it - such as the ludicrous belief by people that the offspring of elderly TDs should inherit their seats. The Dail has many such people, some capable in their own right, but others whose occasional idiotic utterances betray the fact that they could only have got where they are due to their party's willingness to play along with this foible of Irish life. It's quite an irony that we threw off one system of government which believes in inherited power - monarchy - only to invent one of our own. - Is mise,
Castle Street, Dublin 2.