Davis against 'negative' campaigning

CAMPAIGN PROTOCOL:ALL PRESIDENTIAL campaigns should reject US-style negative techniques, Independent candidate Mary Davis has said.

She was commenting on a newspaper report that a research company regularly used by Fine Gael was “testing negative messages” about presidential candidates last week.

A Fine Gael spokesman said: “We don’t have any comment. We do internal research all the time and we never comment on it.”

A spokesman for Amárach Consultants, the research company concerned, declined to comment.

The Davis campaign said it was contacted by a member of the public who expressed concern about the line of questioning in the telephone poll. She said Ms Davis was described as “a failed Fianna Fáiler” who was appointed to several “quangos” by Bertie Ahern, but a spokeswoman for the candidate said she “has never been a member of Fianna Fáil or any political party”.

Ms Davis had been appointed to the Irish Sports Council by the Fine Gael-led government in 1996 and the only appointment made by Mr Ahern, as taoiseach of the day, was to chair the Taskforce on Active Citizenship in 2006, the campaign spokeswoman continued.

Ms Davis said in a statement: “People being polled by phone were imparted negative messages on several candidates running in the presidential race.

“This is an unpleasant echo of the worst aspects of US political campaigning and the possibility of these techniques being imported into Ireland’s presidential election.

“It is unclear from the newspaper report for whom this polling was being carried out.

“To date, this presidential campaign has been marred by much personal attack. We believe that the Irish people are tired of attack politics and personal abuse.

“We believe this election should be about ideas and vision and we call on all other presidential campaigns to openly reject the techniques revealed today,” she said.