Fine Gael candidates in the local and European Parliament elections will never face into a campaign “with so much in their favour”, the party leader, Enda Kenny has told party members.
Greeted with sustained applause from delegates, Mr Kenny, opening the 75th party ardfheis, urged supporters to canvass for votes in each and every one of the 64 days left until the June elections.
Fine Gael is running seven candidates in the European Parliament elections and 733 candidates in the city and county council and town councils battles, including the 21-year-old Annette Larkin in New Ross, Co Wexford.
In his speech to delegates at Dublin's Citywest Hotel, Mr Kenny said: “Two years ago, Fianna Fáil was promising the people of Ireland that they were the party to preserve a strong economy. Instead, they have destroyed it.
“They could have, and should have, anticipated the economic crisis. Brian Cowen was the Minister for Finance who ignored the warning signs and failed to take preventative action,” he said.
For months, the Government has blamed international causes for all of Ireland’s woes: “We know, the people of Ireland know, that the reality is very different. We are paying the price of their waste and poor policies.”
Fianna Fáil had governed in “the interests of their developer friends and allowed the national finances to become totally dependent on the revenues from the unsustainable property boom they created”.
If elected, Fine Gael would order a three-phased plan to improve Ireland’s health services, by first reforming hospital management - cutting waiting lists, ending the use of trolleys and promoting more GP care.
Hospitals will be paid for treating patients: “Under the current system, once a hospital has used up its budget for the year, it cannot treat any more patients.
Under our proposals, hospitals which can treat more patients at an efficient price will be given additional resources.”
Later, a Fine Gael-led government would introduce universal health insurance based on a Dutch model, with those who cannot afford such insurance having their bills paid for by the State.
“There will be some who will say that we cannot afford major reforms at a time of recession. To them I say: we cannot afford not to reform the health system. As health budgets come under more and more pressure, it is even more important that we make the system as fair and as efficient as possible,” he told delegates gathered in Dublin.
The majority of tomorrow’s sessions at the ardfheis will be dominated by debates on the state of the economy, and the need to protect jobs.
Mr Kenny will speak in a televised address at 8.30 tomorrow evening.
“The last two years have demonstrated the absolute inability of the Government to govern. We have seen mistake after mistake, missed target after missed target. We have seen no direction, no leadership and no planning. We had a Taoiseach who hadn’t read the Lisbon Treaty, a Tánaiste who thinks that the public finances are under control and a Government that thought there would be a soft landing for the economy. They are out of their depth,” he said.
Fine Gael, and particularly the party’s finance spokesman, Richard Bruton, had, he said “taken the lead on so many critical issues”, including the need for reforms, State pay restraint.
