Fine Gael lost out in election hunt
In his letter to your paper (March 7), Richard Power suggests the proposed ban on stag hunting caused minimal, if any, damage to the Fine Gael vote in its pursuit of a majority.
He based that assumption on the small number of protesters at the annual coursing event in Clonmel.
Perhaps Mr Power would check out the Fine Gael website prior to the week of the election and read the large number of hits from concerned people who stated they had intended voting for the party prior to the ban but unlike Mr Power could not, in conscience, do so.
Numerous comments were also posted on a number of welfare sites throughout the week. Your own journalist Ian O'Doherty expressed the views of many potential Fine Gael voters in his article, 'Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory' (Irish Independent, February 17).
The Greens were not consigned to the history books for their stance on animal welfare. Their fate was sealed by their acquiescence to Fianna Fail's policies which brought this country to its knees.
Mr Power, it would appear, supports this so-called sport. Mark Twain is most apt in his description of this writer and his ilk when he said: "Of all the creatures ever born, man is the most despicable of the brood; he inflicts pain knowing it to be pain and calls it sport".
John Daly
Arklow, Co Wicklow
Irish Independent
