Sir, - Your editorial of September 30th on the Labour Party leadership contest claims that this is the "first occasion on which an Irish party has granted ordinary members the power to choose their parliamentary leader, rather than have such decisions taken by members of the Dáil and Seanad".
Not so. The Workers' Party has always chosen its party president at the party's annual Árd Fheis, even when we had seven Dáil deputies. It is indeed ironic that Mr Pat Rabbitte and Mr Eamon Gilmore left the Workers' Party because the ordinary members decided all party policy at Ard Fheis. The defectors' preference was for parliamentary party control, which is the format they opted for when they founded the now defunct Democratic Left.
There is even more irony in the possible election of Mr Rabbitte as Labour Party leader. Some of us who remained loyal to the Workers' Party correctly predicted that TDs De Rossa, Rabbitte and Gilmore would end up in the Labour Party. They angrily dismissed this at the time, using such phrases as "over my dead body" to emphasise their scorn for Labour. - Yours, etc.,
SEÁN Ó CIONNAITH, Ballymun Branch, The Workers' Party, Thomas McDonagh Tower, Dublin 9.