Madam, - The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, obviously isn't adept at figures. During a recent tetchy exchange with reporters, in which she was protesting that the Government didn't con the electorate at the last election, she proclaimed: "Nobody is voting for Fine Gael anyway" (The Irish Times, June 5th).
Evidently she has returned subconsciously to the Fianna Fáil fold from whence she came. This couldn't be Mary Harney, the leader of the PDs speaking, could it? Is she really telling us that Fine Gael, with 31 seats and over 420,000 first preference votes at its absolute worst, has nobody voting for it?
Where does that leave the PDs? Their tremendously successful election consisted of getting back the four seats, with 4 per cent of the vote and 60,000 votes, that they lost last time round. Before that, Mary Harney had already lost two deputies who defected from her party under her leadership. She clearly still has some lost ground to make up.
Has being in power for so long put her so out of touch with reality that she can sneer at a party with many times more voters than she'll ever have? Is mise,
TONY SEXTON,
Killarney Road,
Macroom,
Co Cork.