Fianna Fáil must remember power can’t come at any price Fine Gael is happy to stand with Sinn Féin when it suits

POWER at any price is not a good idea. When I am reading the coercive words of Colette Browne (‘Fianna Fáil can slink off to lick its wounds – or help deliver what the country wants’, Comment, February 12) to Fianna Fáil and its voters, which were basically along the lines of ‘take one for the team, mumble an apology to Breege Quinn, avoid the Olivers when you next see them, set your moral compass spinning’, I think ‘yet another supposedly educated person who doesn’t know the simple difference between wrong and right’.

If the foundation of government is built on moral quicksand, the whole structure will become toxic very quickly.

And that’s not giving Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael a free pass. They need to take a long, hard look at their calibre of candidate, their work on the ground and their policies. That long, hard look needs to be done in opposition, which is an essential component of functional democracy. I have to admire Leo Varadkar’s clarity of thought and unequivocal “no means no”. M Matthews

Dunleer, Co Louth

THEY say a country gets the leaders, politicians, etc, it deserves. On that basis no one can complain about the electoral success of Sinn Féin. It’s called the will of the people.

Fine Gael is assuming the moral highground, and grandiosely declared it would never countenance going into government with Sinn Féin. Yet backtrack a few short years to the abortion referendum and what did we see? Fine Gael and Sinn Féin (and indeed most of the establishment parties) regularly appeared together in total unison; absolute ideological bedfellows.

It’s strange the issues that unite some people. So it seems Fine Gael and Sinn Féin have more in common than the former, at least, would care to admit. Eric Conway

Navan, Co Meath