Taoiseach Micheál Martin has criticised Independent presidential candidate Catherine Connolly’s stance on the European Union (EU), while acknowledging the presidential election campaign has been a “setback” for Fianna Fáil.
“We need to start calling out people who say ‘Oh, but I’m pro-EU’ as they constantly announce and re-announce the supposed end of Irish sovereignty,” he said in an address to the crowd at Fianna Fáil’s Theobald Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown Graveyard in Co Kildare.
“You’re not pro-EU if you stand against every treaty which has built the union over the last quarter of a century.
“You’re not pro-EU if you constantly say that it’s destroying our neutrality and is in the hands of a military-industrial complex.”
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In 2022, Ms Connolly told the Dáil she “proudly” canvassed against the Lisbon and Nice treaties due to concerns about “the militarisation of Europe”.
But during RTÉ Radio’s This Week debate on October 12th, she said it was “absolutely wrong” to say she had voted against “every European treaty”.
When asked by reporters if his comments were directed at Ms Connolly, the Taoiseach said: “Well, I think Catherine is in that camp. There’s no question about that, along with Sinn Féin and along with other parties on the left who constantly, first of all, voted against European Union Treaties, but also talk about Europe as if it’s a warmongerer, or if it’s a military-industrial complex.”
“People need to be unequivocal about how beneficial membership of the European Union has been to this country.”
In a recent Irish Times/Ipsos B&A opinion poll, support for Fianna Fáil dropped to 17 per cent while the Taoiseach’s personal rating has fallen by 11 percentage points to 33 per cent, the lowest level in more than five years.
When asked about this, the Taoiseach reflected on the polls conducted before the last general election.
“Every one of them had Fianna Fáil in third place ... we came first in the general election. Maybe everybody should reflect on that reality. Polls are not general elections. There’s no correlation between the presidential election and a general election. We know that from the past.”
Meanwhile, Ms Connolly has described comments made by her rival for the presidency as “a new low”.
The Independent candidate was in her native Galway on Sunday and was asked about an interview with the Sunday Independent in which Heather Humphreys said she “never tried to make money out of people’s misfortune”, referring to Ms Connolly’s time working as a barrister during the economic crash.
Ms Connolly said she had been “over and over” the issue, adding: “For a candidate for the presidency to misuse that in the way she has, it’s just a new low.”
When previously asked about this period in her career, Ms Connolly has pointed to the “cab-rank rule”, which obliges barristers to accept instructions in any case in their area of practice.
On Sunday, Minister for Education Helen McEntee doubled down on Fine Gael’s sustained attacks on Ms Connolly, describing her as a hypocrite who had been “dodging questions around her role in repossessing people’s homes” when she worked as a barrister.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio on Sunday afternoon, Ms McEntee also claimed Ms Connolly had previously “lauded” Brexit and accused those who were opposed to it of fearmongering while now telling voters she was pro-European.
Ms McEnteee accused Ms Connelly of having “said one thing and her actions have said the complete opposite” and pointed to “her work as a barrister, working with banks repossessing homes and then coming into the Dáil chamber and absolutely castigating those same people”.
When it was pointed out that the Bar Council rules mandate that barristers should not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes or suffer adverse consequences as a result of working with particular clients, the Minister for Education accepted that no rules were broken but repeated the accusation that Ms Connolly had “castigated those same banks that she worked for”.
Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane condemned the nature of Fine Gael’s attacks in recent days and said Ms Connolly’s campaign had been “very positive”, in contrast to what he said was a “smear campaign by Fine Gael especially over the last number of days and weeks”.
He was speaking on the Week In Politics, the same programme on which Fianna Fáil’s Mary Butler said “an awful lot of Fianna Fáil supporters that I have spoken will still vote Jim Gavin number one because they’re Fianna Fáil voters and they only vote for Fianna Fáil but I believe a lot of them will vote for Heather Humphreys”.
The Taoiseach at Bodenstown rejected any possibility of a split in the party over differing opinions over who members will vote for in the upcoming presidential election.
“The party is not issuing directions because we believe that would be counterproductive ... people are in a democracy, will vote in accordance with their preferences. But there won’t be a split on this issue within the parliamentary party.” – Additional reporting PA
