Labour went on the offensive against European election candidate Luke Ming Flanagan yesterday.

The Independent Roscommon TD, who is contesting the Midlands-North West constituency said in a debate on RTÉ this week that Senator Lorraine Higgins only wanted to get to Europe to “look good”.

Ms Higgins, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, Independent Senator Marie Louise O'Donnell and the chairwoman of Labour Women all criticised his comments.

Speaking at the launch of her election campaign in Galway, Senator Higgins said that it frustrated her to see the rise in support for candidates whose sole platform in going to Brussels was to attack the European project.

“Manipulating media and ideological buzz words, this group, of which Ming Flanagan is the personification, stand for nothing more than the promotion of apathy and cynicism and will deliver zero for this country,” she said.

Senator O’Donnell, who was guest speaker at Senator Higgins’s campaign launch said she had noted Mr Flanagan’s comment about Ms Higgins only running for Europe to look good and added, “obviously, he is running for another reason”.

Chairwoman of Labour Women Sinéad Ahern labelled the comment “misogynistic and sexist”.

Ms Ahern said: “Unlike men, women in politics face unnecessary close scrutiny on how they look and what they wear . . . Would he make a similar comment about a man? I very much doubt it.”

In Galway, Mr Gilmore refrained from directly identifying Mr Flanagan in his comments, but left nobody in any doubt as to whom he was referring when he said: “This is no time to be sending entertainers to Europe.”

Call to shun 'jokers'
Referring to the fragile state of the economy, he urged voters not to put the recovery at risk by selecting

“jokers”.

Senator Higgins and Labour’s other candidates can all win seats, said Mr Gilmore, despite the disappointing recent opinion poll findings.

“An opinion poll is like a still [photograph] – it tells you exactly what is happening at that particular moment in time. Does it give you the full picture? It certainly doesn’t tell you how the story is going to end. And in politics it’s the ending that matters,” he said.

“And over the course of the next two weeks, I am confident all of the Labour candidates in the European elections – Lorraine Higgins, Phil Prendergast and Emer Costello – will win. This campaign is going to continue right up to the last minute.”