FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin has called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to seek a bilateral meeting with French president-elect Francois Hollande.
Martin said today that Kenny meeting with Hollande – who he spoke to on the phone this week – would provide a welcome boost to the Yes campaign in the upcoming referendum on the Fiscal Compact treaty.
The Cork TD cited Hollande’s pledge to seeks growth measures in Europe as a cause that the Irish government should support, saying: “The regime change in France brings added momentum to the case for added growth measures.
“I believe that formalising a growth agenda alongside the Stability Treaty would be a strong addition to the Treaty and would demonstrate to the people of Ireland that Europe finally understands the need to take more positive action to encourage economic recovery.
“The Taoiseach should quickly seek a bilateral with the new President to emphasise Irish support for the growth agenda.”
Martin also claimed that formalising a growth agenda, as EU leaders will hope to do when they meet at an informal summit in Brussels later this month, would put a challenge to the No campaign to “prove their good value”.
“Would they advocate a ‘Yes’ vote if growth measures were formalised?” he added.
“Given their opposition to every initiative and development in Europe over the course of the last fifty years, I suspect that the goalposts would move and they would find another reason to remain negative.”
Martin is campaigning for a Yes vote at the English Market in his home city of Cork today.
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