Madam, - Garret FitzGerald (Opinion, June 26th) and Denis Rodgers (Letters, June 28th) have rightly drawn attention to the great damage being done to our society as a result of Fianna Fáil allowing itself to be ruled by the PDs.
It is high time that the real nature of what has been going on in Irish politics was analysed by commentators and political scientists. They (and we) seem to have a tendency to be distracted by the superficialities and personalities of politics, while extraordinary, unwanted, democratically unwarranted transformations of our society are effected under our very noses.
The electorate has suffered because of the dangerous symbiosis of the two Government parties. Fianna Fáil craves the mere exercise of power under any circumstances or conditions, effectively without reference to any consistent or sustained policy, aims or purposes. The PDs have rushed into the policy vacuum with cogent ideas grounded in inequality and selfishness.
As a result, Fianna Fáil - on both front and back benches - acts as lobby fodder for extreme policies which are deplored by a large majority of the electorate.
In the Dáil in 1993 the founder of the PDs memorably described the formation of the then government as a "perversion of the will of the people". The policies of the present Government could hardly be better described in the context of a social democratic electorate like ours.
We badly need a reversion to the politics of social solidarity. - Yours, etc.,
HUGO BRADY BROWN,
Stratford on Slaney
Co Wicklow.