Madam, - In his attack on the anti-bin-tax campaign, Martin Mansergh (Opinion, October 4th) resorts to the old ploy of painting "militant socialism" as something coming from abroad, specifically, from Britain, something to be feared and distrusted by Irish workers. He then conjures up the spectre of Ireland losing its "hard-won sovereignty, and economic policy, foreign and defence policy" to "the far left in London".
Senator Mansergh seemingly has no such worries about Ireland's economic policies being decided in the board-rooms of multinational corporations or of Ireland's foreign and defence policy during the invasion of Iraq being decided by George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
It was precisely against this calculating use of the rhetoric of nationalism by establishment figures that James Connolly argued in his pamphlet Socialism Made Easy: "Socialism is a foreign importation! I know it because I read it in the papers. . .In Ireland socialism is an English importation, in England they are convinced it was made in Germany, in Germany it is a scheme of traitors in alliance with the French. . ." - Yours, etc.,
ORLA DROHAN, Salem House, Rathmines, Dublin 6.