A former Fianna Fáil general election candidate has strongly criticised the party, claiming that "arrogance" at government level was one of the reasons it did so badly in the recent elections.
Mr Noel Whelan, a barrister and political analyst, stood for the party in Dublin South Eeast in 1997, and was for a time a Fianna Fáil strategist. He said yesterday that the party's electoral performance was due to "show time", "harshness" and "arrogance".
Speaking at the MacGill summer school in Glenties, Co Donegal, he said: "The Fianna Fáil campaign in the last general election was too showy. It was all spin and the good times have come, rather than sitting down and seeking an honest mandate from the electorate which said that 'we are the best people to run the economy, things are going to get difficult. Fine Gael is coming up with mad ideas like refunding Eircom shareholders'.
"Secondly, the Government was too harsh. In making the public finance readjustment, Charlie McCreevy was too absolutist. There were to be no new jobs in the civil service, community employment schemes had to be cut, and allowances for widows were cut initially.
"And that sense of harshness undermined some of Fianna Fáil's left of centre perception and middle ground base.
"There was a general inability on the part of ministers to accept that the electronic voting did not make sense to anybody. It was going to cost €60 million.
"There were the Abbotstown and Punchestown projects, and a general sense of harshness and arrogance was perceived by voters."
Warning that there were problems ahead for the Labour Party, Mr Whelan said that at the next election all Labour's sitting deputies would be more than 52 years old. "Age in itself is not necessarily an indicator of political vigour but they will be on average 16½ or 17 years in the Dáil."
The Sinn Féin European Parliament candidate in the north west constituency and Donegal county councillor, Mr Pearse Doherty, said that he was personally opposed to his party sharing power with Fianna Fáil after the next general election.
He did not believe, he said, that Fianna Fáil would be able to change enough over the next three years for Sinn Féin to accept it as a government party. "I do believe that Fianna Fáil is power hungry and would accept Sinn Féin in government."
