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IT IS difficult to convey to a younger generation the confluence of significant events which led to the formation of a new political party, the Progressive Democrats, almost a quarter of a century ago. It is impossible today to convey the engagement which its founding fathers - Des O'Malley, Mary Harney, Michael McDowell, Bobby Molloy and others - had with the electorate at public meetings.

 For those of us who recall those times, it is still chilling to imagine what political life might have been like without them: if there weren't those tribunals to investigate corrupt payments to politicians, or if there was one-party government over those years. The PDs did the State some service even if they were villified as a party. But it is time to stand them down.