Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil make sense in coalition

I agree with your columnist Alison O’Connor (Irish Examiner, January 22) — ‘As parties jockey for pole position ahead of the general election, the outcome is far from certain’.

Being the centenary year of the 1916 Rising, the sight of a ballot sheet could be like a red rag to a bull and regurgitate in some voters a patriotic blood pressure as never before.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are the true products of that traumatic period of 1916-21 — when family fought against family and neighbour against neighbour, both believing they were for the common good. Sinn Féin would like to highjack this claim.