Government playing ‘politics of fear’, says TD

The Government are playing politics of fear by warning of a threat to the economy from political instability, Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy has said.

Responding to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan's comparison of Ireland with Portugal, Ms Murphy said it represented "the politics of fear when a lot of people want the politics of hope".

On Saturday Mr Noonan said “voters should look to Portugal if they want to see how political instability leads to economic instability”. Portugal experienced an inconclusive election last October and has experienced lower than expected economic growth.

Ms Murphy, whose party’s support has climbed from 1 per cent to 4 per cent in the latest Red C poll, said people are more concerned with social issues and fairness in this election than in 2011.

"They want the political system to work on things that are important like a health service they can depend on, like the homelessness crisis," said the Kildare North TD on Monday's Irish Times Inside Politics podcast. Green party leader Eamon Ryan and Renua TD Billy Timmins were also on the panel.

Mr Ryan said Labour and Fine Gael had been "too clever by half in terms of promising too much in a slightly cynical way that the electorate are not buying" and that the authority of Government Ministers had been diminished by the promises they have made since the start of the campaign.

“I don’t think people really believe them now, there are so many promises. We’re going to give you x amount for childcare and we’re going to give you more pay and we’re going to give you more less tax,” said Mr Ryan, who is a candidate in Dublin Bay South.

Mr Ryan repeated his criticism of RTÉ for excluding the Green Party from tonight's 7-way leaders debate, saying criteria other than Dáil seats, such as total votes in the last election, number of candidates running or performance in other elections should be considered.

“We were the fifth largest party in the last local and European elections on that criteria we would be in the debate,” he said, calling RTÉ’s approach “the same old way of doing it”.

Billy Timmins of Renua stated that a stable government would be formed following the election "irrespective of what the result is". "Politicians across the board are responsible people. They saw the chaos in the early 1980s, they don't want to return to that and there won't be return to it," the Wicklow TD said.

“There’s a big swing vote out there still to be played for and I would hope we in Renua can capture our fair share of us in the week ahead”. Support for Renua remains at 1 per cent according to the same Red C poll.

Ms Murphy said that “variety in politics” was necessary to prevent the groupthink that led to the economic crisis. “If you look at the most stable political time, it was between 1997 and 2007 and it was followed by a crash. So variety in politics is quite a good thing”.