SINN FÉIN:SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams said his party was about standing up for citizens and "putting backbone into this political system".
In a final rally calling on people to vote for the party, he said that “we need the strongest Sinn Féin team possible in the Dáil to put backbone into these other political parties”.
Mr Adams, a candidate in Louth, was speaking at the statue of trade union leader James Larkin on O’Connell Street in Dublin. Speaking to reporters, he denied the violence in Libya was an embarrassment for the party in light of the republican movement’s links in the past to Col Muammar Gadafy.
Responding to repeated questioning about the IRA’s receipt of arms and explosives from the Libyan leader, he said Ireland’s beef trade with Mr Gadafy was bigger than with any other Arab state at that time.
Mr Gadafy “should go”, he said, insisting that Sinn Féin never had any connection with Libya.
He had already condemned the violence and said the protests there showed people wanted empowerment and was a “reminder of how important it is for people to come out and vote”.
Calling on people to “make a stand for Sinn Féin”, he said that “we’re very clear, we’re very focused. We’ve come forward with very practical, costed propositions”.
Mr Adams said working people had “borne the brunt of very bad political choices by a very bad Government”. He said the other political parties had the same agenda.
“They’re for cuts and they’re for this IMF-EU bailout. Some of them have moved towards the Sinn Féin position but we want to stop the madness which is about putting the State further into debt and burdening working people, increasing unemployment and increasing emigration.”
Mr Adams said what was happening across the Arab states “happened in the North. It happened in South Africa. It happened in the United States of America in the [19]60s”.
People wanted empowerment and to participate in democratic systems.
“That’s what’s happening in the Arab states and that should be encouragement of us as Irish people to come out and use our votes and use them wisely.”
He said that “the largest beef trade with this State and the Arab countries was with Col Gadafy”.
