THE MAIN contest in the forthcoming byelections in Dublin Central and Dublin South would be between Labour and Fine Gael, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore told a news conference in Dublin yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of his party’s local election manifesto, “Getting Communities Working”, he was asked what advice he would give Labour voters about the disposal of their second and subsequent preferences in the local and European elections as well as the byelections.
“We’ll be advising people to use their transfers to vote against the Government,” Mr Gilmore said. Did this mean Fine Gael? “It will vary from constituency to constituency, the configuration of candidates will be different.” Giving his assessment of the public mood he said: “People are going to use the opportunity on June 5th to express a very strong opinion about the way in which Fianna Fáil has been mismanaging our country, the deep hole that they have brought us into economically, the fumbling that they have been engaged in and how they’ve not been able to get us out and one decision seems to be worse than the other.
“It’s one policy one week and it’s another policy the next week. And I think in some respects the contest in the elections on June 5th will be a contest about the alternative.
“In relation to the byelections, and as we see the selection of candidates progressing, the contest will be a contest between Fine Gael and Labour as to which alternative people are going to opt for.” He continued: “I am confident that we can win both byelections. We have two excellent candidates, Alex White whom we selected some time ago and who has been campaigning in [Dublin South] for some months and who of course has contested elections in that constituency before, and Ivana Bacik, who was formally selected last night . . . in Dublin Central.”
Outlining the approach in the manifesto, environment spokeswoman Joanna Tuffy TD said: “Local democracy and local politics can be a force for change for the better. One of the proposals we have is that the existing county development boards, which are part of the local government structure, would be established now as local jobs taskforces.
“There are continuous job-losses now in local communities . . . and we need the county development boards to be there trying to prevent the loss of jobs and coming up with ideas, and working with the different agencies to come up with practical proposals,” Ms Tuffy said.
Local government spokesman Ciarán Lynch TD said, “When we say ‘Getting Communities Working’ we are talking about two particular fronts. One, is developing a local stimulus in the economy at local government level and, secondly, getting local government working in a more efficient and effective manner.
“The purpose of the manifesto is to connect both national and local government, where objectives in local government are married to Labour Party policy at a national level.
“Our manifesto seeks to create an economy and a society that gets Ireland back to work in a fair and equitable way,” he said.