Unite parties to save nation

“Does it make any sense to have the major political parties tussling for power where, for so long, the width of a sheet of tissue paper scarcely separated their policies?” Bill O’Herlihy asked in his oration yesterday at Béal na mBláth.

“How much more progress, how much more reform, would be possible if senseless old historical divisions were eliminated from our politics?”

Mr O’Herlihy said he was fascinated by the recent suggestion of former Fianna Fáil deputy leader Mary O’Rourke that it was time for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to come together.