FINE GAEL presidential candidate Gay Mitchell has defended his record of opposition to the death penalty and his many appeals over the years on behalf of prisoners about to be executed.
“I am totally opposed to the death penalty. The taking of life is wrong. No EU member state can have the death penalty,” he said yesterday in response to criticism of his actions that has surfaced in the election campaign.
As a member of the Dáil between 1991 and 2007, he had raised the issue at least 16 times. The first one was to commend the government of the day for abolishing this punishment in the State.
He had appealed for clemency for prisoners under sentence of death in the US, Turkey, Sudan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.
The Dublin MEP cited a statement issued by Amnesty International last Friday that the organisation “has always encouraged politicians and elected representatives to use their influence to . . . support the global abolition of the death penalty”.
Capital punishment was reintroduced in the US in 1976 and, subsequently, when the 500th prisoner was being executed, Mr Mitchell was chair of the Oireachtas subcommittee on human rights. On that occasion he had delivered a letter on behalf of the subcommittee to the US embassy in Dublin protesting over the death penalty in the US.
“I have raised the question several times over the years for all sorts of people,” he said.
Only one of his interventions had been linked to the issue of abortion where a “deranged man” had murdered two people, one of them a doctor, at an abortion clinic in Florida.
More generally, he said the presidential campaign “hasn’t really started yet”, although he was touring the country and attending functions of different kinds.
Asked if he would have the support of party leader Enda Kenny, he said he had received 55 per cent of the vote at the Fine Gael selection convention.
When it was put to him that Mr Kenny did not look pleased when the convention result was announced, he replied: “I certainly didn’t see any indication, and we had a very friendly discussion immediately after the convention.”
He had supported Mr Kenny when the latter’s leadership of the party was challenged.
“There is absolutely no reason why he wouldn’t be fully behind me and he has indicated that he is fully behind me,” said Mr Mitchell.
He added that the formal campaign by his party would not begin until after the Fine Gael “think-in” which is being held in Galway on September 6th and 7th.
“Then each constituency will have a plan and there will be a plan nationally,” he said.
