It wa another busy day on the general election 2024 campaign trail.
- Minister for Justice Helen McEntee insisted the proposed use of facial recognition technology to help investigate serious crimes will not affect the civil liberties of citizens at Fine Gael’s justice policy launch
- Fianna Fáil revealed its plans to tackle crime and keep communities safe while Labour unveiled its health promises which include extending free GP care to all children under 18 and hiring 700 nurses
- The Social Democrats’ new housing policies include a ban on no-fault evictions, holding a referendum to put the right to a home in the Constitution and committing to building some 303,000 affordable homes
- The Green Party launched their campaign in Cork with leader Roderic O’Gorman issuing a warning about climate progress if his party aren’t back in government after polling day on November 29th
- Former MEP and TD Mick Wallace announced he will be standing as an independent candidate in the Wexford constituency
Key reads
- Poll: Support for Independents jumps but Fine Gael remains most popular party
- Pat Leahy: Voter volatility may yet cost Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in tight election finish
- Battles heat up in the four bellwether constituencies ahead of voting day
- ‘I want someone to take an actual stand on immigration’: How will TCD student debaters vote?
- Justine McCarthy: What’s the point of an election if it inevitably means the same parties get back in?
That’s it for today’s live coverage, but keep an eye out for more developments on The Irish Times website and app as the general election campaign continues throughout the weekend.
During a brief live RTÉ debate on health services this evening, Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane said he and his party are “looking for our chance to deliver the health service I believe people deserve.”
“These guys have had 100 years, we’re looking for our chance,” he said.
Mr Cullinane outlined various issues with public healthcare, including access to GP services, disability services and mental health services, adding that there is a threat of industrial action from frontline healthcare staff “who we should value”.
“I don’t believe that it is acceptable, in a wealthy country, that we have 100,000 people on hospital trolleys so far this year,” he said, citing figures from the Irish Midwives and Nurses Organisation (INMO).
“Our plan is about putting the capacity in, we want a public GP contract, we want 5,000 beds in hospitals, 2,400 beds in the community and a job guarantee to all health graduates,” he said.
Outgoing Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, meanwhile, said “the single biggest priority in health” in the next Dáil term must be improving access to care waiting times.
While saying hospital waiting times have halved in the last three years, and there are now 13,000 fewer patients on trolleys in emergency departments than in 2023, he said: “We need to go much further”.
“Important progress is being made, it is hard work, there are no silver bullets to this,” he said, adding that Fianna Fáil is seeking a mandate to add “thousands more beds” and “tens of thousands more healthcare workers”.
During the debate in Roscrea Castle, Co Tipperary, Fine Gael’s Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, said because of her party’s management of the economy, “we have the money to double the health budget in the last ten years.”
She agreed with Mr Donnelly concerning driving delivery, saying: “We are halfway together through that programme to deliver for the Irish people”.
Social Democrats councillor and general candidate for Limerick City Elisa O’Donovan said the people of the mid-west have been “completely abandoned” by the outgoing Government in relation to healthcare.
A speech and language therapist, she said there is a “chronic lack” of GPs, particularly in rural areas, while public dental and orthodontic services “just don’t simply exist”.
Pointing to significant issues in recruiting and retaining public healthcare staff, she said this would be a priority of the Social Democrats which would introduce a “comprehensive workforce strategy”.
Aontú candidate Becky Kealy, meanwhile, said her party would “completely reform” the health service, particularly how hospitals receive funding.
“It would be patient-led funding, the patient who receives a consultation, treatment, or an operation, the hospital where that is done would be paid directly for those services,” she said.
Describing the HSE as “top-heavy”, she said Aontú would introduce a recruitment freeze for senior management and administrative roles for at least two years. She said this would save €30 million each year which would be diverted to the frontline.
Following a week of campaign pledges from various parties, childcare providers in particular have warned that the scale of promises made are causing uncertainty in the sector.
All of main political parties have committed to capping the fees charged to parents, while People Before Profit wishes to see the system made entirely free.
In an open letter, Industry body Early Childhood Ireland has welcomed the prominence the issue of early education and childcare has been given in the campaign.
However, it said the absence of a “clear and comprehensive plan” raises fears that the proposed electoral promises could lead to “diminished quality of care”.
Read more from Emmet Malone here.
‘A jockey in the making’
Tánaiste Micheál Martin, meanwhile was in Macroom, Co Cork earlier today, where he hopped on to the back of a buffalo.
