Sir, - I am a 17-year-old "young person" who, maybe unusually, has every intention of taking part in the political process. In a couple of months I will be entitled to vote, to take part in the running of the country and to have the dubious honour of having various political parties vying for my vote, or so it should be. Instead I am faced with a political system that forgets me, leaves me with little choice and little that appeals to me.
Perhaps I should pledge my allegiance to one of the two biggest parties - Fianna Fail or Fine Gael - but what kind of choice is that. They are two parties left over from a time long before I was born, associated with a treaty that has no effect on my life. Thirty years ago when my parents turned 18 they voted for whoever their parents voted for. Parties were and still are linked with the civil war and a treaty that no longer exists and really has no relevance to me. These parties hold nothing for me; they seem to be chameleons, changing their policies whimsically to conform with whatever the general public is seen to support. They have no values, no good qualities and it seems I cannot trust them to carry out their policies if they do get into government as they prefer to follow the "suggestions" of the upstanding businessmen with the brown envelopes.
Alternatively I can vote for a smaller party such as Labour or the PDs. The problem is that I can see no huge difference between any of the parties and as such cannot see myself voting for any one over any other. Perhaps they need to know what it is that I as a "young person" want from a political party. I want a party that serves me and not money, a party that actually has opinions and policies and sticks to them. Is it too much to ask for the Dail to include men of principle who will act on what they believe to be right and on what they have been elected to do rather then on what they think the public wants or believes at the time? Is it too much to ask that politicians be totally transparent in their dealings and totally free from any suspicion of corruption? What I would like to see is the parties at least trying to have separate and different policies that give a choice to the electorate. At the moment it seems that the role of opposition parties is very negative; they see their job as pointing out every single fault in every other party be they political, personal or irrelevant. This atmosphere of negative politics should be replaced by a positive one in which parties look at themselves and fix there own problems before engaging in games of allegation and counter allegation.
Before I vote for the first time I want to ask the politicians of this country why I should vote for them, why they would be a good choice for representing my views in the Dail. Perhaps it is time for a new party to emerge; perhaps it is too late to reform existing parties, but unless something is done I may end up going the way of many people in my age group and simply not vote. Maybe idealism is dead in this country but if things change, I can still imagine a forward-looking, well-run, tolerant and modern Ireland. - Yours, et.c,
Brian Dolan, Templeogue, Dublin,