McDowell challenged on Rainbow option

PD leader Michael McDowell recently declared his party would not join or support a government as “unstable or incoherent” as one involving Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens, saying he believed a second election would be preferable to the establishment of a non-viable Rainbow government.

I would like to ask Mr McDowell three questions:

1. Are we to understand that if the PDs joining such a government were the only solution to not having Sinn Féin in power, would he stand aside and let possible former terrorists into government?

2. When he was a member of Fine Gael, did he have such a pessimistic view of the party entering government with Labour, and would he have considered the inter-party governments of 1948 and 1954 as “unstable and incoherent?”

3. If a second election were held, as he would prefer, exactly which voters would be required to vote differently from their preferences in the original election?

Denis Hurley

Kilbrittain

Co Cork.