Madam, - Fintan O'Toole, writing about the Shannon pull-out, made the point that people get what they vote for (Opinion, August 14th). Sadly, the opposite can also be also true.
Mary Harney is pushing ahead with the hospital co-location policy, despite the absence of public endorsement. This is a classic PD initiative to Bostonise our way of life. But the voters routed the PDs at the election. She has a mandate from her own constituency, just as Jackie Healy-Rae has from his, on purely local issues; but she has no mandate from the rest of us. I do not believe it is Fianna Fáil policy either; they just let her on with it, in the absence of any ideas of their own.
Can we voters not call a halt to this un-mandated privatisation-by-stealth of the health service, before we are cut adrift from Europe and continue our drift to the stony shores of Americay? We have suffered the ongoing debacle of the privatisation of our telecom system, and of our erstwhile national air transport system. Please stop "co-location" before it is too late and our children have to live and die with the consequences. - Yours, etc,
JOHN O'RIORDAN, Hillside, Dalkey, Co Dublin.