Madam, - In the light of the current negotiations for government I undertook a cursory search of the archives of your newspapers. It threw up the following remarks by Trevor Sargent about the possibility of the Green Party entering a coalition with Fianna Fáil.
May 7th: "[ I could not] see any party, to be honest, accepting the moral authority which is expected of a taoiseach with Bertie Ahern in that office".
May 16th: "The people are telling us that they don't want a Fianna Fáil government back".
May 22nd: "Asking the Green Party to go into office with Fianna Fáil really does not take account of the real world" and "[ it would be] too much for party members".
I could cite many other similar quotations, but I take it the point is made.
No doubt the Greens will say they ruled nothing out or in, but the entire thrust of their election campaign was anti-Government and I, like many other anti-Government voters, I suspect, gave them a preference vote on such a basis. While a Green TD was not elected in my constituency, I would say that a number of the party's TDs were the beneficiaries of such tactical voting.
Mr Sargent seems not to have learnt from what happened in 1997 when the voters severely punished Dick Spring and Labour for performing a similar U-turn to enter coalition with Fianna Fáil in 1992. He also now seems to have forgotten his commitment to stand down as leader of the party if such an event came to pass. I suspect the voters may have longer memories than he does.
Finally, on May 20th Mr Sargent made the following remark about the idea of coalition with Fianna Fáil: "If pigs could fly I'm sure that would also make news". I wonder if, in the next few days, we are about to see a sudden increase in airborne swine? - Yours, etc,
JIM WALSH, Greencastle Road, Dublin 17.
Madam, - We have a countryside under siege, with passive county councillors approving large and small developments in any and all areas, our hedgerows being decimated, our lakes dying of eutrophication and our rivers of pollution - and to cap it all we have Government Ministers who approve the former and argue the toss about who is to blame for the latter.
The Greens would surely be better off being a constructive and honest opposition in the next Dáil rather than propping up an inept and profligate FF-led coalition. - Yours, etc,
ARTHUR DUNNE, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - As debate begins to focus on the new programme for government we would like to draw attention to the expressed commitment by all political parties to the MakeRoom campaign, aiming to end homelessness by 2010. Via this campaign, we are committed to ensuring that no-one will have to sleep rough because of lack of appropriate services, no-one will have to live in emergency accommodation for longer than is an emergency and no-one will become homeless due to a lack of services or inadequate housing provision.
MakeRoom objectives are focused around responding to what people need, including meeting existing gaps in emergency accommodation; more and better housing; support to leave homelessness; renting on a low income; proper standards in renting; and tackling poverty and preventing homelessness. The endorsement of these objectives by all political parties before the election must now be reflected in practical actions within the new programme. This is critical if the aim of ending long-term homelessness is to be achieved within the lifetime of the current Dáil. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK BURKE, CEO, Simon Communities of Ireland; DECLAN JONES, CEO, Focus Ireland; BOB JORDAN, Director, Threshold; KIERAN MURPHY, Director of Operations, Society of St Vincent De Paul.
Madam, - John Waters states (Opinion, June 11th): "It is most unlikely that even one voter voted for a FF/Greens coalition". This is certainly true, because the ballot papers offered no opportunity to express an opinion on any kind of coalition, even a FF/PD or a FG/Labour one.
But supposing the voters had been asked: "Would you prefer a FF/PD coalition or a FF/Greens coalition?", it is quite possible that a majority would have chosen the latter. It seems likely that the PDs won a lot of votes in 2002 because of their offer to keep a watch on Fianna Fáil; it is not unreasonable to believe that the Greens could also do this.
If, however, we, the voters, really want our opinion on alliances to be taken into consideration, future ballot papers should also include a list of the parties, to be numbered in order of preference. The party at the top of, say, seven parties would be given seven points, the next six, and even the party at the bottom would receive one point. (For this to be valid, all parties would have to be numbered.) By simply adding up the points for the whole country, the overall preferences of the Irish people would become clear.
The Irish expert on this and many other forms of truly democratic decision-making, Peter Emerson, will be launching his definitive book on the subject in Stormont next week. - Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER FETTES, Bloomville, Geashill, Co Offaly.