DUBLIN SEATS:TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen yesterday claimed neither Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald nor the Socialist Party's Joe Higgins would "bring one job or one euro of investment to Dublin", if elected as MEPs.
At a Fianna Fáil press conference in Dublin yesterday morning, Mr Cowen warned about the consequences of a left-wing candidate winning the third seat. According to the latest Irish Timesopinion poll, Ms McDonald and Mr Higgins are in a stronger position to win the third and final seat in Dublin at the expense of Fianna Fáil's MEP, Eoin Ryan.
“The last thing that Dublin and Ireland needs are representatives in Europe who have anti-EU policy agendas,” said Mr Cowen. “They will be on the fringes of the parliament. They will not have the allies or the influence to ensure Dublin benefits to the maximum extent from EU funding.”
Mr Cowen and the leaders of Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens all participated in media events as they stepped up their campaigns for the last four days before the local and European elections, as well as two Dáil byelections in Dublin.
The Taoiseach, accompanied by Mr Ryan and the other Dublin candidate, Cllr Eibhlin Byrne, expressed confidence his party would retain its four MEPs and hold its own in council elections. He said the party also had good candidates in the byelections.
Mr Ryan welcomed the endorsement of Minister for Health Mary Harney. It also emerged that the former president of the EU parliament, Pat Cox, will also canvass with Mr Ryan this week.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny unveiled a new campaign promising to create 180,000 jobs with the aid of an €11 billion stimulus package that he insisted would not come from national borrowing. He said the elections would prepare the ground for an early general election that he believed was “inevitable”. He was flanked by Fine Gael’s two byelection candidates, Senator Paschal Donoghue and George Lee.
“The real fundamental is to be in a position to create jobs, to get people back to work and to get our country moving.
“The opposite of that is what’s been happening with Fianna Fáil with unfair taxes, increasing unemployment and a desperation in Government, and an inability to deal with the problems that the country faces,” said Mr Kenny.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore issued a public invitation to those he described as “disillusioned Fianna Fáil voters” to switch to Labour at next Friday’s elections.
Speaking at a poster launch for its byelection candidates Senators Ivana Bacik and Alex White, Mr Gilmore said Labour now provided an alternative choice for Fianna Fáil supporters.
“What I am saying is that Fianna Fáil today, with its linkages with developers and bankers and what it has done with the economy, it is a far cry from the Fianna Fáil of Sean Lemass, of de Valera, whose empathy was with the small man.” He also said he believed that Senator White could upset the odds in Dublin South.
Green Party leader John Gormley said the last European seat in Dublin was "very much up for grabs". Speaking at the launch of the party's Vision for Dublin, he said he believed the party's candidate for Europe, Senator Deirdre De Burca, could make up enough ground to secure the final seat in Dublin.
The party’s Dublin plan includes doubling the time for pedestrians to cross at traffic lights, a 30km speed limit in residential areas, trees on every residential street, a Liffey Valley national park, more allotments and community gardens and new Luas lines from Poolbeg to Rathfarnham and Tallaght to Saggart. The plan also includes a solar-powered pool at the old Dún Laoghaire baths.