EVERY evening, TheJournal.ie brings your Daily Fix: our pick of the highlights (and some of the lows) of today’s campaign trail.

GOOD DAY FOR:

• Fine Gael – polls carried in both the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Business Post have shown that Fine Gael and Enda Kenny are enjoying a surge in support in the final week of the election campaign.
• Pensions – for Enda Kenny at least, as he can now look forward to his ministerial, TD’s and teacher’s pensions when he leaves politics…. and a lump-payment of €100,000.
• Gerry Adams – who was trending with slightly positive sentiment on our Twitter Tracker over the past few hours.

BAD DAY FOR:

• Gay marriage – Fine Gael’s Lucinda Creighton tweeted today that she “supported the Civil Partnership Bill fully” but added that she did not support gay marriage, saying that marriage was “primarily about children”. Creighton explained that the main purpose of marriage is to “propagate & create environment for children to grow up”, so while she believes that gay couples should be treated “fairly and justly” in matters such as tax and inheritance – marriage is “different”.

JIBE OF THE DAY:

Sinn Féin’s Mary-Lou McDonald has said Micheál Martin has a “brass neck” for saying that the economic line that was followed by the last government should have been challenged more vigorously. She said: “Does he seriously think that the entire country has been asleep and we have all somehow forgotten that it was Fianna Fáil Ministers in his government who were repeating this mantra up until very recently?”

DESPERADO OF THE DAY:

Éamon Ó Cuív – who is wanted in Dingle for “Town Identity Theft”.

His co-accused, John ‘the bull’ O’Donoghue, was allegedly last seen “flying 1st class around the world at the Irish taxpayers’ expense”.

(via @dinglenews)

Making a difference

A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can make sure we can keep reliable, meaningful news open to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.

Support us Learn More