WP candidate accuses FF of damaging our democracy

Fianna Fail should consider disbanding because of the continual scandals concerning its senior members, a Workers' Party local election candidate said yesterday.

Mr Sean O Cionnaith, an outgoing Dublin city councillor, was speaking at the launch of the WP local election campaign in Dublin. He said that the reaction not only to the revelations about Mr Charles Haughey, but to Fianna Fail generally, had been very negative on the doorsteps.

"The cancer of corruption has gone so deep in Fianna Fail that the time is fast coming for that organisation to disband because of the damage it is doing to our democracy," he said.

The Workers' Party, which holds seven local authority seats, is running 19 candidates in Dublin, Cork, Louth, Kilkenny and Waterford. Candidates attending yesterday's launch said that apart from corruption, the issues encountered by canvassers included the housing shortage, drug abuse and the manner in which the Celtic Tiger has bypassed some parts of the State.

The party's manifesto calls for reform of local government and claims that the excessive participation by councillors in conferences represented a major abuse of public funds. While the media coverage concentrated on "foreign junkets", the reality was that internal ones cost much more because there were more of them.

"The Workers' Party says that while conferences, including those held abroad, can sometimes be beneficial, and bring fresh ideas to management and councillors alike, we reject travel to, and attendance at, frivolous and unnecessary junkets," it says.

The party also says that lord mayors and chairpersons of councils should be directly elected by the people for a term of no more than five years.

The manifesto describes the State's health services as a "distressing and dangerous disgrace", adding that public patients had a two-year waiting list to see a consultant. "We firmly believe that payment for health care at the point of delivery is morally wrong."