On Friday morning, Fine Gael Minister for Justice Helen McEntee hit back when asked about Mr O’Callaghan’s suggestion that she had adopted a series of proposals on law and order and immigration that he had put forward.
“I think there’s probably women all over the country who will understand what it’s like when men try to claim credit for their work,” she told reporters.
Launching her own party’s justice policy plans in Dublin on Friday, Ms McEntee would not be drawn when asked whether she wanted to continue as justice minister if she is re-elected and Fine Gael return to government.
“Nobody has been elected here,” she said. “My focus over the next two weeks is to get re-elected to represent the people of Meath East, and I hope that we will be in a position to return to government with Simon Harris as our taoiseach.
“Anything beyond that really is a matter for two, three, four weeks time when we see what the outcome is and what people have decided, and I think anything beyond that is simply arrogant.”
Ms McEntee said she had a “very strong” record of delivery in justice.
“I want to be re-elected, and I think anything beyond that is jumping the gun,” she said.
“I will stand on my record in justice. I think I have a very strong record.
“If I’m lucky is enough to be elected again and to be asked to serve in any ministry, then I’ll very happily take that.”
Later, when asked about Ms McEntee’s comments about men claiming credit for women’s work, Mr O’Callaghan said: “The minister should accept that many of the positive measures she introduced were suggested by myself and Fianna Fáil.
“She should be able to accept comments to that effect.”
Labour’s Duncan Smith, meanwhile, said Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are “natural coalition partners” and are “more or less in the same space” on policy issues.
He suggested that any rows between them during an election campaign were “performative” and should be taken “with a pinch of salt”. - PA
Department of Justice needs ‘new direction’, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman says
The Department of Justice needs “new political control and direction” after 14 years with a Fine Gael minister at its helm, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan has said.
Mr O’Callaghan said there was a “question mark” over whether Fine Gael was the party of law and order as he used the party’s election slogan to criticise their track record on justice.
The first week of the election campaign has seen the two coalition parties publicly rowing with each other, with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin saying he was surprised by the tone of the Fine Gael attacks.
Speaking at the nearby launch of Fianna Fail’s proposals to clamp down on crime, Mr O’Callaghan said that the department needs “a new energy” – which has been a Fine Gael campaign slogan.
“I think it would have been different and sometimes political emphasis or political direction have a real impact in terms of a government department,” he said.
“Look at housing, and look what Eoghan Murphy (former Fine Gael Minister for Housing) said when he was in the department, you can have a well-intentioned minister, but unless you have the political emphasis and the political support behind you to make changes, it won’t happen.
“I believe, had we had the full ministry in the Department of Justice, I believe we would have seen greater progress in the area of justice.
“I think that’s part of the reason why Micheál (Martin) has indicated that if it comes to negotiations, if the people put us in the position where we can go into government, that’s one of the portfolios we’d be interested in pursuing.”
Asked whether Ms McEntee was an “ineffective” minister for justice, Mr O’Callaghan said he was not going to personalise the criticism.
“I’m not going to personalise it at all to minister McEntee or to any Fine Gael minister, but let’s recognise the statistics.
“The Department of Justice has been under the control of Fine Gael for the past nearly 14 years, and although there’s been progress in very many other areas in the past four years, I think the questions that are arising in the Department of Justice over the past 14 years are growing in many respects.
“So I’m not going to personalise it to minister McEntee, but I do think there is a benefit to help the Department of Justice under new political control and direction, as it really needs a new energy within that department.”
Asked whether they were stealing Fine Gael’s title as the party of law an order, he said there was “a question mark” over whether Fine Gael “were traditionally the party of law and order”.
“Certainly this century, I think there’s a question mark over that,” he said. - PA
With the first week of the general election campaign coming to a close, Fine Gael are making a strong pitch for the law-and-order vote with their campaign promises. Policing and justice seem to be a key area for both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, but will it mobilise voters?
Listen to Hugh Linehan’s latest daily discussion of the election campaign with Jack Horgan-Jones and Cormac McQuinn here.
Election Daily: First week of the campaign down, now it really begins
It’s official, Gerry Hutch is a general election candidate.
He is now one of seven on the list of officially registered candidates to run in the four-seater Dublin Central constituency including Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe.
Mr Hutch, known as The Monk, lodged his nomination papers on Thursday evening, hours after McDonald condemned his candidacy.
