Barrett leaves no stone unturned

INDEPENDENT candidate Justin Barrett is wary about campaigning in banks.

"I don't think people like to get a leaflet when they are doing their financial affairs," he said, having received short shrift from AIB customers in Dundalk's Clanbrassil Street.

He has no such qualms about African hairdressers or Russian shops.

Non-national customers in both establishments look more than a little surprised as the anti-immigration candidate swoops in distributing election literature.

Reading Mr Barrett's policies, the proprietor of local Dundalk Russian shop, Slavyanskaya Lavka, looks far from pleased.

According to the glossy leaflet which has just been thrust into his hand, Mr Barrett, if elected, will give priority for all new jobs to Irish people, insist that all false asylum seekers be sent home immediately and prevent non-nationals from voting in Ireland.

"Well, largely speaking these people probably can't vote but it's important to have respect for people," says Ireland's most prominent far right campaigner when asked about his leafleting of non-nationals.

"I have no prejudices and I have no negatives about people of any nation or any colour for that matter."

However strange it seems for a candidate of his reputation, visits to African shops may well be the inadvertent result of a hectic canvassing style which leaves no stone unturned.

Many candidates are wary about entering private businesses and shopping centres, gingerly seeking permission from the manager beforehand.

Not so Justin Barrett. Nowhere is a safe haven when his campaign team, which includes his wife Bernadette and 15-month-old son Michael, is in town.

In everything from pharmacists to travel agents leaflets are thrust into the hands of unsuspecting shoppers as managers scowl disapprovingly from the till.

Boldly going where perhaps no anti-abortionist has ever gone before, the Longford-based Euro hopeful even startles a middle-aged lady eyeing up a satin evening number in the back of a local lingerie shop.

But not all are pleased to see him. Asked for their first preference vote some shoppers made their feelings perfectly clear. "Absolutely not. I know your policies," said one woman angrily.

Nevertheless there was also some support for the Barrett message. "I'm battling for you, boy. We'll give you the number one," said a cheerful local butcher.

"I'm not racist just the same as yourself but I'm against all the racketeering," said flower seller Francis Hanratty.

The 33-year-old anti-abortion campaigner who will be hard-pressed to reach 2% in tomorrow's poll doesn't change his tune.

"I'm the only candidate who is talking about that," he tells anyone who brings up immigration.

"The question for Ireland as a nation is whether we have our own place in the world, whether we have our independence in terms of the EU and whether we have a place where Irish culture and the Irish people can develop their own destiny which is their own homeland and their own nation."

His other main concern is how debate on the EU constitution "has been written out of the European election". Mr Barrett said he is "pro-Europe" but aded: "They are submerging Irish independence and the Irish constitution beneath a federal European structure."