Sir, - I have to admit to a certain sympathy with Fianna Fail members such as Malcolm Byrne (June 8), who genuinely want the organisation to shed its tawdry skin of sleaze and concentrate on the ethos of its founders.
However, anyone glued to recent news broadcasts night waited in vain for even one Fianna Fail politician to give straightforward answers to questions posed by reporters. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, not previously known for his diplomacy, was remarkably subdued and tightlipped in his interview last Wednesday night. In fact, the only definite statement he had to make was in praise of Liam Lawlor's work for Fianna Fail over 40 years. Meanwhile, the Taoiseach had apparently spent 10 minutes on the phone to Mr Lawlor expressing his sorrow at his resignation.
In any other country the populace would take to the streets in anger, but here they retire to the nearest hostelry and moan over their chosen beverage. And that is precisely what the Government depends on. They should remember that one of the reasons on which they were elected was the policy of "zero tolerance". But as we now have a thriving crime rate there should be no surprise that zero tolerance was never meant to apply to the Government that initiated it. - Yours, etc.,
Desmond Graham, Collins Avenue East, Dublin 5.