Ahern gives FF pre-election lift

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern issued a pre-general election rallying call to Fianna Fail tonight in the wake of this week’s humbling abortion referendum defeat.

Launching the party’s annual conference in Dublin, the embattled premier said of the failed nationwide poll - his second in successive years after the earlier rejection by voters of the Nice Treaty for European Union expansion: ‘‘The people have spoken, and the people’s voice is the final word in a democracy.