Senator should get away from civil war politics

I FIND the comments by Fine Gael Senator Liam Twomey concerning the oration by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan at Béal na mBláth rather strange and out of place in the Ireland of today (Irish Examiner, August 12).

I have never understood how Fine Gael can lay a special claim to Michael Collins in the first place.

If memory serves me, Fine Gael was founded in 1933, but Collins was killed in 1922.

I say “killed” rather than the emotive “murdered” as used by the senator. There was a civil war going on and, unfortunately, people do get killed.

Does the senator also imply that people killed by the pro-Treaty side were “murdered”?

We taxpayers might be better off if instead of trying desperately to raise the old red herring of civil war politics, Senator Twomey utilsed his time and talents to tackle the real issues confronting all of us in this state, such as:

*450,000+ offically unemployed.

* Countless thousands now in negative equity.

* Massive emigration.

* Citizens who are broke and demoralised.

* Society going to hell in a handcart due to dug abuse, gangland killings, suicides and a general malaise now ingrained in our national spirit.

Senator Twomey should get on with what we are paying him very well to do and not try to deflect us from the realities that afflict our nation.

Civil War politics has given us two moribund political parties in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

I don’t think that was quite the legacy Michael Collins would have had in mind for Ireland today.

Denis Moloney

Tinkers Hill

Macroom

Co Cork