IT WAS all going so swimmingly – Micheál Martin scooting around Douglas shopping centre in his Cork South Central constituency, flanked by his loyal lieutenant Cllr Terry Shannon and a squad of Ógra Fianna Fáil members in green T-shirts urging “Martin No 1”.
At Tesco he quickly made his way around the aisles, stretching out an arm to shake hands with shoppers and staff, with some going out of their way to wish him well.
As he walked through the main concourse, a man approached and Martin instinctively shook his hand and was just about to walk on when he realised the man had asked to have a word with him. Ever polite, Martin apologised for his mistake.
The television cameramen and journalists gathered around Martin as he listened to the man, Peter Cotter from Douglas.
Speaking with a slight tremor in his voice, Cotter calmly but firmly said what he wanted: “I want a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. Do you think it’s fair that I, as a working man, should now be taking home less pay, having put in longer hours to support a regime which ye stood over that robbed the Irish people?”
Martin calmly but firmly said he didn’t share Mr Cotter’s analysis and that he believed the solution to Ireland’s problems was to get economic recovery going, create more jobs and carry out political reform.
But Cotter, a 53-year-old father of three adult daughters who works as a machine operator with grain importers R&H Hall on the Cork docks, was unimpressed.
“After what we’re faced with now, I think you’re very lucky that you’re not facing the situation that they’re facing in Cairo, because that’s what the Irish people should do,” he said.
Appearing to realise he wasn’t going to win Cotter over, Martin thanked him before moving off swiftly, allowing Cotter tell the media what he thought of the Fianna Fáil leader’s reply and why he wouldn’t be voting for him in the general election.
“I’m not happy with his reply, it’s a typical propaganda speech that we get all the time before elections in this country. We’re promised the sun, moon and stars and we don’t get anything.
“A lot of Irish people would turn in their graves at hearing this, but someone said recently the worst thing that happened to this country was that the British pulled out. They left us with the Irish, who stabbed us in the back. We knew what to expect from the British; we didn’t expect it from our own,” he said.
He had not decided who to vote for but would not vote for the parties that got the country into this situation, he said, adding: “I work hard, I have no choice but, as I said to Micheál Martin, I’m taking home less pay [and] putting in more hours.
“Can anybody justify that in the modern world?”