Readers like you keep news free for everyone.
More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.
For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.
# shots fired
Fine Gael has just dished out this epic burn to Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil’s response? “The festive spirit appears to have gotten the better of the Fine Gael party handlers.”
Updated 1.23pm
POLITICALLY THIS TIME of year is pretty quiet with only the State Papers to keep politicos entertained.
So it’s no wonder that some people might get up to mischief like the folks in the Fine Gael press office who put out this release this morning:
The party is claiming that Fianna Fáil has not put forward “any substantial policy alternatives” in 2014 nor in 2011, 2012, or 2013 – hence the blank press release.
It specifically cites the lack of any health policy which the Fianna Fáil spokesperson Billy Kelleher has said will be produced “early in the new year”.
We’ve asked Fianna Fáil for comment and the party hit back with something a bit more substantial than that Fine Gael press release:
The festive spirit appears to have gotten the better of the Fine Gael party handlers. If they took 5 minutes to research Fianna Fáil’s work, they would have found that Fianna Fáil has introduced 77 bills and launched 27 policy initiatives over the course of this Dáil to date. Not for the first time, Fine Gael is happy to lie to voters for the sake of a press release.
Indeed the party might well point to the several pre-budget submissions it’s put forward in recent years and its various policy documents, including a detailed policy on funding mental health services.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie recently, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin outlined his three priorities if he were to become Taoiseach:
Read: He’s ruled out Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, so could Micheál Martin do a deal with anyone?
Read: Enda Kenny withdraws claims that bank guarantee documents were shredded
