Sir, - I was very disappointed by the tone of Nuala Ahern's letter (January 6th). It has all the hallmarks of a very worried woman facing a very uncertain European election on June 11th. She has every right to be worried.
An examination of the results of the 1994 European election reveals that she was a very lucky woman. Ms Ahern managed to take a seat with a mere 11 per cent of the vote. And she managed to do so only with the help of a large transfer from Sinn Fein and the Labour Party. Had the Labour party adopted a strategy of running one candidate rather than two, Ms Ahern would not be in the European Parliament today.
Monica Barnes, who proved her vote-getting ability by winning a Dail seat in Dun Laoghaire in the June 1997 general election, won 29,958 votes on the first count in the Euro election, a mere 1,000 votes behind Ms Ahern. I secured almost 43,000 votes, bringing the FG total to 73,000, or 28 per cent of the vote.
Drapier (The Irish Times, January 2nd) was therefore entirely right to speculate that the taking of two seats is well within Fine Gael's grasp in June. Senator Doyle, if she is selected, will be a strong candidate and her high profile throughout Leinster must be an awesome prospect for Ms Ahern, whose work record pales in comparison.
Ms Ahern's comments on my political affiliations were unseemly. As president of the IFA, I never declared any political affiliations, in line with the strict guidelines of the association. The only party I agreed to stand for - and subsequently won a European seat for - was Fine Gael. Over the next number of months each candidate will be showing their work record in the European Parliament over the past five years. On that basis, Ms Ahern's luck is likely to run out. - Yours, etc., Alan Gillis, MEP,
European Parliament Office, Dublin 2.