MANIFESTO LAUNCH:LABOUR AND Green Party candidates in the European elections were at odds last night with charge and counter-charge over expenses and the conduct of the campaign in the Ireland South constituency.
Senator Alan Kelly accused his Green Party rival Senator Dan Boyle of “negative campaigning” and the use of a “desperation tactic” after the latter claimed the Labour candidate was using “questionable resources” in the election.
Mr Kelly said: “I reject these comments totally. It is regrettable that a candidate from a Government party is engaging in negative campaigning in the midst of one of the greatest economic crises this country has ever seen.”
He said Mr Boyle should be “talking about the positive solutions that we need to take to turn things around”. Mr Kelly added: “I view it as a desperation tactic.” Speaking in Dublin at the launch of his party’s European election manifesto, Mr Boyle said: “I find it very strange that the politician who received the biggest number of donations in the last calendar year, 2008 – we have no figures for 2009 – is the Labour Party candidate, who has never contested a public election before.”
Contrasting Mr Kelly’s attendance record in the Upper House with his own, Mr Boyle said: “I have served my time in the Oireachtas, I have participated in votes, I have participated in debates.” He claimed that Mr Kelly was, in effect, “using an Oireachtas salary to subsidise a campaign”.
Highlighting Mr Kelly’s record, he said: “His votes for this year were nine out of 55; his number of debate contributions, I think, are a single-hand count.”
Mr Boyle said he expected Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley and Fine Gael’s Sean Kelly to take two out of three seats in Ireland South.
There would be a “melee” for the final seat with three to five candidates each having about ten per cent of the vote. He detected a “latent” Green Party support which could be converted from second or third preferences to number-one votes.
This was his objective in the remaining two weeks of the campaign, despite running on a “Green Party shoe-string” budget. “We don’t have the resources – the questionable resources, I would say – of other candidates,” he added.
Green candidate in Dublin, Senator Déirdre de Búrca, said: “In relation to the Green initiatives that are being discussed and debated and voted upon in the European Parliament, the track record of some of our sitting MEPs leaves a lot to be desired.”
Criticising the voting record of the incumbent Dublin MEPs on a number of green issues, she said: “It does really point up the need to have a strong voice representing Dublin in the European Parliament.”
Urging voters not to support Eurosceptic candidates, she continued: “It’s very clear that, for the next period of the European Parliament, we need a policy of constructive engagement between Ireland and the European Union.
“If we elect people who are hostile to the European project, who are actually only interested in opposing and resisting positive initiatives that are coming from the EU, we are not going to serve the interests of this country well.”
