Attention Fine Gael Voters

Judging by the latest raft of opinion polls, Fine Gael is set to sweep to victory in the election on Friday. The Irish electorate have obviously fallen for the Fine Gael sound bites and empty promises. For jaysus sake people - think about who and what you are voting for!

Fine Gael are promising to.....

• Make politicians lead the way in Ireland’s recovery. Why then is our future Taoiseach intent on taking a Teacher's pension (including a lump-sum payment of €100,000) when he only worked as a teacher for four years? Enda Kenny has made a fortune from 36 years of Dáil salaries, pensions and expenses. He pocketed severance payments worth €40,000 when he left government in 1997. These are not the actions of a man who puts the best interests of Ireland before his own greedy motives. So much for Fine Gael politicians leading us out of our economic crisis.


• "Protect and create jobs". Their decision to have their Election 2011 website developed and hosted in the USA is hardly a move that has protected or created one job in Ireland.


• "Take on the big vested interests" that have caused our financial crisis. The Fine Gael front bench is made up of Doctors, Solicitors, Auctioneers, Landlords and at least 4 teachers. Sounds like a lot of vested interests to me. I doubt we'll be seeing any initiatives to reduce professional fees or to implement pay for performance in the teaching profession with that lot fighting the corners of their friends and colleagues.


• Revolutionise our health system. Essentially they will copy the Dutch system. Typical lazy Irish attitude to problem solving. The Dutch health system has only been in place since 2006 - hardly long enough to declare it a success. What we need is for our new government to bring in immediate price controls on profiteering GPs and hospital consultants. This won't happen as the Fine Gael Minister for Health will be Dr. James Reilly. This man was president of the Irish Medical Organisation from 2004 - 2007. He campaigned for tax breaks to be given to GPs to build new surgeries, he justified industrial action by doctors and, in 2001, he negotiated a massive payout for GPs in return for the provision of free medical cards for everyone over 70 years of age. How the hell can we expect Fine Gael to improve anything with a money-grabbing GP pulling the strings?


• Strengthen local government. Strange that Fine Gael and the Labour party have controlled the majority of City, County and Urban District councils for most of the last decade. Their track record in local government is as appalling as Fianna Fáil's is in national government.


• Implement a transparent system of political funding. Obviously Leo Varadkar wasn't told about this policy when he refused to name the attendees of his big fundraising dinner last week.

In the final analysis, the only difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is that they fought on different sides during the Civil War of 1922/1923. They are both staffed and financed by "vested interests". They have extracted maximum financial gain from their "service" in Dáil Éireann. They have both lied to the people of Ireland for the best part of a century. They both claim to honour the memory of Irish patriots like Michael Collins and Wolfe Tone. True patriots don't look for severance payments or €100,000 lump-sum pensions when their country is facing a financial meltdown. Tone and Collins must be spinning in their patriot graves!

ENHANCE YOUR BALLOT PAPER - VOTE "NONE OF THE ABOVE" IN ELECTION 2011.