Last week your paper published an article under the headline "FG Distance Itself from Claim Unions Caused Recession". There are two errors in this headline that are continued in the article itself. One, Fine Gael did not say that the unions caused the recession, and two, Fine Gael didn't distance itself from the politician central to the article, our front bench spokesman on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD. I can personally vouch for the second issue as I spoke to the journalist in question, who in fairness to him, accurately reported my comments only to see the article ignore the content of my remarks. Anyone who read the remarks I offered in relation to the article would see that they in no way constituted a "distancing" of the party from Varadkar.

Leo Varadkar has on numerous occasions cited the role of Fianna Fáil, banks and big developers in contributing to the recession. He has also highlighted the unions' role, both business and workers, through a social partnership model that has signed off on policies we opposed like benchmarking and Fianna Fáil's version of decentralisation in contributing to a high cost, low performance government.

Ciaran Conlon,

Communications Director,

Fine Gael