Madam, - Patrick Shaffrey's letter (September 25th) in which he laments "the absence of an adequate strategic and integrated planning approach" is indeed timely. He mentions some of the resultant difficulties facing the country and says that political parties should address our lack of clear planning policies.
I strongly suspect that he knows that they will not do this as long as the present system exists whereby politicians are elected to the Dáil to represent the interests of voters in small geographic entities (constituencies). This system results in those who should be acting in the interests of the whole country depend for their political livelihood on solving local problems.
It is clear that while this situation continues integrated planning cannot exist. What is required is a complete remodelling of our political system to facilitate this integration. There must be plenty of people qualified to devise a better system but it seems they are not being asked to even try. - Yours, etc,
TOMÁS O'BEIRNE, Sussex Road, Dublin 4.