LETTERS:TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny has increased pressure on Independent presidential candidate David Norris to release the unpublished clemency letters arising from the 1997 statutory rape case involving the Senator's former Israeli partner, Ezra Nawi.
Mr Norris continued to defend his stance against releasing the letters yesterday. However, asked in an interview on Newstalk, if the letters would ever be released, he replied: “Never say never, I just don’t know at the moment but I have to protect vulnerable people.”
Asked whether he was calling on the Senator to release the letters, Mr Kenny said: “I want everybody to lead by example here. Gay Mitchell is leading by example.”
Asked if the Senator should publish the legal advice as to why he could not release the letters, he said: “The electorate are entitled to ask the questions, they are the ones being asked to cast their votes and they will want answers to questions, and in that regard everybody should be up-front.”
There was further pressure from Independent candidate Mary Davis when she was asked if, “for the sake of transparency”, Senator Norris should publish the letters.
“All of us, our backgrounds, should be scrutinised. We are standing for the highest office in the land, so that is important.”
Asked on Newstalk if he would have published the letters in the absence of legal advice to withhold them, Mr Norris said: “That’s a question that is impossible to answer because it is hypothetical and I would be dishonest if I answered it. Can I just say, very honestly, I don’t know.”
Mr Mitchell meanwhile renewed his appeal for Fianna Fáil support.
“They don’t have a candidate in the race and I think if people look at my track record, what it is I’m saying about this presidency, I think they will see that I’m nearer to the way of thinking that they have than any other candidate,” he said.
All the candidates, except Mr Norris and Dana Rosemary Scallon, assisted in clean-up activities at Leeson Street Bridge in Dublin organised by the Friends of the Grand Canal, the Inland Waterways Association and Volunteer Ireland in preparation for today’s National Day of Volunteering.
Labour’s Michael D Higgins praised the role of the late president Patrick Hillery in rejecting a demand by Fianna Fáil in 1982 not to dissolve the Dáil so that Charles Haughey could be nominated as Taoiseach.
“Paddy Hillery behaved impeccably, he knew exactly what was involved. It is a very interesting issue because at that moment the president alone has to make a judgment as to the relative balances of possibility within the other pillar, which is the Dáil itself.”
Independent Seán Gallagher defended his decision not to put up posters.
“I think it’s an absolute waste,” he said. “I also think it’s littering the country, towns and villages throughout this country.
“We don’t need posters in people’s faces all across the lamp-posts, there are lots of ways of getting the message out now.”
Asked if it was the case that he lacked sufficient funds to put up posters, he said: “Ask everybody around this country have things tightened up, do they want to see waste?
“And of course I don’t believe it’s right to spend the same amount of money perhaps as other candidates are spending. And there’s no shame in the fact that everybody is feeling it tight, and I’m no different,” he said.
