We need a new plan for the nation and Oireachtas has talent to deliver it

Victoria White’s article on the alternatives now facing us (Irish Examiner 20 November) is a strange mixture of honesty and naivety.

Her anger at specific examples of this Government’s incompetence in treating all the children of our nation equally is well stated. However her praise for our peaceful acceptance of the EU Troika diktat, which maintains our client state status, is inexplicable. Continuing in this vein, Ms White seems to suggest we have a dominant “peace” gene in our national DNA. Thus she blithely ignores 800 years of our history, the defining Proclamation of 1916 and subsequent events.

Suggesting that we are now on the verge of some form of coup d’état triggered by balloons filled with water is ridiculous. This state is firm in its democratic institutions. The problem lies with those who are in charge of the levers of power. The prevarication of the Fianna Fáil Government at the time and the lack of leadership during the crisis in the North in 1969, to which Ms White refers, is a perfect example.