Your article 'The Partitioning of Sinn Féin' (News, 14 July) raises some interesting issues about the apparent schizophrenia at the heart of republicanism today, but it is a shame to confine oneself to the contradictions in one political party. Fianna Fáil's attitude to a variety of issues is at least as conflicted. Éamon Ó Cuív, its minister for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs, is a prime example. Whilst proclaiming himself champion of the Irish language, he is interfering in language organisations all over the county, regardless of the efficacy of their work. Fianna Fáil signed both the Good Friday and the St Andrews agreements on behalf of the government of the Republic of Ireland, yet paid only lip service to pushing the British government to do what it signed up to for Irish speakers. Ó Cuív now seems poised to dismantle altogether the Good Friday provisions for Irish. His frustration at the bureaucratic Foras na Gaeilge is understandable. So is his anger about the various unionist culture ministers he has been left to deal with, from Micheal McGimpsey to Gregory Campbell via Edwin Poots; they have gone from bad to worse. But in threatening to direct funding towards a 20-year plan (now so late it is a 19-year plan) that does not and cannot encompass the whole of the island, he is disenfranchising northern Irish speakers even more.

Or does he intend that his plan will cover the whole island? If so, it means that the Irish government alone will foot the bill, leaving the British government to shrug off their responsibilities again. Fine, if ongoing and adequate Irish government funding is a guaranteed outcome for Irish-language groups all over the country. If it is not, his approach is reckless and partitionist, however he might like to spin it.

D Ní Mhaoláin,

Béal Feirste, Coe Aontroim.