“I’m not the Mayo politician hiding away from the debate at the moment.”

“I’m not the Mayo politician hiding away from the debate at the moment.”


Anton McNulty

When you’re backed into a corner like Fianna FΡil are, the only way out is to come out fighting and at Sunday’s selection convention, they came out firing with both barrels at their political opponents.
Enda Kenny was the main target with claims that he was ‘hiding in a closet’ but there were also pot shots aimed at Labour and Sinn Féin.
Despite poor showing in the polls, the top table at the convention were in a bullish mood with Dara Calleary and Beverly Flynn in particular delighting the delegates with a swipe at Enda Kenny over his reluctance for a three-way debate.
“I’m not the Mayo politician hiding away from the debate at the moment,” said Minister Calleary. “If there is a debate to be had I will turn up. I won’t set the rules and if they have to leave an empty chair for anyone else we will leave as many as we need. Surely someone who expects to lead the country should be expected to answer a few questions about how he will lead the country. I am not going to avoid that debate in Mayo or anywhere else over the next four weeks.”
“The people want to know what the parties have to offer. I ask you this question when the man who thinks he will be the next Taoiseach is afraid to face our man down in a national debate, how will the people feel then,” Beverly Flynn said to thunderous applause.
The retiring TD, played up on Fianna FΡil’s historic claims to be the party of the ‘ordinary working class person’ and ‘small farmer’ and they would not let Sinn Féin take that vote off them.
“If anyone listened to the news at one today and heard Gerry Adams give his view of where we are going as a country, he would be in a remedial class in economics for the Junior Cert based on his performance. The reality of the situation is that they have no reasonable policy to bring Ireland back to recovery. They actual think that they are going to take over the national republican vote in this country. That is absolutely not going to happen,” she announced.
Minister Calleary also shot across the bows of Labour candidate, Dr Jerry Cowley and his party’s record on Knock Airport.
“Let’s remember that it was a Fianna FΡil government who against all the odds and against all the advice going that kept with that airport. It was Fianna FΡil TD’s and Ministers who against all the wisdom of Dublin 4 politicians including Fine Gael and especially Labour kept the airport on the road. And yet it was slightly ironic that a so-called Labour candidate came out last week and attacked our record. Well Dr Jerry what did your party ever do for Knock Airport except to try and sink it.”
It was left to the party’s Director of Elections, Cllr Damien Ryan to have the final word by quoting President Barack Obama’s famous slogan; “Yes we can, yes we will.”