It’s the final weekend of the general election campaigns and party leaders are continuing canvassing voters across the country before polling day on Friday.
Fianna Fáil today will outline their plans for supports for families while Fine Gael will be presenting their ideas in tackling the cost-of-living crisis.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald is due to brave Storm Bert as she heads to Limerick, Cork and Kerry too.
Follow our updates below throughout the day for all the happenings on the campaign trail.
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- Disability worker says she was ‘shaken’ and in tears after exchange with Fine Gael leader Charlotte Fallon speaks out after her confrontation with Simon Harris.
Fianna Fáil has set out its stall in relation to childcare costs if it is returned to government.
It plans to reduce childcare costs to a maximum of €200 a month, place the ECCE scheme on a legal footing and increase core funding to provide supports to creches.
They say they will buy and build additional childcare facilities in blackspots to increase supply in a demanding sector, and supply more childcare facilities on school sites, including Irish-medium naíonraí.
Speaking on the matter, Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee has stated that Fianna Fáil is committed to a universal approach to support families.
“We have a range of targeted and universal measures to support families. During our term in government, we have increased parent’s leave and benefit, provided additional Child Benefit payments and provided GP visit cards to all children under 8 years old.”S
Sinn Féin have seized on the footage of Taoiseach Simon Harris being confronted by a disability worker with Eoin Ó Broin claiming it was “the real face of Fine Gael”, writes political correspondent Cormac McQuinn.
He argued the party has “absolute contempt for hard-working people, for carers and people with disabilities”.
At a press conference in Dublin Fine Gael deputy leader Helen McEntee responded to the criticism saying: “I think the Taoiseach himself has been very clear that he wished the encounter had gone differently.
“It had been the end of a very, very long day.
“I’ve been with him around the country.
“He’s met thousands of people.
“And what he said very clearly is that he should have given her more time and should have engaged for longer with her.”
However, she said helping people with disabilities was the reason Mr Harris got into politics referring to how he has a younger sibling with a disability.
“He [Mr Harris] wanted to make the system better, and he has consistently, throughout this campaign, focused on, prioritised and made it very clear that if he is re-elected as Taoiseach, that he will continue... to focus on how we can do more, not just for those with disabilities, but for their families, for their carers, and for their communities”.
She also said: “I think one encounter, one engagement, does not reflect a person and their values, their beliefs, their work, their ethics, and certainly when it comes to this issue, their commitment to it.
And he’s been very clear that he had wished that that maybe had gone a little bit different, but he has and will be reaching out, I believe and hope to speak to that woman and to be able to have a longer conversation.”
Political correspondent Jennifer Bray has spoken to the carer who confronted Taoiseach Simon Harris about his party’s record on disabilities.
You can read it here.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee has praised Nikita Hand for her “bravery”, “determination” and “leadership” in the wake of her victory in her High Court civil action against Mixed Martial Arts fighter Conor McGregor, writes political correspondent Cormac McQuinn.
Ms Hand had alleged she was raped by Mr McGregor in December 2018 in the civil case and the jury found in her favour.
The jury awarded €248,603 in damages to Ms Hand against Mr McGregor after finding she was assaulted by him in a Dublin hotel.
Mr McGregor has said he will appeal the verdict.
Ms McEntee said: “I just want to commend Nikitta for her bravery, for her determination, and the leadership that she has shown in what has been, no doubt, a very, very difficult time for her and indeed, for her family.
“We need more women coming forward.”
The Fine Gael minister added: “It is so important that any victim of domestic or sexual violence knows that when they come forward, they’ll be listened to, they’ll be supported, and that help is there.”
Ms McEntee also said that during the trial many organisations that support victims and survivors have reported increased numbers of calls.
“The number of people coming forward for the first time has increased, and that can only be a good thing,” Ms McEntee said.
Simon Harris has apologised after his encounter with a carer in Kanturk admitting that he should have spent more time engaging with her.
The meeting typifies Fine Gael’s attitude to those employed in the community and voluntary sector, Sinn Féin believes.
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Workers’ Rights, Louise O’Reilly said health and community workers employed in community and voluntary sector agencies have been fighting for pay equality for years.
“These workers are essential in providing healthcare and services for people with disabilities on behalf of the state and they have been badly let down by Fine Gael for the last 14 years,” he said.
“It’s time to respect these workers and pay them properly. The failure to do so not only involved pay inequality, it is resulting in a huge turnover in these staff and ongoing difficulties in recruiting much needed staff.”
Labour has launched its plan to support carers - an issue which has come to the forefront of the election after Simon Harris’s confrontation with a carer yesterday.
Labour’s new Social Contract for Care will abolish the means test for the carer’s allowance if elected to Government.
They would also gradually increase the half-rate carer’s Allowance, recognising the invaluable contribution of carers, starting with pensioners.
Fine Gael deputy leader Helen McEntee says her boss should have spent more time with the woman in Kanturk.
But she defended Simon Harris’s meeting with a voter who accused him of not caring about carers.
He got into politics because of the lack of disability services, she said and is committed to improving them if re-elected to office.
Sinn Féin’s manifesto proposal to establish an “independent human rights and journalist expert review into the objectivity of coverage by RTÉ of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and other international conflicts” has drawn a strong rebuke in this Irish Times editorial.
“And if it can do so over Gaza, it presumably believes it can do the same over coverage of domestic issues. That would be an outrageous breach of fundamental principles.”
You can read the editorial here.
Ireland is a rich country no matter what any of the opposition parties say to the contrary, writes David McWilliams.
There are big challenges ahead and we risk repeating the mistakes of 2004-2007 when there was a series of giveaway budgets before the economy collapse.
You can read his column here.
Will Simon Harris’s meeting with a carer in Kanturk be his Gordon Brown moment?
Political anoracks will recall during the 2010 British general election, Brown was confronted by a woman in Rochdale named Gillian Duffy.
She questioned why she was being taxed at the age of 66 and what he was going to do about the debt.
She also confronted him about immigration and the influx of Eastern Europeans into the UK then.
It would have been forgotten about but for the fact that he still had his Sky News microphone on him which picked up his comments when he got back into his car.
“That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? Ridiculous.”
Asked what she had said, he replied: “Everything, she was just a bigoted woman.”
The clip was picked up and went viral. It seemed to confirm to voters traits of Brown’s personality that they didn’t like.
Will the same happen here? Harris has quickly moved to apologise to the woman in Kanturk and to reiterate his commitment to addressing disability issues, but will it be enough?
Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he “feels really bad” about an exchange he had with a visibly upset woman in Kanturk on the general election campaign trail, where he denied claims that the disability sector had been ignored, Jennifer Bray reports.
Speaking on Saturday morning, Mr Harris apologised to the woman after the clip, recorded by RTÉ News, was widely shared on Friday night.
The Taoiseach made his comments on Instagram on Saturday morning, saying: “One of the reasons I got involved in politics, in fact the reason I got involved in politics, is disability services. I wouldn’t be a politician, or certainly a politician at such a young age, was my brother not born with autism, did I not see the struggle my parents, particularly my mother, went through in trying to fight for services and answers and the loneliness that my family often felt as well.”
Read more here.
