Sinn Féin's byelection move

Madam, – Surely it’s rank hypocrisy for Sinn Féin (Home News, October 20th) to claim that the absence of one TD in a multi-seat…

Madam, – Surely it’s rank hypocrisy for Sinn Féin (Home News, October 20th) to claim that the absence of one TD in a multi-seat constituency constitutes a democratic deficit when their own elected MPs in Northern Ireland, each the sole representative in a single-seat constituency, refuse to take their seats at Westminster? – Yours, etc,

PETER MOLLOY,

Haddington Park,

Glenageary,

Co Dublin.

A chara, – In the midst of the gravest crisis in the economic independence of this country, our Government is using taxpayers’ money to selfishly delay moving the writ for the Donegal South-West byelection, opposing a High Court challenge by Sinn Féin’s Senator Pearse Doherty.

Essentially we have a self-styled republican party in government, which as a party has served more times in office than any other since the foundation of the State, defending the disfranchisement of a proportion of our electorate against an action brought by a political party which less than 30 years previously, had refused to even recognise the legitimacy of the Dáil in this country. Our country truly is at sea. – Is mise,

ERIC CREAN,

Shandon Gardens,

Phibsborough,

Dublin 7.