Sir, - The Progressive Democrats' decision to endorse the nomination of Mary McAleese for President scuttles forever the myth of the PDs as a serious liberal party in the European mode.
European liberals are about pluralism and freedom of choice. Ms McAleese is the personification of a Catholic, nationalist ethos. Her pedigree would make her an excellent Catholic President for a Catholic Ireland. She has no liberal agenda. She has not championed feminist issues in the past 20 years. She has not lifted a finger to reform repressive social legislation.
On the contrary, when the Vatican condemned artificially assisted fertilisation techniques such as the test-tube baby procedure known as IVF in 1987, she acted as its mouthpiece on information videos and cassettes. Fortunate to be a young mother herself at the time, she lectured childless couples on the alleged evils of revolutionary reproductive methods as seen from the perspective of celibate men in Rome.
In view of this, her credibility as a serious presidential candidate to represent an emerging modern, European secular State is fundamentally flawed.
In a cynical act of political back-scratching the PDs have buried themselves once and for all. The price of high office is loss of integrity. Mary Harney has sold her political soul.
The PDs will melt into Fianna Fail. The name McAleese will resound as the shortest suicide note in Irish political history. - Yours, etc.,
Tonlegee Road, Dublin 5.