Roche says controversy over McAleese and SF is closed

Presidential candidate Adi Roche believes the controversy over the alleged links to Sinn Fein of her rival, Prof Mary McAleese, is over. Ms Roche said yesterday that the matter was closed as far as she was concerned. It was up to the public to decide after that.

Speaking in Ennis, Co Clare, she said it was "appalling" that the election had been "pulled down and demeaned" by a power struggle between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. "This has demeaned not only the candidates but the office of President itself."

"Based on my own experience of a smear campaign, I know exactly what Ms McAleese has gone through", she added.

The Labour Party leader, Mr Dick Spring, agreed: "Ms McAleese has given her explanation for the memos, and now we should just get on with the campaign."

However, he added that it was "unacceptable" for anyone seeking public office not to answer legitimate questions.

Buoyed up by a good reception of her address to over 1,000 students in UCG on Monday night, Ms Roche toured a variety of community and development projects in Clare and Limerick yesterday.

After a planned visit to the Aran Islands was cancelled because of air traffic control problems, she began her day with a visit to Shannon Airport. With more than 1,000 children coming through the airport from Chernobyl each summer, Ms Roche was well known to many members of the staff there.

In Ennis, she signed a petition opposing plans for an £11 million hotel and underground car-park on a riverbank site known as the Post Office Field, described by environmentalists as the last greenfield site in the town.

Staff at the Irish Refugee Council gave the candidate an enthusiastic reception; its director, Orla Ni hEili, and Ms Roche first met when protesting against US nuclear weapons at Greenham Common in England. However, when Ms Ni hEili started reminiscing about how the two women chained themselves to railings in Cobh in protest at the visit of an American warship, Mr Spring decided it was time to move on.

Ireland being a small place, presidential campaigns tend to run into each other frequently. A planned visit to an enterprise exhibition in Ennis was abandoned because Prof McAleese was due there.

The two candidates finally crossed paths in the University of Limerick, where both spoke, separately, to a crammed auditorium of more than 500 students.

Ms Roche repeated her UCG speech of the night before, criticising the two main parties for dragging politics back into the "old mould". Conscious of the popularity of Jim Kemmy, she mentioned the late Labour politician, "a great supporter of student issues", at the start of her address.

Asked how she could reconcile her values with being commander-in-chief of the Army, she said that she would do everything she could as President to enhance the peacekeeping and reconciliation roles of the Army.

One student asked Ms Roche to list some criticism of herself, but she managed to extract herself from this test without sharing any state secrets. She told another student she would not compromise on anything she believed in: "I haven't been repackaged, remodelled, or made up. I'm exactly the same person I was a month ago."

Accompanied by the rival favourites to take Mr Kemmy's Dail seat, John Ryan of Democratic Left and Jan O'Sullivan of Labour, she then toured community projects in Limerick's more deprived areas.

In Southill, a young Mary Robinson stepped forward from the crowd to give Ms Roche her seal of approval and ask for a badge. Adi gave the freckle-faced Mary 11 badges to wear, one for each year of her life.