Contemptible arrogance of €4,500 golden circle fundraising tactic

FIANNA FÁIL is again shamelessly engaging in political prostitution. This time, the party is inviting people to pay €4,500 to join an exclusive club of party contributors.

Faced with the public outcry about the scheme, they resorted to pathetic efforts to justify it on the grounds that Eithne Fitzgerald of the Labour Party had invited people to mix with the then minister for finance in March 1996 at a constituency fundraising dinner for which they were being asked to pay £100 a plate.

Eithne was roundly and justifiably lacerated then, because she was the Labour Party’s voice on ethics and that party had been highly critical of similar Fianna Fáil fundraising tactics in the 1960s.