Election game on! Harris lambasts Mary Lou at rally
Minister warns FG: ‘The populists are at the door’
SIMON Harris lashed out at Sinn Féin leader Mary ‘Sue’ McDonald in an election rallying call to his Fine Gael party, warning ‘the populists are at the door’.
In a rousing speech to party members in Dublin Bay South on Monday night, Minister Harris said Fine Gael needed to be ‘ready for battle’ to ‘win the next election, to lead the next government and to keep the Shinners out of government’.
Party members gathered at the Alex Hotel in Dublin’s south inner city for the first of their general election selection conventions. Mr Harris, the Higher Education Minister, took aim at Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay South Chris Andrews and his party leader Ms McDonald for their litigious approach to the media.
Mr Andrews recently initiated legal proceedings against the Irish Times and one of its journalists personally.
Mr Harris said: ‘Mary “Sue” McDonald, and indeed the TD for this constituency, Deputy Chris Andrews, who thinks the best way to take on debates is to try and silence people and sue them and terrify journalists. No, nay, never, that’s the way this party approaches democracy.’
Mr Harris said that Sinn Féin has got ‘all of the big calls wrong, every single one of them’. He continued: ‘Remember Covid? Will we open the pubs, will we close the pubs? They couldn’t make up their mind, they couldn’t make up their mind. They put their hands up in the air and that was how they followed the public health advice, whichever way the wind was blowing was how the Sinn Féin party would have approached the Covid pandemic.
‘Do you remember when the IMF [International Monetary Fund] were here? When, literally, the IMF was paying our public services and paying our public servants, what did the Shinners say?
‘Send them home and tell them to take the money with them. They’ve got it wrong... in every single European referendum, including the one to join Europe. They voted no.’
Mr Harris warned his party colleagues that Ireland ‘is not immune from populism’ and pointed to the election of former US president Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum as reasons for caution. He also pointed to the rise of the far-right, recent ugly protests outside the Dáil and the Dublin riots as evidence of the populist threat.
‘The populists are at the gates of government, they were literally at the gates of Government Buildings in recent weeks,’ he said.
‘We’ve seen it around our community, people who bandy our flag, people who claim a mandate and have none. People who don’t have the courage to put their name on a ballot paper, and then the people who do put their name on a ballot paper occupy part of the opposition benches with this sheer populism.’
Mr Harris then criticised Sinn Féin for their response to the riots, after which Ms McDonald said she had no confidence in Garda Commissioner Drew Harris and Justice Minister Helen McEntee.
He said: ‘Their response... wasn’t to stand by the Republic, wasn’t to stand by the gardaí, but was to call for the head of our police force. How is that mature politics? We need to be really careful.’
Mr Harris sa id that ‘this is not the time for amateurs and newbies and rookies in government’.
He said Fine Gael had guided the country through the major shocks of a global financial crisis, Brexit and the pandemic.
‘Now, more than ever is the time for an experienced team... that doesn’t look inward, that doesn’t just say the easy thing to get through the next interview, that doesn’t think complex problems can be solved by a tweet or a quick soundbite,’ he said.
At the convention, Fine Gael Councillor James Geoghegan was selected as the party’s candidate to contest the next election in Dublin Bay South.
Mr Geoghegan was the party’s candidate in the 2021 by-election, triggered by former Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy’s resignation. But he lost out to now Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik. Fine Gael has no TD in the constituency described by Mr Harris as ‘Fine Gael heartland’.
‘How is that mature politics?’