GREEN AND FORMER GREEN:INDEPENDENT DUBLIN European Parliament candidate Patricia McKenna has sharply criticised the Green Party ahead of Friday's vote. Ms McKenna represented the party in the parliament for two terms.
“I resigned from the party when I realised it was naive of me to think that they were going to go back to their principles and ideals,” she said.
She claimed the party had let people down on issues such as the Shannon stopover, Corrib gas, Tara, incineration and the funding of banks to assist Fianna Fáil cronies.
Speaking at her final press conference yesterday, Ms McKenna criticised Minister for the Environment and party leader John Gormley for engaging in policy U-turns.
She said that, perhaps, power corrupted, but she denied she was claiming that Mr Gormley was corrupt. “I do not think that he is, but I do think he has serious questions to answer regarding what he is standing over in Government, considering his views on the Fianna Fáil leadership in the past.”
She criticised Mr Gormley’s remarks that Bertie Ahern could be the first directly-elected lord mayor of Dublin, adding that Mr Gormley had been critical of Mr Ahern when he led the Green Party in opposition.
Ms McKenna insisted that she had a chance of taking a seat and said that she expected to do well on transfers and receive some of the surplus of Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell who is expected to head the poll.
“It is clear that voters across the party political divide are extremely disillusioned . . . and want someone to stand up and hold the political leaders to account,” she added.
Meanwhile, Dublin Green Party candidate Deirdre de Búrca warned voters to choose their third MEP with great care.
She said Joe Higgins, of the Socialist Party, and Mary Lou McDonald, of Sinn Féin, continued to insist on “a ‘No to Lisbon’ view irrespective of the resultant jobs carnage”.
Ms de Búrca claimed that this left a choice between Fianna Fáil’s Eoin Ryan and herself for the third seat. “He is a decent man and a good politician,” she added.
“But he is also a long-time part of the political system, which, over the past decade, created the mess we are now in.”
