No election deal with Fianna Fáil, vows McManus
The Wicklow TD ruled out going into government with either of the coalition parties, whatever the balance of seats in the next Dáil.
“The Labour Party doesn’t intend to put them back into office. Our intention is to send them packing - both of them,” she told delegates at DCU’s Helix centre.
Ms McManus dismissed recent Fianna Fáil attempts to woo Labour as a potential partner as an “act of panic”.
“This Government has run out of steam. They are tired and they are arrogant. They have nothing to offer hard-working families except disappointment and fear.
“Fianna Fáil have started to find the Labour Party very attractive recently. Why is that? Because they want you to believe there is no other way of doing business than with them. They want you to believe that the same tired faces have to be in government. That elderly frail people on hospital trolleys and young people dying in casual killings don’t matter,” she told delegates.
Mr Ahern has raised the possibility of a Fianna Fáil/Labour pact being the only stable governing partnership in the next Dáil.
Earlier, the conference heard calls by Dublin South Central candidate Eric Byrne for money seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) from drug dealers to be pumped back into communities ravaged by the illicit trade.
“It should not disappear into the coffers of the Department of Finance. It should be ring-fenced for those communities from which it was misappropriated,” he said.
The CAB has recovered more than €140 million since being set up by the last Rainbow government in 1996, he said.
