Election 2024 Day 14: The joy of a winter break as candidates plow on through snow warning
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Election 2024 Day 14: The joy of a winter break as candidates plow on through snow warning

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First up, Mary Lou McDonald had a pre-election TV interview on Virgin Media One last night

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she now felt “never more prepared” to potentially become Ireland’s first female Taoiseach when the post-election horse-trading is done and the party is “running to win”.

The 33rd-day opposition leader also claimed that anyone earning up to €100,000 will be “better off” under a Sinn Féin-led government.

The Irish Independent’s Senan Molony looked at how she did with style and substance with just over a week to go until Election Day:

THE FG ADVERTISEMENT

The Fine Gael video claiming Sinn Féin would smash the piggy bank and steal its contents is a “barfaced lie”, McDonald said. It was also an affront, considering the bike shed, spending on phone cases and the National Children’s Hospital, she added.

Instead, she promised to double national savings and to maintain a surplus in the country’s account. She missed the opportunity to highlight Fine Gael’s own five-year extended rake-off from private pension pots, from 2011 to 2015.

ABILITY

“I’ve had quite a bit of it over the last year and a half,” Mary Lou said, saying she had taken on personal challenges, such as her own and her husband’s health, and as a result now felt “never more prepared” for the challenge that the election presented. While “we (in Sinn Féin) haven’t been in government in this part of Ireland, we have in the north,” she said. She claimed SF’s praise for the peace process and “to make government work” i Northern Ireland and achieve changes that were “extraordinary”.

SCANDALS

Asked about the recent scandals that had rocked the party, McDonald said she wouldn’t normally know if people were writing references for criminals. Those who did so acted “way beyond” their authority, she said, referring to convicted sex offender Michael McMonagle, a former Sinn Féin press officer who gained credentials after being expelled from the party. When people asked how Michelle O’Neill missed seeing him at an event when he was within touching distance, “the fact is she didn’t.”

On the Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile affair, she said she regretted not being clear about the reason he resigned from the Seanad. Saying she had made a “glowing statement” wishing him well, McDonald admitted the offender had made serious mistakes, but was in a mental crisis at the time. She said she had written to the victim, through his mother, offering a “profound apology”.

INTERNAL CONTROLS

“I would tell you that on my watch things are done by the book,” she said. The rulebook was applied without fear or favour, and the consequences were “provably happening”, she said, without naming ousted TD Brian Stanley. She insisted: “No one tells me what to do. I make my decisions, I take my advice.” She was collegial, but ultimately she was the leader of the party. “Where there is a decision to be made, I make it.” She took her responsibility very seriously. “I’m at that stage in my life where I’m quite assertive, sometimes quite impatient,” but she had broad experience, she said.

THE ECONOMY

For a cash-rich country, we are service-poor, she said. The government spoke of billions available, but there were record numbers of homeless people – 14,000 – and people were struggling to get by.
On the transatlantic threat from Donald Trump, she said whoever led the next government would have to navigate very closely. Under his last administration, multinational profits had increased by 60 per cent, and Sinn Féin had not envisaged FDI companies leaving, she said. It might not be wise to talk about the threat, she said.
Those earning up to €100,000 will be “better off” under SF’s proposal for the economy, she said. “We have a fair and balanced tax package.”

HOUSE

The parties that had created and deepened the housing crisis now had no credibility when they say they will fix it, she said. SF’s plan would impose a rent freeze, restore the no-fault eviction ban and invest in unprecedented housing construction. “The state has to do the heavy lifting for this.”
McDonald said she found it hard to believe, but she had met a number of SMEs in the construction industry who had let people go. She didn’t explain why.
As for Sinn Féin’s plan to make homes affordable by the state that owns the land on which they are built, McDonald insisted there was little doubt about related mortgages. Banks wanted to know their money was secured and would want “first lien on the land,” she said. But a Sinn Féin government can “more than meet” any banking problems that would otherwise hinder lending.
First-time buyer schemes were to be phased out over five years, as they ultimately pushed up prices, but SF would abolish stamp duty on them.

IMMIGRATION

The SF is the only party that has come up with a plan, she said, adding that there was “no such thing as open borders, and there shouldn’t be”. But when it was pointed out that there was an open border on this island, she said that there was freedom of movement across the European Union. It seemed a contradiction on the surface.
Two-thirds of applications for international protection were ultimately unsuccessful, and the process must be accelerated. She reiterated that asylum centers would be located in areas that were “extended”. without choosing to “arbitrarily choose places from heaven” that would receive them instead. Community consultation was not a veto, she said. “We look for social cohesion.”

DUBLIN RIOTS

The riot happened in the heart of her constituency and she didn’t think it was handled well on the day, or that outgoing Attorney General Helen McEntee had acquitted herself well. “I had been down nearby… much earlier in the afternoon, and we could sense that there was a real problem developing.” She did not blame the Gardaí, but the right interventions were not made. She said she hoped the rioters, with 99 “persons of interest” appearing on the Garda website this week, “all face the consequences of their actions.”

THE PAST

It is very important to remember the past and to learn the lessons, she said. “But we are here and now”. Since 1998 a new generation had grown up and it was time to move on, she said, although she would respect everyone’s views, including those who would never vote Sinn Féin. However, she pointed to Michelle O’Neill’s “determination to be a leader for all”.
She hoped Dublin’s new relationship with London would be fruitful, she said. Colette Fitzpatrick asked about the looming Netflix drama about the IRA murder of Jean McConville, a mother of ten, in the early years of the Troubles. Ms McDonald said what her children had gone through was “absolutely horrific” and what had befallen them was “deeply wrong”. The family did not want the series to be made, she said, “as I understand it.”

PITCH

Throwing away the green jacket she wore in the Ten Leaders debate on Monday night, she smiled at the viewer and promised to end the housing crisis and ease the cost of living, by taking the first €45,000 in Universal Social Charging (USC) income. She listed other promises that ended with maintaining the retirement age. The only way to end 100 years of Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael government was to vote Sinn Féin, she insisted.
Website https://carnevalestoricocivitonico.it

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