A chara, - The Irish media must have been watching a different interview with the Taoiseach last Saturday from the one I saw, judging by the near-hysterical reporting of what seemed to me a very off-the-cuff remark in the course of a discussion of the bye-election results. I listened to the Taoiseach talk to Tommy Gorman about the canvassing, the campaign, meeting the Coveney family, offering them congratulations, etc. Well into the interview, Mr Gorman pressed the Taoiseach on the obviously huge discrepancy between two large, official, professional opinion polls, with almost identical results, and the actual result. The main difference, of course was a statistically highly significant drop in support for Sinead Behan over a short period of a couple of days. The Taoiseach was specifically asked if he could explain this.
Like any seasoned political observer, the Taoiseach was obviously aware that the so-called "tapes controversy" was clearly one of the factors, he stated this view, and then quickly indicated that was now history and we should move on. Fair enough.
However, the manner in which this has been seized upon by many in the media to portray the Taoiseach as some sort of whingeing bad loser seeking to apportion blame elsewhere seems to me a grossly unfair misrepresentation of the actual circumstances of the interview and the replies given, which I find quite ironic given the situation they were discussing. Ah well, at least it gave another opportunity to give Fianna Fail some bad press for a change - old habits die hard, and all that. - Le meas, David Carroll,
Castle Street, Dublin 2.