“I represent communities that have suffered because of this so-called gangland warfare. I represent communities that have suffered the ravages of the heroin epidemic in the 1980s. I roundly condemn Gerry Hutch or anyone else who was involved in crime,” she said.
It was a change from her remarks on Sunday when she told reporters that “anybody can run in the election” and that “is their prerogative”, when asked about his bid for a seat.
Several intending to run, including former independent MEP Clare Daly have yet to be officially nominated, though they have until Saturday at noon to lodge their papers.
The Green Party are out launching their campaign in Cork, and leader Roderic O’Gorman has issued a warning about climate progress if his party aren’t back in government after the election.
He said the Greens played a central role in reducing carbon emissions, PA reports.
Last year, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 6.8 per cent with reductions in almost all sectors.
It was the lowest that greenhouse gas emissions have been in three decades, and below the 1990 baseline, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Mr O’Gorman said that Ireland’s emissions are at its lowest in 30 years.
He added: “I’m not confident that if the Greens aren’t part of the next government, whatever its make-up, I’m not confident that that progress will continue, that we will see another 7 per cent, that we’ll see the commitment of those financial resources that are necessary to deliver these really important projects that get us our cuts, but also improve people’s quality of life as well.
“I’ve said that since I became leader of the party, we as a party have to be really clear that in taking those steps to meet our reduction targets, the government always have to be helping people, have to be helping families, have to be helping businesses, have to be helping farmers.
“The government has to be helping people do this work to get these goals.”
Former MEP and TD Mick Wallace has announced he is going to stand in the Wexford constituency.
Mr Wallace made his announcement on South East Radio this morning just two weeks before the election is due to take place.
He topped the poll in the 2011 general election and was re-elected in 2016 finishing third. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2019 but lost his seat this year.
He told presenter Alan Corcoran that he made his decision following consultation with his surviving children. His son Joe died earlier this year from cancer.
He said that he would put his name forward because he had been one of the few people in Dáil Éireann who knew anything about housing.
He had warned that the costs of the children’s hospital would rise well beyond €1 billion, but was ignored.
“I come from the industry. They (the Government) have moved away from the idea of providing public housing through the local authorities,” he said.
“The Land Development Agency is another scam. If the local authorities are not fit to be the conduit to provide public housing in Ireland, let’s make them so.”
He reiterated that he would not do “parish-pump politics”. Neither would he serve in Government if elected.
“Opposition is incredibly important and I don’t see much of it. I see most members of the Dáil become part of the mainstream,” he said.
“I would have been demonised in the Dáil for the police and stuff. I probably challenged the Nama stuff single-handedly.
“I made it plain that the whole children’s hospital thing was a scam when it should have cost less than a billion.”
He was very emotional when speaking about his son. “I’m not the first person to lose a son. Only those who have that experience understand what it is like.
“We have to get on with life as best we can. You don’t get over it. You have to come to terms with it every day, but you have got to keep going. It’s not easy.”
Wexford is likely to be an extremely competitive constituency wit three outgoing TDs James Browne (FF), Verona Murphy (Ind) and Johnny Mythen (SF) all standing. Labour’s Brendan Howlin is retiring as is former Fine Gael minister Paul Kehoe.
Both Labour and Fine Gael will hope to retain the seats through Cllr George Lawlor and the two Fine Gael candidates, Cllr Bridín Murphy and Cllr Cathal Byrne respectively.”
A day after Micheál Martin called for a ceasefire between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, a very personal row has broken out between the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and Fianna Fáil’s spokesperson on justice Jim O’Callaghan.
The issue was laid bare on a RTÉ Prime Time debate about crime on Thursday night in Limerick.
Mr O’Callaghan, who is a senior counsel, famously turned down a junior ministry in the Coalition Government in July 2020 stating that he felt he would be more effective as a backbencher.
During tense exchanges, Mr O’Callaghan said Ms McEntee had taken on board many of his recommendations.
Presenter Fran McNulty said to Ms McEntee: “You listened to your Coalition partners, you just didn’t listen enough”.
“With all due respect,” McEntee responded, “Jim was asked to be a minister in the Department of Justice and he turned it down. I have turned up day in, day out.”
Ouch!
Mr O’Callaghan responded: “I just want to say, in terms of what Helen said, I have been far more effective as a backbench Fianna Fáil TD.”
He then went on to list all the recommendations he claimed the minister had taken on board – the Children’s Act, knife-crime, garda recruitment and the designation of safe countries.
Mr McNulty responded: “It sounds like you haven’t been in Coalition together”.
