Hanafin: Cuts to blame for FF poll slump
Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin admitted the poll results, which showed Fianna Fáil on just 26% and seven points behind Fine Gael, were “pretty awful” and “very disappointing”.
“But you know, when we look back at the week that we had, the difficult decisions that we had to make, everybody was with us in the country in saying we need to make tough decisions, we need to get the economy back,” she said.
“When it starts to impact on individuals, that’s when it really hurts, and some of the decisions we took hurt badly,” Ms Hanafin told RTÉ Radio. “They hurt people last week and there are other ones that are going to impact right across different sectors — we’re going to see it in social welfare, we’re going to see it in education, we’re going to see it, as I say, right across.
“So that’s naturally going to be reflected in polls.”
The Green party and PDs also fell in the poll, each down one point to 6% and 2% respectively. The Government parties are in for a further difficult time of it this week, with teachers and parents due to protest outside the Dáil tomorrow over education cutbacks. This follows last week’s protests by pensioners over the medical card fiasco and students over third-level fees.
The Government’s woes were compounded by the Catholic bishops and the Conference of the Religious of Ireland (CORI), which issued a joint statement condemning the proposed education cutbacks.
“We are dismayed that the budget for education hurts the most vulnerable people in society,” said CORI.
“We call on the Government to revisit this budget.”
The Green party TDs and senators will meet today to discuss the education cutbacks. They have already agreed to put alternative proposals to their government partners which would avoid the worst of the cutbacks.
But Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has defended the cutbacks, saying they are necessary to protect the long-term health of the economy.
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