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GE2024on the trailHOUSING, CHILDCARE AND regional development were the headline issues that Cavan-Monaghan voters chose to bring up to the Taoiseach during two separate canvases today.
On the third day of the general election campaign trail, The Journal joined reporters who were bussed around Ireland today as Simon Harris and his team hit the streets of Cavan and Monaghan towns where the party are seeking two seats.
The constituency’s retiring incumbent, social protection minister Heather Humphreys, joined Harris along the trail as the pair met all three of its candidates in the constituency.
While Michael O’Leary’s remarks about teachers during a Fine Gael event have dominated headlines and threaten the stability of the party’s campaign, voters on the ground took the, albeit brief and unexpected, opportunity to tell the leader of the country what is impacting them instead.
During the first stop in Cavan town, staff at Boyle For Men, a suit shop with an outlet in both towns, told Harris that conducting business has been “very tough” lately, citing issues with rising costs and supply chain difficulties.
One staff member said that she only worked to pay for her high childcare costs. Another mentioned the need for better, well-rounded subsidies.
Harris wasted no time to rattle off any one of Fine Gael’s business support plans and publicly-funded childcare proposals – but it was unclear if that was enough to convince the staff that the Taoiseach’s party could stable the ship quickly.
Across the constituency, housing was brought up time and time again. The Monaghan half of the ward has the fewest available homes on the property or rental market.
“If he comes up to me I’m going to ask him where all the houses are,” one man said to his friend in the Monaghan café that the Taoiseach visited. Harris did not approach his table as a baby, Síofra (three-weeks old), had been handed to him sooner.
Once again, the Taoiseach listed off points included in his newly-announced housing policy but nothing that specific to the constituents’ situations.
After he was intercepted by a local journalist in Cavan, he said the same issues are being mentioned all over the country. “I’m asking that people give me a chance on all of these matters,” Harris told the reporter.
One man stopped the Taoiseach in the street in Monaghan town. He said he supported Fine Gael candidate David Maxwell but expressed the need for gardaí and healthcare services to be improved in the county.
“Cavan [general hospital] can’t cope and neither can Drogheda,” he said. “I want more resources here.”
The bus and Harris then made way up to Donegal – which requires the Taoiseach and his armed garda entourage to seek permission first so that the convoy can be flanked by two PSNI units through Northern Ireland.
Tonight’s canvass was further delayed due to a call with US President-elect Donald Trump. In Letterkenny, the Taoiseach and candidate and current senator Nikki Bradley knocked on doors in Ashbrook – a Fine Gael stronghold.
Bradley, who had a leg amputation due to Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, outlined her desire to represent people with disabilities in the Dáil and asked for constituents’ support.
Some of the neighbours – who had been warned of the Taoiseach’s visit by fellow resident and Fine Gael councillor Jimmy Kavanagh prior to his arrival – wished Bradley and the Taoiseach the best of luck in the election and voiced support for the party.
One issue that, surprisingly, didn’t come up at the doors or among the public in Donegal was defective building blocks. Everyone who spoke to The Journal at this evening’s events said that the issue was most important to those in the north of the county.
The mica scandal poses a real threat to Fine Gael’s base in Donegal. Independent TD Joe McHugh left the party in protest over the government’s handling of the scandal, but has decided not to contest this election.
Speaking in Ballybofey, Harris said that he was aware of the importance of the issue and the “burden” it has placed on voters in Donegal in recent years and committed to a full review of the current redress scheme, if his party were to get back into Government.
He told a crowd, while standing behind the counter of candidate John McNulty’s petrol station, that this election will be the “battle of all battles”.
“On Friday 29 November, people in Donegal will have the opportunity to go out and vote and I’m really hoping that they return a Fine Gael TD here in this constituency,” he said.
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People, not parties,, are elected to Dáil Éireann.
Depriving TDs speaking time because of internal party matters is an affront to democracy.
Kevin, all TD’s have the right to speak, but there is an order placed upon that right so that the larger parties are afforded the opportunity first, representative of their greater respresentative clout.
This system is required for the efficient and orderly debate of particular issues.
If you want to priorotise certain TD’s based on electoral clout then give the TD with the most votes priority. Not the party with most members.
If they can’t speak get the system changed or get rid of them with no pension or perks
The purpose of the meeting today is to secure speaking rights for the affected group, made up of former FGs.
I may be reading it wrong but it seems to me these TDs had speaking rights as FG members which they lost when they lost the Party whip.
They now want to obtain speaking rights as in their own right.
Democracy in action preventing some from speaking in the Dail because they disagreed about party policy. So much for Enda’s claim to be reforming how government works.
FG are really trying to punish & humiliate those ‘rebel’ TD’s
very petty & vindictive
Irish democracy is being revealed for the joke that it is.
It would appear that Enda and Hulk Hogan have succeeded in bringing us the transparent government they promised.
Who could disagree with that comment.
Methinks Kehoe has activated the YFGbots.
This system has been in place long before the FG/Lab government came to power and is represented across the chambers of nearly all other western democracies.
Show me a democracy that does not operate in this way.
This shure we de worst in the world rubbish is physically sickening. Grow a pair of balls ffs and instead of imagining that the world is laughing at you, or that Ireland is the only country with problems, get off your butts and do something.
doesnt mean it works
This government just keeps digging a deeper political grave for itself with every negative announcement they make.
They have their speaking rights at mass on Sundays
Not that I want to listen to a word from idiot Creighton or fool Timmons …but ain’t it slightly off the wall that elected TDs aren’t allowed to speak…..democracy haw are you !
“the coalition has no plans to amend Dáil standing orders”.
So where is the open and accountable Government we were promised?
Serves them right
Democratically elected Tds not allowed to speak in the national parliament.
That’s a bad thing, see?
Democracy = a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Leaves me to ask, what do you call the present system of government?
Ireland operates a Whipocracy …. NOT a Democracy.
Whipped TDs vote for vested interests not the interests of those who voted for them.
Local Property Tax … case in point.
Revenue voted power by Whipped TDs to get the Anglo Tax from your pay, pension or bank account.
Hostile action by Government against the electorate … not in Syria …. in Ireland.
——————————————-
FB/LocalPropertyTax
I found this out today and it made my blood boil!!! Eammon Gilmore is on €152,000 a year, plus €48,000 ‘expenses’ and he has FIVE advisers on a combined total of €670,000 !! Just him alone is costing nearly 1million. Ffs like.
his ‘expenses’ are almost twice my salary
He also has unvouched allowances
for example €5000 per year dry cleaning…. !!!!
This is the Taoiseach whose political reform instincts we’re trusting if we abolish the Seanad; he *might* reform the Dáil, but all indications are that he won’t.
yer wan from the Vincent Browne show has nice legs !
Who is yer wan….???
Vincent?
The wan in the background talking to petey forer banker Matthews ; she’s wearing high heels and she does be on the telly so she does .
The new Labour Party watch this space .
There is nothing to stop these TDs joining the existing technical group in the Dail or forming another technical group with someone like Mattie McGrath. Under the rules of the Dail they only need a minimum of 7 TDs for form such a group in order to gain more speaking rights.
The reason this isn’t happening is nothing to do with standing orders, but because it would effect the income “entitlements” of those TDs. This is while Healy Rae & McGrath chose not to be in the first technical group. The earn more money by being out of it.
There are 166 TDs in the Dail. If they each were allowed 5 mins a day speaking time then that would be 13 hours and 50 minutes each day excluding votes, debate and questions. Doesn’t seem workable.
you are assuming that they all turn up to the Dail every day
have your say