On Friday Ms McEntee was scathing about the previous night’s exchanges: “There are probably women all over the country who will understand it when men try to claim credit for their work.”
Extending free GP care to all children under 18, plans to hire 700 nurses and delivering 300 hospital beds per year are among the Labour Party’s election promises aimed at transforming Ireland’s health service, writes political correspondent Cormac McQuinn.
The party is pledging to establish a €1 billion Sláintecare Transition Fund to accelerate reforms.
It says it will hire 50 GPs per year and expand GP training places by 20 annually.
Labour would lift what it argues is an ongoing recruitment embargo in health and guarantee jobs for all health graduates.
It has a proposal to convert vacant HSE properties like Baggot Street Hospital into housing for key workers.
Labour would use €500 million of the Apple tax windfall to roll out digital health records.
Duncan Smith, the party’s health spokesman said: “We cannot afford to continue on the current trajectory of overcrowded hospitals, staff shortages, and underfunded community services.”
He said his party’s plan would “rebuild capacity, and efficiency in our health service, support the healthcare workers and build a better healthcare system, together.”
Does the Irish media bring up the issue of Sinn Féin’s past links with the Provisional IRA up too often?
Appearing on the Free State Podcast, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald agreed with host Joe Brolly that the Dublin media (as opposed to its northern equivalent) brings up the Provisional IRA as a means of discrediting the party in the here and now.
She responded by stating there was a “reluctance on the part of the Free State establishment to move on”.
“You don’t ask somebody who was a baby in the 1970s about something that happened in the 1970s. That’s not a reasonable proposition. You wouldn’t ask it of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party.
“It is not reasonable to approach people from Sinn Féin in that way. We can debate history. We can talk about the past.”
The issue was raised on the Inside Politics podcast on Wednesday. Political correspondents Jack Horgan-Jones and Jennifer Bray deny this is the case.
The issue of the Provisional IRA is rarely brought up with the party nowadays.
They all explain how the scandals surrounding Sinn Féin are different from those surrounding other parties.
You can listen back to the podcast from 7.30 to 14.30 here.
Former MEP and TD Mick Wallace has announced he will be standing in the Wexford constituency.
He made the announcement on South East Radio’s Morning Mix programme.
Wallace was elected to Dáil Éireann twice previously topping the poll at his first attempt in Wexford in 2011
He then ran for the European Parliament and was elected in 2019.
He failed to get re-elected in the Euro elections earlier this year losing out to Fianna Fáil’s Cynthia Ní Mhurchú.
Wallace said he thought long and hard before making up his mind to stand and says his future political career lies in the hands of the electorate of Wexford.
The Social Democrats have launched their housing policy this morning in Marino, north Dublin, writes Sarah Burns.
It sets out putting affordability “centre stage”, and building a total of 303,000 new homes between 2026 and 2030.
It also includes a ban on no-fault evictions and holding a referendum to put the right to a home in the Constitution.
The policy sets out a ban on the bulk purchase of homes by increasing the special rate of stamp duty on such purchases to 100 per cent.
Parties are battling it out in 43 constituencies – four more than last time in 2020. There are four constituencies considered bellwethers where results should signal how the overall result plays out. Harry McGee, Jennifer Bray, Andrew Hamilton and Barry J Whyte report.
Facial recognition technology will not affect the civil liberties, McEntee insists
Fine Gael’s proposals to introduce facial recognition technology (FRT) to help investigate serious crimes will not affect the civil liberties of citizens, outgoing Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has insisted.
The party was launching its justice policy in Dublin with a raft of proposals including the recruitment of 6,000 additional gardaí, a new prison at Thornton Hall, full roll-out of body-worn cameras, and the use of FRT.
The specific proposal on FRT envisages its use for serious crimes with a maximum sentence of five years or more and for missing persons cases.
The Meath East TD said that if FRT was deployed it would have expedited the investigation into the Dublin riots last November by a considerable period of time.
In some instances it is also proposing the use of live FRT in cases of terrorism, national security and missing persons.
Ms McEntee insisted that there would be strict safeguards in place to ensure that FRT is used appropriately.
“I am very firmly of the view that our Garda Síochána should be provided with the technology and with the tools that they need to be able to respond to Serious Crime.”
“We saw last year in November in our city centre, we had guardians trawling through thousands of hours of CCTV footage to try and identify culprits, to try and identify those who were involved in the riots.
“Facial recognition technology would ensure that that could be done in a matter of hours, in a matter of days, and that people could be before the courts with that clear evidence and hopefully prosecuted it in a much quicker timeline.
“I don’t think anybody should apologise for providing the gardaí with the tools that they need.”
She argued that in certain circumstances gardaí should be allowed to use FRT in real time where there is a risk to national security, a terrorism threat, or where a person is missing, where we know time is of the essence.”
Asked about the implications this would have for civil liberties, she said there would need to be very clear oversight.
“It would have to be preauthorised, that there would have to be engagement with our judiciary.”
Health is the second most important issue at 18 per cent, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos poll.
Yet Ireland’s spend on health at €5,998 per person annually is the third-highest per capita in the EU behind Luxembourg (€6,590 annually) and Denmark (€6,110).
Ireland’s health spend is almost 50 per cent higher than the EU average which is €3,685 per person annually.
This information comes from data on healthcare expenditure published by Eurostat and relate to the spend in 2022. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on healthcare expenditure.
In 2022, in the EU, the ratio of current healthcare expenditure to GDP stood at 10.4 per cent. The highest relative expenditures were recorded in Germany (12.6 per cent of GDP), France (11.9 per cent) and Austria (11.2 per cent).
In contrast, healthcare spending in Luxembourg was 5.6 per cent of GDP, in Romania 5.8 per cent and in Ireland 6.1 per cent of GDP.
As GDP is not a reliable indicator of the true size of the Irish economy, the Irish health spend was much higher than that. The Gross National Income (GNI) would suggest that Government health spending was 11.3 per cent in 2022. That does not include the billions that Irish people spend on private health insurance.
What are the issues that Trinity College Dublin students care about most? Sarah Burns has been speaking to them. Sienna Ní Riordáin (below), who is originally from South Africa and now living in South Dublin, is particularly impressed with the Social Democrats and likes watching Instagram reels of their party leader Holly Cairns speaking in the Dáil.
“I think it’s genius, because young people want to passively consume political content,” she says. “They want to open Instagram and have it right in front of them.”
What are the issues that exercise voters the most, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos survey?
The cost of living is by far the most important issue at 30 per cent.
This should worry the Government parties as inflation is the principal reason why Donald Trump has won a second term as US president.
Voters were prepared to ignore all the issues surround him and to punish Kamala Harris for the rampant inflation which occurred on the Biden administration’s watch.
Closer to home there has been an increase in the proportion of voters saying that the country is generally going in the right direction, up by five points to 42 per cent. This roughly correspondents with the combined vote of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael (44 per cent).
Yet half of voters (50 per cent) say the country is generally going in the wrong direction, down by four points since last February.
Voters were also asked what was the issue that will have the most influence on their vote.
Next on the list of priorities was health (18 per cent) and house prices (17 per cent), followed by immigration (9 per cent), the economy (6 per cent), the cost of rent (6 per cent), law and order (5 per cent), climate (4 per cent) and tax (3 per cent).
The big winners, according to the latest poll, is independents who are up four points to 20 per cent.
It’s an indication of how fiery the general election coverage has become on the airwaves that Matt Cooper practically yawns in excitement as he surveys the campaign to date. “It really hasn’t caught alight, has it?” the presenter observes on The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays), as he looks back on the first week of electioneering, write Mick Heaney in his very popular radio review.
“I think we can safely say the nation has released a long breath and is bored already,” replies his guest, Prof Gary Murphy of DCU. Candid though this verdict may be, it’s hardly the cue for wavering listeners to stay tuned for the next fortnight, particularly given that the calm and careful Cooper isn’t naturally inclined towards creating on-air fireworks.”
The Government parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are on 44 per cent between them (FG 25 per cent, FF 19 per cent), but there is no room for complacency in their campaigns, political editor Pat Leahy suggests.
He writes: “With many voters unlikely to finally make up their minds until closer to election day, the race seems set to tighten further.
“Fine Gael is well out in front on 25 per cent and Harris remains the most popular party leader with a 50 per cent satisfaction rating. But its lead over Fianna Fáil has been cut from eight points in September to six today and with so many new Fine Gael candidates up against proven vote-getters in other parties, things could get even tighter.
“Either way, with Irish politics marked by extreme volatility in recent elections, it is too early in this campaign to be in any way definitive about the outcome. Fine Gael is six points up at half-time; that’s a decent lead but it’s all still to play for.”
You can read his full analysis here.
